Considering ‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series’ Sequel
According to a new whisper, Marvel Studios is looking to give the X-Men ’97 to their entire ’90s Animated Universe’ – starting with a similarly-styled relaunch of the fan-favorite Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
This supposed insight into Marvel’s awkwardly-animated future (those who have watched X-Men ’97 will know what I mean), was first provided to the public on March 24th courtesy of scooper and The Cosmic Circus reporter Alex Perez.
Fielding questions regarding his insider Marvel knowledge from members of The Cosmic Circus’ public Discord server, Perez was at one point pressed by user Titan29 as to whether or not “The Incredible Hulk/Iron Man/The Fantastic Four [are] going to share a continuity with X-Men/Spider-Man again in X-Men ’97?”, the scooper asserted, “There have been discussions about exploring a Marvel 90s animated universe, which would most likely be explored through X-Men ’97 at this time.”
However, despite X-Men ’97 being the only confirmed animated project on Marvel’s slate, Perez further noted that “There is potential for more projects to be developed within this universe, the most likely candidate being a sequel series to Spider-Man: The Animated Series, but this is still very early in development as an idea being tossed around.
“There are discussions about other revival series beyond Daredevil: Born Again and X-Men ’97 in development,” he would later tell another user. “Some set in the same universe as those projects.”
As touched upon by Titan29 above, aside from Spider-Man: The Animated Series there are a number of candidates Marvel could choose from for their next 90s revival.
Not only are there the aforementioned trio of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, but there’s also Silver Surfer The Animated Series and – if a Spider-fan could dream for just a moment – the web-crawler’s sci-fi-heavy sequel series, Spider-Man Unlimited.
Notably, one factor that makes a Spider-Man revival more likely than any of the others – aside from the series’ massive popularity – is that its lead voice actor, Christopher Daniel Barnes, is still actively working as a voice actor to this day, having most recently provided the voice for The Little Mermaid‘s Prince Eric – who he has voiced since his debut in the 1994 animated film – in Disney’s Dreamlight Valley and Disney Speedstorm video games.
Plus, not only is he still working, but he is also still actively providing animated Spider-related voices, bringing to life such characters as Electro, Spyder-Knight, and Wolf Spider in Disney’s Ultimate Spider-Man .
And of course, the big question that looms over any possible revisiting of the Spider-Man: The Animated Series continuity: Will the Scarlet Spider finally get more screen time to shine?
On a slightly-related note, Perez also confirmed that while “the main MCU timeline is not connected to X-Men ’97,” it does “exist ‘within the MCU’ as part of the larger Multiverse”.
To this end, he explained that “As for the introduction of X-Men and mutant-kind, it’s already been introduced in the main MCU continuity with characters like Ms. Marvel and Namor, and they will continue to build it up as such.”
At current, the next episode of Marvel’s new X-Men ’97 animated series, ‘Fire Made Flesh’, is currently set to hit Disney Plus on March 27th.