Finest Season Of Marvel Animation?

[Stu]

Hey,

Among the recent retrospective threads, there's been a lot of analysis of the many different seasons of the respective shows and how each varies in quality, whether it's slight such as the second and third seasons of X-Men: Evolution or on a much grander scale like the first and second seasons of Iron Man.

Marvel has had a very rich history in animation with a mixture of both good and bad. Which is your favourite, overall?


http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmenevo/episode/dayofreckoning/34.jpg

[boywonder13]

Season 3 of X-Men TAS Pheonix/Dark Phoenix saga plus great episodes such as No Mutant Is and Island, COld Comfort, Obsession, Night Crawler, Weapon X Lies and Video Tape and more!

This was one heck of a seasoN!

[RAINMAN]

This is hard. The first 3 season of x-men&spiderman were just great,Ironman&FF 2nd seasons made up their first. While S1 of the hulk in my opinion is the darkest and drama written of all marvel show. I just don`t know?:(

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Season 4 of X-Men Evolution. Everything kept building up, and that season, despite being only 9 episodes, was excellent. Especially the 2 part finale, as well as pretty much every episode in the season.

[Jon T]

I've still not seen enough of X-Men: Evolution (yet!) to include that show in my considerations.

However, my absolute favorite would still have to be season 2 of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends simply because of a combination of great character studies, amazing animation and...nostalgia! Although at a mere three episodes in length, it does fall short of the usual number of episodes in a season!

As far as full-length seasons go, I'd be hard pressed to enjoy one as much as I did 90s Iron Man season 2.

Honorable mentions should also go to Spider-Man: TAS and 1996 The Incredible Hulk season 1. If only both shows had maintained the same style and substance of their initial seasons...

[Bones Justice]

There are four contenders for me, in order of preference:

X-Men TAS, season 1. Not only does this season have my favorite animated X-Men adventure, Days of Future Past, but the entire season arc was well executed. They even dealt with the death and imprisonment of members of the team, something you don't see in many animated superhero shows.
X-Men Evolution, season 3. Great animation, great action, and a fantastic storyline that really ratcheted the show up several notches from season 1 and 2. Unfortunately, I've not seen season 4 yet (please hurry, DVD's!!!)
Spider-man (MTV). This is the only series that let Spidey really use his powers in battle. I also thought Neil Patrick Harris was the first animated Spidey to nail the wise-cracking that he's known for in the old comics. Also, the show had some of the best free-fall effects when Spidey was diving from great heights -- so impressive that I can't not mention it. I think this show's stories/writing is highly under-rated, too.
Captain America (1960's). Despite the almost non-existant animation, the artwork is fantastic. I love Jack Kirby's designs and these are basically the original artwork lifted from the comic books with some minor animation added. The stories are all classics and again, since it's lifted directly from the books, they are pretty much exactly the same story.

[Stu]

As far as full-length seasons go, I'd be hard pressed to enjoy one as much as I did 90s Iron Man season 2.

Honorable mentions should also go to Spider-Man: TAS and 1996 The Incredible Hulk season 1. If only both shows had maintained the same style and substance of their initial seasons...
I co-sign and agree with all the above statements!

It was so sad to see the shocking decline in both Spider-Man and Hulk - Spider-Man especially which appeared to be trying so hard to be the best Saturday morning cartoon ever but had so many things going against itself it wasn't funny. It saddens me to see that people remember it as a poorly edited, violence free show rather than one with some great writing and characterisation.

Hulk seemed to be doing so well too - throughly interesting characters, a great driving plot behind them all and decent fights and visuals wrapped in a rather dark blanket. Shame the network got in the way, I can only image how cool Grey Hulk could've been if the network wasn't too interested in fashion.

[Bones Justice]

I never got to see any of Iron Man. I liked the comic book back when I read a lot of comics. I wish we had the chance to see more of these older shows. I'd also like to see Silver Surfer someday. Heck, I'm really waiting for X-Men Evolution season 4.

[Crash]

X-Men: Evolution Season 3. More specifically, the string of eppisodes from Hex Factor to Blind Alley, but most of those were in Season 3. (Plus season 3 had X23...) The episodes were tightly connected to each other (storyline wise), really shook up the status quo (about every other eppisode), had a slew of great character moments... And well, in the string of episode mentioned, I really didn't think any of them were duds.

X-Men: TAS Season 2 would be the runner up. Morph, Sinister, the big brawl at the end.... I really liked it.

[Alpha Flight]

Originally posted by boywonder13: Season 3 of X-Men TAS Pheonix/Dark Phoenix saga plus great episodes such as No Mutant Is and Island, COld Comfort, Obsession, Night Crawler, Weapon X Lies and Video Tape and more!

Originally posted by Rainman: This is hard. The first 3 season of x-men&spiderman were just great

Originally posted by Crash: X-Men: TAS Season 2 would be the runner up. Morph, Sinister, the big brawl at the end.... I really liked it.

