On their website today, Marvel announced that Netflix's Watch Instantly service– boon for the bored, merciless time thief for everyone else– will begin streaming hours upon hours of their animated shows this year, beginning immediately with a slate including:
- The Incredible Hulk (1996-97)
- Spider-Man Unlimited (1999-2001)
- Iron Man: Extremis – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
- Astonishing X-Men: Gifted – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
- Spider-Woman: Agent of the S.W.O.R.D. – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
- Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (2006)
- Silver Surfer (1998)
- Black Panther – Marvel Knights Animation (2010)
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures Season 1 (2009)
The inaugural list looks like it has a little something for fans and curiosity seekers alike. (That Fantastic Four series was woefully underrated, and I'll be checking out Silver Surfer mostly because I'm not sure I believe it was a real show.) Plus, you can finally catch up on those motion comics you missed.
I know what you're thinking, though: "But what about my favorite show, which is inexcusably missing from that list?" Well, good news: there's a lot more coming this summer, including the nineties X-Men cartoon that seems to have hooked so many readers back in the day, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! and just about every Spider-Man cartoon that comes to mind. A huge trove of sixties toons will be on their way in the fall, along with a few as-yet unannounced surprises.
Of course, they are quick to note that release dates are subject to change without notice. This is no surprise to heavy Netflix users: if you're a fellow Saturday Night Live fan, you may remember the long, dark purgatory of patience you endured when they announced that show's release last year only for nothing to happen as calendar pages sailed away in the wind. Still, if having too much to look forward to counts as a problem, you're having a pretty good day.
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Excellent, I greatly await the X-Men cartoon so loved from my youth…
ooh ooh ooh looks like i’ll be streaming lots of those. =)
Sounds cool. I’ll definitely check them out in the afternoon when I play with the dog.
Oh man! I am going to be checking out the Fantastic Four, Iron man and Silver Surfer tomorrow! This is great!
Not available in Canada yet. I love you netflix, but wish you had more content for me. exciting though.
SQUEEEEEEE!
Of course these all drop right before finals week. Ugh.
Oh, Spider-Man:Unlimited. You weird, strange, peculiar thing.
If the Planet Hulk comic is a perfectly baked Ellio’s pizza, Spider-Man Unlimited is the part where you took it out too early and noticed the ice crystals still gleaming from the unmelted cheese.
I am curiouse about that Hulk and Silver Surfer toon. I am going to watch them intertwined and be pretend its part of a Defenders show.
God, I hated that 90’s X-Men cartoon. I would like them to put Season 2 of “Spectacular Spider-Man” up there, though… THAT was a good show.
I’d revisit X-Men Evolution. That had its moments.
I hope that this pushes DC to do the same, but I guess that would be Warner Bros. decision, wouldn’t it?
This is so exciting. I have enjoyed the DC animated movies on Netflix and I barely even read DC, so I’m thrilled to see some Marvel stuff popping up.
Nice, I’ve been DVRing Marvel cartoons that are repeated on Disney XD.
The 1994 Fantastic Four and Iron Man cartoons are woefully dated and do not stand up next to the 1992 X-Men and 1994 Spider-Man. I have X-Men on DVD and wish they’d release the Spider-Man series too.
I’m still DVRing Incredible Hulk 1996 and Silver Surfer 1998 but haven’t watched them yet. The 1981 Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends I’m also waiting before jumping in.
X-Men Evolution is hit or miss. The big finale was pretty good.
Wolverine and the X-Men was a lot of fun. Too bad there wasn’t a season 2.
Spider-Man Unlimited- very bizarre.
I’m just starting Avengers: Earth’s Mightest Heroes and I’m loving it.
Sadly, they aren’t available yet, but they are going to open up tomorrow (4/29) Looking forward to it though. I want to revisit Silver Surfer.
Fuck yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had been DVRing a lot of these from Disney XD and now I don’t have too.
All well said Paul.
That X-Men cartoon had me believing that Wolverine was Austrailian for many years.
I really enjoyed The Incredible Hulk when I was a kid so I really want to see if it’s any good. Also, I want to know about the 90s Fantastic Four. I woke up at 6 in the morning for that show and I want to see it. I see Iron Man but not the FF.
