JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Every Major Reveal From Marvel Animation Panel At D23 Expo Ft. What If? S3, X-Men '97 S2, Marvel Zombies & More
The Marvel Animation D23 panel revealed major updates including What If..? Season 3, X-Men '97 and many more. Find out here.
Marvel Studios' D23 Day 1 presentation focused on live-action movies and series, featuring new trailers for Daredevil: Born Again, Iron Heart, and Agatha All Along. Marvel Animation's panel on Day 2 of the expo announced new seasons of existing shows, such as What If..? Season 3, and news on the progress of the second season of the legacy series, X-Men '97. Below are all the updates.
What If..? Season 3
The Marvel Animation D23 panel announced the third season of What If..? as the final season, featuring alternate universe concepts and a Voltron anime-style episode. The show will feature an Avengers team led by Sam Wilson, including Moon Knight, Photon, Red Guardian, and pilot giant mecha suits, fighting gamma monsters. Other episodes will explore characters like Moon Knight, Ironheart, Shang-Chi, and White Vision.
X-Men '97 season 2
At the Marvel Animation D23 panel, X-Men '97 footage was limited, but snippets revealed that the X-Men will wear Grant Morrison suits, and characters like Havok, Polaris, Bishop, Apocalypse, and Danger will appear. The footage also confirmed Wolverine's survival from Magneto's attack. No new information was provided about the series.
Eyes of Wakanda
At the Marvel Animation D23 panel, fans were informed about the upcoming Eyes of Wakanda animated series, which will explore the mystical city of K'un-Lun and its secret society culture. The series will also feature a new Iron Fist character, who is known as the defender of K'un-Lun in the comics. Ryan Coogler was at the presentation and spoke about the direction of the series and how “Wardogs are challenged with keeping Wakanda secret. So we can go back and look at the sacrifice people made to keep that secret.”
Eyes of Wakanda introduces Noni as a character who exposes corruption in Wakanda. The series is expected to be a companion to Black Panther films and explores the country's history and intersection with other locations. It will use 3D animation and explore different time periods of Wakanda, resembling an anthology series. The series will also be canon in the MCU.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
The upcoming Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series, introduced at the Marvel Animation D23 panel, is set to be a different story from the MCU trilogy. The main difference is that Peter Parker's mentor in this series is Norman Osborn, who uses questionable methods and learns from Tony Stark's mistakes and morals. Colman Domingo has been cast as Norman Osborn, a departure from the MCU's Tony Stark and Tony Stark-like mentorship.
After this information, exclusive footage of the series was shown. D23 attendees were able to see an animated intro that used the classic Spider-Man theme song before it morphs into a modern rap song. The preview then depicts Peter’s first day of Freshman Year. His arrival at school is immediately interrupted by Doctor Strange fighting a monster that looks a lot like Venom.
One of Strange’s portals leads to a radioactive spider from the Venom monster’s universe landing on Peter and biting him as he is meeting Nico Minrou, a character for The Runaways series of comics. The animation style is very comic-book-inspired with cell animation, with shots split into comic panels to evoke the feeling of reading a comic.
There was another scene shown from the series that takes place 5 months after, depicting Peter taking down street-level thugs with advanced tech. One of them is a boy who has metallic booths that give him short bursts of super speed. Another of them is a woman with a cyber blade.
Peter, wearing a proto-type suit similar to the one seen in Homecoming but slightly different, is struggling to fight the thugs. However, Norman Osborn rings him on his comms and gives him advice on how to stop the thugs. The footage highlights Norman’s mentor relationship with Peter and the fatherly bond that is developing there. With Norman’s advice, Peter stops the thugs.
Marvel Zombies
The Marvel Animation D23 event revealed the upcoming Marvel Zombies animated series as a hardcore TV-MA series with a 4-episode event. The panel footage shows Shang-Chi, Katy, and Jimmy Woo fighting zombies on the street, with the Mandarin appearing and using the Ten Rings to defeat them. A standout moment is a kaiju0like zombie killed by throwing rings at its forehead. The Mandarin instructs Shangi Chi to leave civilians and run with him until he is bitten by a zombie, causing the virus to progress up his arm.
The Mandarin sacrifices himself by transferring the Ten Rings to Shang-Chi, who is taken by the Death Dealer. The footage then cuts to five years later, with Shang-Chi and the same group in a wasteland in vehicles resembling Mad Max films. They face a Skrull Biker gang and fight them with the Ten Rings. The light-hearted set-piece is set to Journey's "Lights," with Jimmy Woo singing along. Unfortunately, the series was announced as not coming out for a while.
Latest Articles
