Last week Marvel Animation Studios confirmed that the axe would fall on The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes when show’s second season comes to an end this year, although the news was accompanied by the official announcement of a new animated series entitled Marvel’s Avengers Assemble.
It’s hardly a surprising move given the success of Joss Whedon’s live-action blockbuster The Avengers, and as expected, the new animated series will draw heavily on its movie counterpart…
“The Avengers movie has been the ambassador to the world for the Marvel Universe so we want a show that has the feel and the tone and the incredible adventures like that movie,” said Marvel’s executive vice president Jeph Loeb in an interview with TV Guide. “The next project that we’re working on — and this is down in our lab, top secret, with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents protecting us at all costs — is Marvel’s Avengers Assemble, which will be a brand new and really extraordinary looking animated series dealing with the Avengers in that same world.”
Check out some newly released promo art for the upcoming series that arrived online via Marvel TV News…
In the same interview, Loeb also provided some details of another of Marvel’s upcoming animated efforts, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., which is set to join Avengers Assemble in premiering next year:
“We know the impact that The Avengers had — and continues to have — this summer, and there’s one particular character who has been the breakout hit of the summer and he’s big and he’s green and he’s our Incredible Hulk. So we started talking about it and we thought what’s more fun than one Hulk? And that would actually be five Hulks! We’re taking characters that already exist in the Marvel Universe — because it’s very important to us that it all begins with [the comic-book] publishing. That cast is Hulk; the Red Hulk; Skaar, who’s the teenage barbarian Hulk, She Hulk — who’s actually been a character in the Marvel Universe for 30 years; and a relatively new character, A-Bomb. He’s more of a Blue Hulk. And together they are Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.“
And just to hammer home the impact of The Avengers, Loeb also revealed that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will play an increasingly important role in Ultimate Spider-Man, while the recently announced second season will provide the studio with an opportunity to build on Andrew Garfield’s upcoming screen debut as the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler:
“The Avengers is the No. 3 movie of all-time and there’s a brand new Spider-Man movie that’s coming out on July 3. We want [Ultimate Spider-Man] to be relevant to those films. There will be more stories that feature those Avengers characters — Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, they’ll all be coming back in Season 2. But even more exciting to us is that we’re going to be able to explore the villain from this summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man. Curt Connors has been playing a role throughout all of Season 1, and finally in Season 2, longtime Spidey fans and Marvel fans will get to see his transformation into the Lizard.”
Be sure to check out the full interview over at TV Guide for more from Loeb, along with Marvel Entertainment’s chief creative officer Joe Quesada.