Silver Surfer didnt last long enough. Only made it like 9 episodes. But really nice animation for the time. Really cool depiction of space.
I’ve never heard seen Spiderman Unlimited but if it’s as strange as everyone is saying, I can forgive quality.
I remember liking that Silver Surfer cartoon, but who knows if it holds up.
Wow looking at that list I could care less. Marvel really does not have the same calibur animation that DC has had for nearly 20 years.
I miss Spider-Man and His Amazing friends. Why isn’t THAT out on DVD???
SILVER SURFER IS KIRBY-TACULAR! Me and my lady caught it late one night after we got home, and we thought we were hallucinating. It’s simply the best thing ever.
@MosteXtremeBrian Is it better than THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvnRBywkUZ0
90s X-Men!!!!!! My kids are about to be subjected to questionable voice acting and sanitized versions of classic adventures. But hey, I know a lot of people who got into comics with that show. And its Dark Phoenix saga was fairly well … dark for a kids show at the time.
Yeah I rewatched the 90’s X-Men cartoon relatively recently and I must say it was quite good…up until the last season. Good lord that last season sucked in terms of art, animation, and story.
Before you call me a blasphemer, rewatch the entire series and you’ll see what I mean when you find yourself choking back vomit at the sheer drop in quality in the last few episodes.
Other than that, I’m looking forward to all the marvel animation releases. Now if only they could stream all the DCAU ones too…
@PaulMontgomery I’m so pumped that i can finally watch the entire series of that. It really is the most ballsy show Marvel ever produced.
The early 80’s Spider-Man cartoon that was on at the same time as Amazing Friends is supposed to be coming this Summer. I think it is the only Spider-Man cartoon that I haven’t watched at least some of. My first year of college, at the dawn of the age of bit torrent, I downloaded and started watching most of these other shows. 90’s Spider-Man, X-Men, Silver Surfer and Fantastic Four are the ones I remember holding up the best.
Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, when it first aired in the 1980’s, was an hour show along with an Incredible Hulk cartoon. All I remember about the Hulk show is that Rick Jones had long blond hair and there were big spider like robots. I haven’t seen that cartoon since then and would love to see it again.
I was not familiar with the Marvel Knights Animation ones, but apparently they are motion comics. There are previews on youtube for the Iron Man one, if not more, and it looks much better than I expected. So I will probably check those out too.
This is cool. Can’t wait for them to get X-Men and Spider-Man on there in the future. Maybe DC could do this in the long run? Then again WB probably has a strangehold on the rights and I doubt they would want to stream anything for basically free.
The 60s Marvel cartoons are coming in the fall. I remember renting random VHS tapes of those in the late 80s early 90s. And wondering what was up with the stilted animation?
I could read my Captain American Masterworks along with the 60s cartoon and see where and when the animators cut and pasted.
These are supposedly available, but when i select them on my Instant Queueueueueu, it says they aren’t available
🙁
On the plus side, I am in the middle of watching the pilot of the Incredible Hulk TV show from 77 (I THINK the original pilot was 77 and the first season was 78…… ) and it is WAY better than I thought it would be. I know I LOVED this show when i was like 4 years old and haven’t seen it since then. i was expecting horribleness, but it is actually really well done and hold sup fairly well for it’s time.
Silver Surfer is just as I remember it as a kid. It’s big, it’s pretty, and it has waaaaaayyyy too much dialogue for a saturday morning cartoon. Seriously. I can’t imagine a kid could have the attention span to keep watching this with so much being said in the span of a minute.
Also, I just noticed the motion comics are on the list…..No thanks.
I watched the first 3 episodes of Silver Surfer today. Loved it. The art is gorgeous and the story is awesome and exciting. And it’s a lot less emo than the first few comics I read of Silver Surfer.
Oh also. My friend and I were having trouble accessing them on her 360. We couldn’t figure out why though. So potential issues there?
@SteenAR Having problems accesing them on tivo as well. I see the main title but it wont bring up the episodes. So definiatly some issues with these.
Of all things to be screwed up. I am dying to watch these.
@SteenAR Looks like they are up and running. On tivo at least. Just started the Silver Surfer episodes.
Well they worked now some have vanished. Wonder whats going on with this.