More Updated! Madhouse’s First Marvel Anime Will Star Iron Man and Wolverine…and More?
After the news that anime studio Madhouse would be making four anime series of Marvel superheroes, Marvel issued a press release that shed a bit more light on the shows:
Madhouse is currently in production on the first of four new series (12 x 30 minutes), which are scheduled to launch in spring 2010. The initial series will feature characters including Iron Man and Wolverine, among others, and Madhouse will ultimately look to adapt the entire Marvel Universe, creating in essence a whole new character base for Marvel.
Now, the Iron Man sequel comes out in summer of 2010, and since the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie will be Marvel’s last flick before that, these two stars stand to reason. However! I think we can read in-between the lines here and nerd out, if you please.
I’ve been trying to think about what “take” Madhouse could have that would explain having Iron Man and Wolverine as joint stars, and I’ve come up with two possibilities: 1) New fucking Avengers. The only time I know of where Wolvie and Shellhead teamed up for any length of time is recently, when Bendis re-made the Avengers with Wolverine (and Spider-man, too). I know a lot of comic fans cried foul at the time, but I’m of the opinion that like DC’s Justice League, the Avengers should include all of Marvel’s stars. And as long as Cap, Iron Man and Thor are in, everyone else is gravy.
The second possibility is that Madhouse’s first series?hell, maybe all four series?will simply be “the Marvel Universe.” It’ll tell big stories with all the characters, as appropriate; I think the press release is certainly implying something like this. At any rate, when I thought that Madhouse would just be making four different superhero anime, I didn’t care. If they’re going to make something truly different, I’m going to have to change my pants.
Update: Madhouse just released a pic of Iron Man and Tony Stark. Iron Man looks like Iron Man, but Tony…
…well, he looks a helluva lot like an anime character. Which was to be expected, I suppose.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.