The first review will be of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. But I feel a brief back story is in order. Marvel Comics has had its fair share of ups and downs. It has never been a giant in the animation biz like DC, but to be fair DC has had Warner Brothers to hold its hand and properly distribute. In the 90's when Marvel was on its high horse, they had 3 shows out; Spiderman, X-men, and the ever forgettable Iron Man series. Spiderman and X-men were huge successes, lasting four seasons. Which for any series on Fox Kids that wasn't Power Rangers was a good run. Iron Man did not have a good run though. Most people I talk to don't even remember there being an Iron Man cartoon. Things were good for Marvel, until around the turn of the century. Comics sales were at an all time low and Marvel could barely keep their name. So to keep the company afloat they sold off their licenses to movie companies. Sony bought Spiderman and Fox bought X-men, to name the main money making titles. Plus as a die-hard Marvel fan I don't like to talk about movies like Daredevil or Ghostrider.
In their dwindling midst, they tried a new Spiderman series in 2003 on MTV with Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of Spiderman. Marvel was trying to draw in a more mature audience. Unfortunately the series lasted all but 13 episodes and wasn't very, well, good. But I'm not here to talk about that series. In 2008 Disney XD released a new Spiderman series called Spectacular Spiderman. And at the same time Nicktoons released a new CG Iron Man series. Both were very well done and enjoyable. But during the airing of both series things were going on behind the curtain. Marvel had a nice bid on them by Disney. Now, from a personal point of view, when I first heard this news I was very upset. I personally have a great guff with Disney and I didn't want them to ruin one of my favorite things. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was probably the best thing for them. They now have access to the best animation resources on the planet. Also Thanks to a wonderful contract saying that Disney can't touch existing Marvel properties. So thanks to this lovely new income Marvel has bought back several of its movie titles and is pumping out new animated series'.
