Starting this Fall, we’re gearing up for the brand new school year with "Marvel Super Hero Adventures" — a multi-platform content program targeting Marvel's youngest fans through animation and publishing. Through stories that touch upon aspirational themes of friendship, helping others, and heroism, preschool kids and young readers will have a gateway into the Marvel Universe. This new program will be supported by new offerings across comic books, graphic novels and merchandise including toys, lifestyle and apparel.
Marvel Animation is set to launch a season of 10 short-form episodes across multiple platforms. This is Marvel’s first pre-school audience focused production, with each 3.5-minute animated episode featuring Spider-Man in an epic team-up with other Marvel heroes. Classic iconic heroes like Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America and Ant-Man, as well as emerging favorites like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Wasp and Ms. Marvel will make appearances in the episodes.
Q: Let’s talk about “Marvel Super Hero Adventures.” What’s it like to develop a project like that for a preschool audience?
Cort Lane: Preschool development is so very different. You have to work with preschool experts and we specifically worked with experts at Disney Junior about messaging and tone and how sophisticated the action can be, how violent it can be, how clearly the message needs to come across without being too overt. Just even things in terms of visuals and what looks good to a preschool viewer. So there was a lot to learn. We were very collaborative with Atomic Cartoons and Disney Junior. With all of those learnings, and the great success that the shorts have had, including gaining viewership on like six platforms, we know that our Marvel HQ traffic is through the roof. What’s very interesting is the one with the most traffic is the Miles [Morales] one, which is not one of the first ones. You’d think the first couple would have the largest traffic, because they had the longest run, which just goes to show you that kids really love to see the Spider characters together.
Q: Anything you can say about upcoming installments of “Marvel Super Hero Adventures?”
Cort Lane: We’re just starting to write it, so it’s early days. You’ll see a lot of big heroes you expect and a lot of new heroes too. The thing that will be souped up this season is more vehicles and cool gear and tech because Spider-Man is an inventor. So there’s more technology, which shows off that skill that he has.
Next, a clip of Marvel Super Hero Adventures, which premieres on October 22nd, was shown. The clip featured Spider-Man and Captain America fighting the Green Goblin and was centered around teaching children the importance of listening.
The new season will consist of 10 shorts, each airing on Disney Junior and Disney Channel, while also available immediately in the DisneyNOW app and later on the Marvel HQ YouTube page. The first five shorts will premiere the week of October 22nd, with one short airing each day at 9:25AM on Disney Channel, and 5:25PM on Disney Junior. The second group of five will follow the same model, and will premiere the week of December 17th.
“Marvel Super Hero Adventures” Season 2 is directed by Svend Gregori; written by David Kidd & Ron Burch; executive produced by Alan Fine, Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley & Cort Lane; co-executive produced by Marsha Griffin & Stan Lee; and supervising produced by Harrison Wilcox.
