The Marvel TV panel played to a pretty packed audience at New York Comic Con 2013. After a few stern warnings about not recording the panel (including the statement that getting caught recording would lead to ejection from not just the panel but the entire con), Marvel PR maven Arune Singh introduced head of TV Jeph Loeb. Loeb’s first announcement was that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been picked up for a full season and will be airing all the way into next year. Loeb also promised more news at the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. panel slated for Saturday at 5:00 PM.
The next item shared was a “Marvel Mash-Up Reel,” which creatively re-dubbed scenes from the 1990’s Iron Man (pretty amusing, though you kind of had to be there, and it was nice to hear Kevin Michael Richardson overdubbing James Rhodes/War Machine). Loeb also higlighted Marvel’s new “Share Your Universe” initiative, which aims to let fans share their love of the Marvel Universe and Marvel Comics with their friends and loved ones. A contest will run throughout New York Comic Con for top fans to record how they share their universe with someone else, with the best entrant becoming the face of the Share Your Universe initiative (which comes with fabulous cash and prizes, or at least an opportunity to get your own video channel). More information is available at http://www.facebook.com/shareyouruniverse and http://www.marvelkids.com/shareyouruniverse.
After that, Loeb went into the current Marvel Universe animation block airing on Disney XD. After running a promo video for the Halloween episode of Ultimate Spider-Man, Loeb noted that the show was picked up for a third season (making it the longest-running Marvel-produced animated series to date), and noting that the Halloween special premiere on the Disney Channel as the #1 show for boys on the channel for the day.
The rest of the panel was taken up by screenings of the next new episodes of Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. (in which the Leader attempts a rather unorthodox revenge, and the Hulks are betrayed from a surprising source), and of Avengers Assemble. I quite enjoyed the Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. episode, though, from the solution to the problem that really could have only come from this set of characters, and for the entertainingly rude closing punch line. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the panel was over, so I don’t have Q&A for you. Given the timing of the panel, I’m not sure there would have been time for any Q&A anyway.
But hey, here’s a nice photo of Jeph Loeb:
The weird shadow on his face is because it was taken as the screening for Avengers Assemble was about to start, so lights were going down and stuff got weird. Or it’s a photographic manifestation of his secret super powers. If it’s the second one, don’t tell anybody, OK?
