Marvel animated universe

The Marvel Animated Universe (also known as MAU) is a fan term that refers to a series of animated television shows and related spin-offs which share the same continuity. Each of the series were adapted from Marvel Comics properties.
Continuity
While there have been several animated series based upon Marvel Comics characters over the decades, what is commonly accepted as the "Marvel Animated Universe" refers to the stable of shows that aired during the 1990s, which started with X-Men: The Animated Series, the original show in this universe. Older shows such as the late 1960s Spider-Man cartoon and newer shows such as X-Men: Evolution, and Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes are not part of this continuity. Though the MAU had a successful beginning with X-Men: The Animated Series in 1992, it failed to extend into the 2000s unlike its DC Comics counterpart, which started around the same time with Batman: The Animated Series, in part due to the bankruptcy Marvel faced in 2000-2001 and the company wide cutbacks it caused.
In chronological order based on debuts:
*X-Men (1992-1997)
*Iron Man (1994-1996)
*Fantastic Four (1994-1996)
*Spider-Man (1994-1998)
*The Incredible Hulk (1996-1997)
*Silver Surfer (1998)
*The Avengers: United They Stand (1999-2000)
Crossovers
*X-Men
#Fantastic Four - The X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey Gambit, Storm, and Wolverine) appeared in their civilian outfits in the Season 2 episode "Nightmare in Green". The Juggernaut's arm was also seen briefly reaching out of the water, placing the episode around the middle of the third season of X-Men. The X-Men's Blackbird is briefly seen attacking Doctor Doom in the episode before being turned to stone by Doomsday.
#Spider-Man: The Animated Series - All of the X-Men appeared in the Season 2 episodes "Mutant Agenda" and "Mutant's Revenge". Also, Storm guest-starred during Season 5 of Spider-Man, during the "Secret Wars" three parter. She was not voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith, the voice of Storm for Seasons 2-5, but by Iona Morris, the voice of Storm in Season 1. for instance voiced Tigra.
*Fantastic Four
#The Incredible Hulk - The whole team appeared in the Season 1 episode "Fantastic Fortitude". Both Beau Weaver (Mister Fantastic) and Chuck McCann (The Thing) reprised their roles for this episode.
#Spider-Man: The Animated Series - In the fifth season (in the three part Secret Wars storyline), Spider-Man enlisted the aid of the Fantastic Four (who sport their "Heroes Reborn" uniforms) to help him battle Doctor Doom. Quinton Flynn, the second Human Torch (Brian Austin Green was the first) was the only cast member from the Fantastic Four series to reprise his role on Spider-Man. The main reason for the overhaul wasn't because Beau Weaver (Mister Fantastic), Chuck McCann (The Thing), and Lori Alan (The Invisible Woman) were unavailable, it was because John Semper, Jr., the producer and story editor of Spider-Man simply wasn't a fan of the Fantastic Four animated series from around that same period.
#The Silver Surfer - Had production of the second season of The Silver Surfer not been shut down due to Marvel's bankruptcy, then the team would've appeared in a three part episode entitled "Down to Earth".
*Iron Man
#X-Men - An alternate version of Iron Man is seen very briefly in the episode entitled "One Man's Worth". War Machine makes a brief cameo during the Phoenix Saga saving some innocent bystanders. War Machine also appears in the episode "Time Fugitives, Part 1" alongside mutant-hunting robots in the year 3999 AD, and is shot by Cable.
#The Incredible Hulk - Iron Man, War Machine, and H.O.M.E.R. guest-starred on the Season 1 episode entitled "Helping Hand, Iron Fist".
#Fantastic Four - Although he never spoke, Iron Man made several cameos in some Fantastic Four episodes, actually appearing on a TV show in the first-season episode "The Silver Surfer and the Return of Galactus" and the Season 2 episodes "To Battle the Living Planet" and "Doomsday".
#Spider-Man: The Animated Series - Iron Man and War Machine both appeared on Spider-Man, but Iron Man appeared in more than one storyline. They both appeared in the two part Season 3 episodes that brought back Venom and introduced Carnage. While Robert Hays reprised his role of Iron Man, War Machine was voiced by James Avery, the original voice of War Machine, rather than Dorian Harewood, who previously played the villain Tombstone on Spider-Man. Iron Man returned to aid Spider-Man in the Season 5 three parter, entitled "The Secret Wars".
