--Anticipating upcoming superhero movies and TV shows while reverencing the classics
The first season is pretty much what did the series in. Even though stories were adapted from classic comic tales including the coming of Galactus, they were just not done very well.
After the poorly received first season, season two received much quality improvement in the form of better animation, less annoying humor, new costume designs, and a new intro song and sequence.
Just three years after striking out with Pryde of the X-Men, Marvel went back to the drawing board and struck gold with the X-Men animated series. Running 72 episodes from 1992 until 1997, the series would be Marvel's longest running to date. Over the series run, most of the prominent members of the X-Men made appearances on the show. The main cast consisted of Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee. Frequent villains included Magneto, the Sentinels, Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, and unfortunately, Mojo.
Regular appearances by time-hoppers Cable and Bishop set up some interesting alternate reality storylines. Of course, the most epic stories were the multi-part Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Sagas. Other tales were crafted around guest appearances by Colossus, Nightcrawler, X-Factor, Alpha Flight, Angel, Iceman, Warlock, and non-mutie Captain America. Other notable X-Men characters including Morph, Cannonball, Banshee, Magik, Longshot, Dazzler, Psylocke, Emma Frost, Silver Fox, and Maverick also dropped in over the course of the series. Ironically, Kitty Pryde AKA Shadowcat, the titular character of the Pryde of the X-Men series remained one of the few prominent X-characters not to ever appear in this series.
Perhaps best remembered for faithfully adapting so many stories directly from the comics, X-Men stands as one of the most influential superhero series ever produced, and as one of Marvel's finest animated products. And though it shows its age a bit, this series is the bar by which subsequent X-Men series have been measured.
In 1989, Pryde of the X-Men aired as a pilot for a series that never got made. Fortunatley, it would be just a few years until the epic X-Men series got the green light. This series, however, would not have been bad (aside from its oddly Australian Wolverine). The lineup included Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, and Dazzler fighting against Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutant Terrorists including Toad, the Blob, Pyro, Juggernaut, and the White Queen.
Kitty Pryde was the focus of the pilot episode and even her pet dragon Lockheed made a showing.
In 1981, Marvel simultaneously launched Spider-Man's second and third animated series, one being a solo series and the other starring some "amazing friends." The solo series proved the less popular of the pair and ran just 26 episodes during 1981 and 1982.
The series featured frequent a couple of guest appearances by Spider-Man who apparently wanted to make sure his "brand" was being well represented. Any other relationship between the two spider-heroes was not made clear.
In 1979, Fred and Barney from The Flintsones "met" The Thing, well they didn't actually meet but they shared a cartoon block. This Thing did not have three fantastic friends. Instead, transformed into the rock-skinned hero by touching together magic rings and reciting the words "Thing ring, do your thing!" after which he was pummeled by rocks.
This series didn't fair any better than the previous series, lasting just 13 episodes in the Fall of 1978 though a good number of Marvel villains were showcased during the short run. Of course Doc Doom was in the house, but so were Magneto, and Sandman as a member of the Frightful Four. Don't worry, this wouldn't be the last we would see of the the legendary team...
The Fantastic Four animated series debuted on the same day as the 1967 Spider-Man series, though the Four didn't survive for quite as long, lasting just 20 episodes.
Perhaps best remembered for its theme song, Spider-Man ran for 52 episodes from 1967 - 1970.
The series' first season focused on Peter Parker's position as photographer for the Daily Bugle, ignoring many other aspects of the characters private life. Spider-man encountered many of his classic villains such as the Vulture and Lizard.
Spider-man also had a run in with Dr. Magneto, not quite the same dude as the arch-villain to the X-Men.
Although the second season told the origin of Spider-Man, it also took on some drastic cost saving measures by recycling footage from another series "Rocket Robin Hood." Thus, Spider-Man had frequent encounters with unknown aliens and monsters.
A tour through Marvel's animated history begins here.
In all, 195 7-minute segments were produced for 65 episodes.
