What's Next From Marvel Animation?
Marvel Studios made its first appearance at SDCC 2022 this Friday, and in addition to marking a milestone, there were plenty of exciting announcements.
The panel kicked off with introduction to Marvel Studios’ newest department — animation. After an introduction from Jeffrey Wright, animation lead Brad Winderbaum took the stage. As everything was gearing up for an explosive launch, Winderbaum said,
“[Marvel] Animation was born out of What If…?, honestly. Kevin [Feige] and I were always talking about making a What If…? show because it's the logical approach. After we made the first season we realized we wanted to make more.”
After his introduction informing the audience that we’d be introduced to the next two years of Marvel animation and a montage surrounding Marvel’s concept artists, the rest of the panelists were introduced. The first show to present was I Am Groot.
The show will feature 5 animated shorts that follow Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) as he experiences childhood. It’s unclear if the series is MCU canon, and if so, when it takes place. After seeing the series trailer and new poster, we learned that Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper) will also appear in the show.
At this point, the panel audience was treated to an early screening of the first episode of I Am Groot, entitled Groot Takes A Bath.
The episode had overall solid animation, looking more lifelike than cartoonish. The episode followed Groot taking a bath, playing dress up with his leaves, and getting into some shenanigans with a ‘squirrel.’
I Am Groot has also been renewed for a second season of 5 shorts, and the first season streams August 10 on Disney+
At this point, we were given a significant amount of information on Spider-Man: Freshman Year, and the newly announced second season, Spider-Man: Sophmore Year.
There is a lot to unpack for this show, so let’s jump into it.
The main images of Spider-Man: Freshman Year that were revealed. You can find larger versions of each on Twitter @thisweekmedia
First, we were introduced to Peter’s look for the series, as well as his V1 ‘Homemade’ suit. After that we met Peter’s friends, featuring Nico Minoru, Amadeus Cho, Lonnie Lincoln, Harry Osborn, and more.
We also met the foes and allies for Peter’s heroic persona, which included Norman Osborn - who’ll be a mentor for Peter in the ‘Tony Stark’ role - Doc Ock, Tombstone, Chameleon, Rhino, and other featured foes. Spider-Man will also team up with Doctor Strange, and Daredevil — played by Charlie Cox.
These announcements have brought questions to many fans regarding the show’s MCU canonness, as it was announced to take place before Captain America: Civil War, but it brings continuity errors to the timeline. This is because Peter met Otto and Norman for the first time in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the latter of the two stated that Oscorp doesn’t exist in this universe. Spider-Man: Freshman Year will stream on Disney+ in 2024, and Spider-Man: Sophmore Year will subsequently follow.
The ending of the Spider-Man-related announcements marked the halfway point of the panel, but it definitely wasn’t the true halfway point.
At this point, we watched the trailer for What If…? season 2, which featured Hela, Odin vs. The Mandarin, Tony Stark on Sakaar, a glimpse of an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602, and more. We also learned that season 3 of What If…? has been greenlit.
Now was time for our first bits of info on a continuation of a What If…? season 1 episode, Marvel Zombies.
The first images revealed that the alive heroes will be Yelena, Kate Bishop, Jimmy Woo, Death Dealer, Red Guardian, and Katy. The zombified villains will be Wanda, Ghost, Hawkeye, Okoye, Abomination, (the top half of) Captain America, and Captain Marvel. Our heroes will also face off against a Skrull Biker Gang, and a zombified Ikaris. The show will be rated TV-MA, and release in 2024.
Finally, the big event, X-Men ‘97. The show will pick up where X-Men: The Animated Series left off, with Magneto leading the X-Men. The main cast of X-Men will feature Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Jubilation Lee, Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey, and Beast. Other mutants to appear are Sunspot, Morph, Cable, Bishop, Force, Nightcrawler, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Calisto, and Mr. Sinister. The audience also saw a brief pre-visualization of a fight scene against Bolivar Trask and the Sentinels. This featured Wolverine saying to a Sentinel, "Fancy a trip to the junkyard, Bub?" One other tidbit of info is that the entire original cast will return to voice their characters. X-Men ‘97 releases on Disney+ in fall 2023.
This is when we thought everything was over, but because it’s Comic Con, there’s always one last surprise. The entire audience was able to watch the completed first episode of What If…? season 2, ‘What If Captain Carter Fought The Hydrastomper?’ We’re not going to give anything away right now, but expect a review of the episode along with some more info in the coming weeks.
To view our live tweets of the panel, check out @thisweekmedia on Twitter.
