User blog:ARTaylor/50 Years of The Marvel Super Heroes

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the very beginnings of Marvel Comics-based animation with The Marvel Super Heroes. The series debuted on September 1st, 1966 with the three related episodes "The Origin of Captain America", "Wreckers Among Us", and "Enter Red Skull" and lasted a mere three months with sixty-five episodes ending December 1st, 1966.



The series was a compilation of various stories each featuring Captain America (Sandy Becker and Arthur Pierce), Hulk (Max Ferguson), Iron Man (John Vernon), Thor (Chris Wiggins), and Namor (also Vernon). Each character got thirteen episodes each with each character appearing on a different day. Captain America on Monday, Hulk on Tuesday, Iron Man on Wednesday, Thor on Thursday, and Namor on Friday. The series also featured the talents by legendary voice actors Paul Soles (who would go on to debut Spider-Man on Spider-Man) and Peg Dixon.

The series was Marvel's first foray into animation and featured the debut of numerous characters. Many of the main characters got together as the Avengers. The X-Men debuted under the name Allies for Peace for some strange reason. The actors playing Captain America, Doctor Doom, Hulk, and Bucky also portrayed the characters in live-action segments that were written by Superman creator Jerry Siegel.

The stories were adapted directly from the Silver Age of comics because the animation studio, Grantray-Lawrence Animation, took the comic book panels and loosely animated them using xerography. Today this process is known as motion comics but at the time it was simply cheap and quick animation. As such, it is perhaps the most faithful to the comics of any series, along with similar motion comic series Black Panther.

Since it finished the series has generally faded into obscurity having not attained the lasting impression of the following year's Spider-Man. Some segments were released on VHS. The segments detailing Hulk's origin were part of a DVD of The Incredible Hulk episodes. In 2004, Buena Vista Home Video announced a five-disc DVD release that never came to be. In Region 2, the Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and Namor segments were released in edited forms on a four-disc set while the Hulk segments were released, also re-edited, by a separate company on a two-disc set.