I haven't seen all of X-Men Evolution or Silver Surfer but from what I have seen it would have to be X-Men: TAS seasons 2 and 3.
I can't seem to pick one or other so for me it's both, sorry! ;)

[Spider-Man]

I think the first season of the 1990s The Incredible Hulk definitely deserves a mention as one of Marvel's finest seasons. It was dark and had a great ongoing subplot. The first season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is probably the best the show had before it got convoluted and bogged down with too many storieslines and excessive drama. The second and third season of X-Men: The Animated Series and the third season of X-Men: Evolution really stand out as well. I wish I could have seen more of the 1980s stuff to comment on those.

[ifthismeansevos]

Season three of X-men:Evolution for me but the first season of X-men TAS was pretty good (Before it became so irreal for my taste) I love SAHAF so much maybe is my favorite spidey cartoon ever. STNAS was good except for the dead villains.

[Spider-Man]

Season three of X-men:Evolution for me but the first season of X-men TAS was pretty good (Before it became so irreal for my taste) I love SAHAF so much maybe is my favorite spidey cartoon ever. STNAS was good except for the dead villains.
Season Three of X-Men: Evolution was where everything seemed to fall into place just perfectly. The second season was getting better with each episode and the two-part finale just hit all the rights note and made an excellent springboard for the third season. I think the second season of X-Men: The Animated Series with the season long Xavier/Magneto storyline was still well done and might actually be a bit better than the third season where the only highlights were half of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix episodes.

[Krichton]

Just based on storytelling, music, animation and voice acting the obvious choice is X-Men Evolution. I mean cmon. In comparison everything else we've seen come out of Marvel has been a joke. Silver Surfer was very good but production value on that show was also very low.

[RAINMAN]

Dude......what are you talking about?

[ifthismeansevos]

I guess He means exactly what you read. I agree with him but maybe some people don't just different ideas of how a show is supposed to be.

[Spider-Man]

Silver Surfer was very good but production value on that show was also very low.
I have to disagree. The show wasn't high on action and was probably Marvel's most "talkie" animated show but I thought it was pretty good. Their CGI Galactus was amazing and the heavy Kirby influence on all the character designs really made it stand out. That did work against it abit I'll admit but I thought it was a very lush and great looking series with some really good episodes. It's not one of the best series they've had but it's one of their better ones.

[RAINMAN]

I guess He means exactly what you read. I agree with him but maybe some people don't just different ideas of how a show is supposed to be.



I didn`t undersatnd his answer. It sound like he was picking the finest show instead of finest season which is the question of the topic.:shrug:

[Paul_Cousins]

Season 3 of X-Men TAS Pheonix/Dark Phoenix saga plus great episodes such as No Mutant Is and Island, COld Comfort, Obsession, Night Crawler, Weapon X Lies and Video Tape and more!

This was one heck of a seasoN!I completely agree with you. That was probably the best Marvel animate season ever made.

[Stu]

I have to disagree. The show wasn't high on action and was probably Marvel's most "talkie" animated show but I thought it was pretty good. Their CGI Galactus was amazing and the heavy Kirby influence on all the character designs really made it stand out. That did work against it abit I'll admit but I thought it was a very lush and great looking series with some really good episodes. It's not one of the best series they've had but it's one of their better ones.
I found Silver Surfer to be tremendously tedious. I don't claim to be knowledgable of the character in the slightest, but the show was more than a little big headed and the visuals were ambitious, but ultimately dissapointing. The colours alone were a little too bright for thier own good, and made the Kirby inspired designs a little too difficult to look at. AKOM's animation didn't help either.

I do agree with you on your opinion of the first season of The Incredible Hulk, however. I would've loved to see a proper conclusion to Darkness and Light before the nonsense with the network got in the way.

[Arsenal]

After some deliberation, I chose X-Men: Evolution three. I think the animation was consistently better than nearly anything prior, and the writing had finally stepped up. Every episode save maybe "Cruise Control" and "X-Treme Measures" ranged from good to spectacular.

The silver medal goes to season 3 of X-Men Tas, and the bronze to season two of Iron Man.

[Stu]

I'd more than likely go with the first season of Spider-Man as my favourite, closely followed by Iron Man season two. It's a shame not too many folks saw Iron Man and we don't talk about it a whole lot, it truly was a fantastic show that more than made up for a poor opening season.

After those two, I'd probably go with Season Three of X-Men: Evolution. I've always been torn between seasons three and four, but three is slightly longer, so I'd go with that. And you just can't beat Day of Recovery!

[cheeno]

I found season 2 of Iron man really exciting followed by Season 1 of 90s Spider-man, 3rd spot goes to X-Men:Evolution Season 3, man really great episodes( Self posesses,Toad the witch and the wardrobe, stuff of heroes)The Incredible Hulk's season 1 was good too though animation was a little appaling.