High-quality animation featuring four popular Marvel properties is coming to North American television next year.
Marvel Comics-based cartoons released in North America are usually well done, but hardly have the animation quality of certain anime series produced in Asia. It was revealed last year that longtime comic book scribe Warren Ellis would be changing this by guiding multiple Marvel properties alongside anime studio Madhouse to production, which G4 has announced it will be exclusively premiering on its network in 2011.
There will be four separate series in total that will feature Iron Man, Wolverine, the X-Men, and Blade respectively in “an edgy new anime world,” according to the press release. All four series will consist of twelve episodes, each thirty minutes long. G4’s trailer for the Iron Man series is already looking pretty sweet, though no new trailers aside from what was shown last year have been released yet.
Warren Ellis knows his stuff, and isn’t even new to this kind of situation, having brought the slightly more mature G.I. Joe: Resolute to the Cartoon Network last year. These Marvel series are different though, as Ellis writes on his website that he basically wrote outlines for them at which point they were taken over by Madhouse, which is just the way the process works. Ellis says they were “commissioned and created specifically for the south east Asian market” and will be either subtitled or dubbed on G4.
I know I’ll be tuning in just to see how these turn out. Here are the basic storylines for each series:
Iron Man
In an effort to make amends for his weapons manufacturing past, Tony Stark has dedicated himself to building the world up rather than tearing it down. Traveling to Japan to build a new arc reactor that will deliver unlimited free energy to the Japanese people, Stark is challenged by the Japanese government and the media when he attempts to import the necessary nuclear priming device. And when the reactor-in-construction is repeatedly attacked by the mysterious Zodiac consortium, Stark must gather his allies to take on Zodiac and its mastermind.
X-Men
The X-Men are reunited following the death of a teammate, and are summoned by Charles Xavier to Japan following the abduction of Hisako Ichiki (Armor). There, they confront the U-Men, a lunatic cult that steals and transplants mutant organs to further strengthen their own army, and the battle for justice is on.
Wolverine
Based on the popular graphic novel by Frank Miller, the series begins in Japan , where Logan is challenged by Shingen Yashida, the notorious leader of a powerful mafia clan. When Shingen’s employee Yukio, a female assassin, falls out of Shingen’s favor, she must kill him or be killed. Teaming up with Logan, the pair seek out the villain to exact their revenge.
Blade
Eric Brooks – known as Blade – seeks revenge on Deacon Frost, the vampire lord who killed his mother while she was still pregnant with Eric. With all the powers of a vampire and none of their weaknesses, Blade’s quest leads him throughout Southeast Asia in search of Frost, and, in Vietnam , he discovers a vampire plot that threatens to take down the whole world.
PR via Bleeding Cool
