Marvel cartoons have existed practically since the dawn of the Marvel Universe in the 1960s, when Grantray-Lawrence Animation produced THE MARVEL SUPER HEROES and THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, while Hanna-Barbera gave us THE FANTASTIC FOUR. Over the decades, many more series followed. I have particularly warm and fuzzy memories of watching SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS and THE INCREDIBLE HULK on NBC Saturday morning in the early eighties, catching the "Pryde of the X-Men" pilot episode for an unproduced X-MEN cartoon later in the decade, and then eventually, in the 1990s, watching a semblance of a united Marvel animated universe (if only by dint of the various shows using all the same voice actors for episodes with guest appearances) with X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN on Fox, FANTASTIC FOUR and IRON MAN in syndication, and THE INCREDIBLE HULK on UPN.
And there have been many, many more Marvel shows since then, including the unparalleled and cancelled-far-too-soon AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES, whose first season I wrote about here years ago, during the height of COVID lockdown time.
I think after EMH ended, Marvel dabbled with what you might call a shared universe again, with shows like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL'S AVENGERS, HULK AND THE AGENTS OF S.M.A.S.H., and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY all having some degree of crossover. But Marvel has never done -- and, as you'll soon see, likely never will do -- a shared animated universe in the way I'd like to see it done. I've written about this concept before, in comments on posts over at Gentlemen of Leisure, but I decided I should consolidate my thoughts and post them here, if for no other reason than posterity. So what you're about to read are some of those afore-mentioned comments, expanded and updated.
Again, it's unlikely to ever happen exactly this way, but my dream will always be to someday see animated versions of the Marvel characters that adhere to the established comic book continuities of their early years. Now, I'm not saying I want straight page-to-screen translations of every issue from the 60s; but more like picking and choosing the things that worked best and making them into a pre-planned, cohesive story, while respecting the general original chronology laid out by Kirby, Ditko, Lee, Romita, and the rest.
Now, I know I'm already dating myself with this, but let's say Marvel/Disney is going to produce a Spider-Man cartoon using the long-established "magic number" of 65 episodes -- in this case, a pre-planned five-season series of thirteen episodes per season. The show would start with Spider-Man established; no need to revisit his origin. Peter Parker is, say, a high school junior with maybe a year of adventuring and fighting common criminals under his belt. Our first season would basically adapt the first half of Steve Ditko's run. Again, there's no need to cover every single issue; just hit the major highlights -- the first appearances of the Chameleon, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, the Lizard, Electro, the Enforcers, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, and Kraven would be sufficient, with Ditko's sub-plots threading through all the episodes in a serialized fashion. Perhaps the season ends with the Sinister Six story from the first Spidey Annual.
The first thing to note is that certain characters should be introduced in our series sooner than in the comics. For example, there's no reason not to have Robbie Robertson working at the Daily Bugle from the first episode. Norman Osborn could start to show up earlier than in the comics as well, in order to better plant the seed that he will eventually be revealed as the Green Goblin. But the flip side of this is that we don't want to mess with the continuity too much. Peter Parker absolutely did not go to high school with Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn, and it drives me nuts every time adaptations in various media have them at Midtown High with him. We'll get to them eventually; no need to shoehorn them in too soon.
And the main way our series would be different from a lot of cartoons would be that it passes in real time, with each seasona accounting for a school year in Spidey's life. So season 2 would pick up a few months after the end of season 1, with Peter starting his senior year in high school. This season would continue to adapt Ditko stories, but with more of an organized crime bent, featuring the story of the Big Man and the Crimemaster, more of the Enforcers, the Green Goblin trying to take over New York's gangs, and perhaps some foreshadowing of the Kingpin. Plus the debuts of a couple new villains like Scorpion and the Spider-Slayers, as well as return engagements from the major villains -- Kraven, Sandman, etc. -- and it would all culminate with a 2-part season finale featuring Doc Ock, adapting the classic "Master Planner" story.
At this point, the series moves in a new direction. When season 3 opens, another summer has passed and Peter is starting college at Empire State University. Certain high school cast members are gone (Liz Allen, Sally Avril), replaced by the afore-mentioned Harry, Mary Jane, and of course Gwen Stacy. This season opens with the transition from Steve Ditko to John Romita -- a 2-parter featuring the unmasking of the Green Goblin. From there, the remaining 11 episodes of the season adapt the early John Romita material; the Rhino, the Shocker, the "death" of the Vulture, and the returns of stalwarts like the Lizard and Kraven. The season likely ends with another classic, "Spider-Man No More!", showing us the Kingpin in full for the first time, after we've heard thorughout the season that someone has been villing the mob boss void left by Crime-Master and the Big Man, as well as the disappearance of the Green Goblin following the season premiere.
By now, you know the drill. Another summer time-jump and we reach season 4, in which we adapt more John Romita stories. This is a Kingpin-heavy year, as were the comics around this time. The Kingpin appears in, or has his hands in, nearly every episode. But there's still time for appearances by Doc Ock, the Vulture, and Mysterio. I imagine the season might end with a Green Goblin return, adapted from the story in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN Magazine #2.
And that brings us to the fifth and final season, which spends nearly its entire run-time on the classic "Petrified Tablet" story, featuring a gang-war between the Kingpin and Silvermane, and ending with Silvermane's death.
Now -- this isn't perfect; it's really me coming up with all of this off the cuff while looking at AMAZING SPIDER-MAN covers for inspiration. But you get the idea. Five seasons, following Peter from the midpoint of high school to the end of hus junior year of college (and if the series is successful enough, maybe we get picked up for another 65 to cover his senior year and a few years of graduate school). The show would stick to adapting the Silver Age stories as best it could, with certain modifications to allow for better pacing, foreshadowing, and so forth. And -- this is a big one -- I would actually set the series in the sixties, when the comics were published! Or, at least, in a pre-digital world. I find that as I get older, I feel everything is better if it's set in the era when it was created. I read someplaced that the current PEANUTS cartoons produced for Apple TV have a mandate not to use any technology created after the 1970s. I think that's a great rule of thumb for everyting, everywhere, all the time, but for now we'll just apply it to these fictional Marvel shows!
(Yes, I said "these" -- I'm not done yet! Next time, I'll talk about my hypothetical X-MEN series!)
Anyway, like I said up top, there's no way this actually happens. It's not commercially viable enough. It's too niche. Audiences nowadays want their Miles and their Venom and their Spider-Gwen and their Silk and so on and so forth. And setting in the sixties probably loses a lot of the young viewers such a show would need in order to survive. So this concept will always remain nothing more than a pipe dream for me! (At least until the day A.I. can create bespoke content on demand with no regard for corporate ownership.)
This post went pretty long, so I won't bore you with any other content, other than to note that I'm still reading the newspaper strip adventures of Rip Kirby! But I think I went pretty in-depth on what I liked about that last time, so I won't go into it again. Maybe next month I'll have moved along to something different?!
