The Current State of Superhero Cartoons

[JoeMabbon]

The Jurassic Park cartoon seems like the last traditional kids action cartoon left.

Transformers Earthspark and Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are pretty much it. And Dragon Strikers if it ever gets released. It's becoming clear that 6-12 action animation's future is tied to theaters more than television.

 

[wonderfly]

The News Team's PicardMan has a new editorial on the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

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"Editorial: Are We in Superhero Cartoon Renaissance or a Dark Age?"​

"The landscape for superhero cartoons has changed significantly in the 2020s after a very bleak 2010s. Fans of titles such as Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Young Justice, Beware the Batman, Justice League Action, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and more know about the massive cancellations that occurred within that decade. Despite live action superhero being pushed by the truckload and live action superhero television shows being pushed out in massive quantities, superheroes floundered in animation while live action superhero films made billions of dollars. Okay, there was a pretty dark parasitic relationship between the films and the cartoons as the live action Green Lantern and Justice League films’ lack of success compared to the Marvel movies caused those cartoons to get the boot. A successful live action movie caused the tie-in cartoons to last longer, but the 2010s Marvel cartoons, despite not being as plagued with cancellations as DC’s, wallowed in pop culture obscurity as many saw them as cheaply-made commercials for the live action films. In short, the 2010s sucked for superhero cartoon fans and we have t ask ourselves, have things improved?

The answer seems to be an interesting one in that the cartoons are mimicking the comics. In the Bronze Age of Comics (1970s and 1980s), there was a major demographic shift towards older readers and this culminated in what some comic book historians and TVTropes refers to as “The Dark Age of Comics” (a period spanning roughly 1986-2000). As with comics of that period, violence, sexual content, and swearing are much more prevalent in a superhero cartoon now than in the past. Edgy fare such as Invincible and Harley Quinn have been major successes, and success seems so much easier to come by in the 2020s than the 2010s. Some could point to this being the starting point of a new Renaissance for superheroes, others would say that that these cartoons are more popular because of edgy shock value. The title of my editorial has a double meaning as “The Dark Age of Comic Books” was called that by detractors who felt the quality was lower than previous eras, while others used the phrase “The Dark Age” purely as a descriptor of that era’s content. The Dark Age of Superhero Cartoons seems like a possible descriptor for this era."

Read the full article here.

 

[Chris Wood]

Great article! Much as it pains me to say it, it seems the age of the traditional elementary school age -targeted action cartoon is just about over. And it hasn't been very healthy since the early 2000s in my view.

Not sure why, but at some point kids apparently decided they preferred comedy, and that change stuck. Perhaps kids started turning to increasingly realistic video games to get their action fix, and then flipped on TV only for laughs.

But no matter. There's a ton of content available to enjoy from the golden age of action cartoons, and a lot of it is streaming.

 

[Christopher Glennon]

I miss the all-too-brief period that was early Marvel Universe block on DisneyXD (with Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man before Avengers Assemble) and DC Universe block that had shows like Young Justice and Beware the Batman. They even had various shorts.

Disney was pretty strong in Marvel Cartoons post-MCU pre-Disney+ era, even if I did have my issues with it. DC simply had unparalleled success with Teen Titans Go! Not only did Justice League Action never get the chance to take off, neither did DC Super Hero Girls (which also means the adult comedic Harley Quinn was more successful than this all-ages version). They even made fun of it in the crossover movie, but I feel like that show skewed at least a little more serious than TTG and appealed more to a female audience. But now you can't even find the show anywhere.

Shame a lot of these streaming services drop the whole season at once or get a small episode count (like Invincible). Shows come and go too quickly (and then you have to wait a year or two before the next season).

 

[PicardMan]

I miss the all-too-brief period that was early Marvel Universe block on DisneyXD (with Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man before Avengers Assemble) and DC Universe block that had shows like Young Justice and Beware the Batman. They even had various shorts.

Disney was pretty strong in Marvel Cartoons post-MCU pre-Disney+ era, even if I did have my issues with it. DC simply had unparalleled success with Teen Titans Go! Not only did Justice League Action never get the chance to take off, neither did DC Super Hero Girls (which also means the adult comedic Harley Quinn was more successful than this all-ages version).

DC Nation and Marvel Universe were pretty much the last action cartoon blocks out there. Marvel cartoons did have it way better in terms of longevity, with the 2010s Marvel cartoons lasting much longer than they did in previous eras. It is interesting how the 2010s titles like those Marvel toons and Teen Titans Go! seemed to get so much hate from adult fans and cartoon Youtubers. Seriously, making an anti Teen Titans Go! video was an easy way to get easy views. Considering the high episode counts of all the cartoons Youtube hates, the kids disagreed with the pundits. Sadly, the kids might have disagreed with the same Youtubers praising all the DC cartoons sent to the chopping block. DC cartoons had it bad post DCAU with having to appease the toy companies.

Shame a lot of these streaming services drop the whole season at once or get a small episode count (like Invincible). Shows come and go too quickly (and then you have to wait a year or two before the next season).

That has been a huge problem with streaming toons in general, not just the superhero genre. A three year (!!!) wait between Arcane seasons? That is ridiculous. I've found a great deal of the current wave of 2020s adult action cartoons as incredibly artistically ambitious (planning on writing up my thoughts on Invincible season 2 a week from now), but the ridiculously long waits between seasons is a major issue.

 

[the_joker]

There has been a stigma of cartoons being "for kids", and now that there have been some successful adult superhero cartoons (Harley Quinn may or may not count as one), it's kinda amusing that there's a demand around these forums for the more "kid-friendly" cartoons (Y7 or PG). Though I'm sure the stigma is still around.

I know having a variety of cartoons is preferred as sometimes one would be more in the mood for something a slightly more laidback over seeing decapitations. I suppose it might also be nice for parents to have another show to watch with their kids, and I think adults just watching a "kids' cartoon" because they think it's good would be a boon for the show, and a "kids' show" simply being appealing to adults could also speak volumes about its overall quality. And it would be nice for the kids to grow up on a cartoon and still enjoy it into adulthood and even share it with their kids if they ever get any.

I guess I answered my own question of why some people want a larger quantity of "kid friendly" cartoons.

 

[CyberCubed]

As of right now it's improved quite a bit.

X-men 97 was excellent, Invincible is very good and has 2 more seasons ordered. My Adventures with Superman is fun and we have Batman Caped Crusader coming up.

Definitely faring better than the early 2010's-2019 where almost every superhero cartoon got canceled after 1-2 seasons.

 

[Vuxovich]

So glad superhero cartoons are performing well again.