#Avengers: United They Stand - Iron Man briefly appears in the Avengers episode "Shooting Stars". Robert Hays however, didn't reprise his role as Iron Man (as was the case on The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man). Instead, Iron Man was voiced by Francis Diakowsky; the recasting was likely the result of Avengers's use of Canadian talent making the then California-based Hays's participation an impossibility.
*Spider-Man
#X-Men - during an episode of the "Phoenix Saga", there was a little glimpse of Spidey's hand throwing his web to prevent a chair from falling over innocent bystanders. The Scarlet Spider appeared briefly in the episode "One Man's Worth".
#Fantastic Four - The Scarlet Spider appeared briefly on the Season 2 episode "Nightmare in Green".
*Hulk
#Fantastic Four - The Hulk and Rick Jones guest-starred on the second season episode of the show, entitled "Nightmare in Green". Both Hulk and Rick were voiced by different voice actors than on the subsequent .
#Iron Man - The Hulk guest-starred on a Season 2 episode of Iron Man, called "Hulkbuster". In addition to the Hulk, The Leader also guest-starred (The Leader was voiced by Matt Frewer just like on the ).
#X-Men - The Hulk appeared for a few seconds in the Season 3 episode "The Juggernaut Returns", though only was a Danger Room simulation.
#Spider-Man: The Animated Series - Hulk and She-Hulk were in the original draft to appear in the Secret Wars three parter, in the fifth season of Spider-Man. However, due to the then current show on UPN, they had to be written out. They were replaced by The Lizard.
*The Avengers
#X-Men - Alternate versions of the Avengers are seen attacking the Mutant Resistance in the episode entitled "One Man's Worth".
#Fantastic Four - The Avengers had non-speaking cameos in the Season 2 episodes "To Battle the Living Planet" and "Doomsday" (the Avengers appearing in both episodes don't fit with the roster shown in Avengers: United They Stand). The Avengers (or Avenger Mansion) are mentioned in the Season 2 episodes "Worlds Within Worlds" and "The Sentry Sinister".
Other characters
*Absorbing Man: Besides his appearance as an adversary on The Incredible Hulk, Absorbing Man appeared as a member of the Masters of Evil in the Avengers episode "Command Decision".
*Captain America: Captain America appeared on the X-Men episode "Old Soldiers" and the Avengers episode "Command Decision", as well as a recurring role on Spider-Man. Lawrence Bryne provided Captain America's voice on X-Men while David Hayter provided his voice on Spider-Man. Although he never spoke, Cap had a cameo as a member of the Avengers in the Fantastic Four Season 2 episode "To Battle the Living Planet".
*Daredevil: Daredevil appeared on the Fantastic Four episode "And a Blind Man Shall Lead Them…" and the Spider-Man episodes "Framed" and "The Man Without Fear". Bill Smitrovich provided Daredevil's voice on Fantastic Four while Edward Albert provided his voice on Spider-Man.
*Doctor Doom: Besides his appearances against familiar adversaries, the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom appeared on the Spider-Man episode arc "Secret Wars" and "The Incredible Hulk" episodes "Doomed" and "Hollywood Rocks". John Vernon provided Doctor Doom's voice in the first season of Fantastic Four. Simon Templeman took over for Vernon in subsequent Fantastic Four episodes as well as the "Doomed" and "Hollywood Rocks" episodes of The Incredible Hulk. Tom Kane provided Doctor Doom's voice on Spider-Man.
*Doctor Strange: Doctor Strange appeared on the Spider-Man episode "Doctor Strange" and The Incredible Hulk episode "Mind Over Anti-Matter". John Vernon provided Doctor Strange's voice on Spider-Man while Maurice LaMarche provided his voice on The Incredible Hulk. Doctor Strange also appeared briefly in the X-Men's Phoenix Saga.
*Ghost Rider: Ghost Rider appeared on the Fantastic Four episode "When Calls Galactus" and on The Incredible Hulk episode "Innocent Blood". Richard Grieco provided Ghost Rider's voice on both occasions. He also made a cameo in X-Men, in which he is seen in Gambit's memories.
*Hawkeye: Hawkeye was a regular character in both Iron Man (as a member of Force Works) and Avengers: United They Stand. He was voiced by John Reilly in Iron Man and by Tony Daniels in Avengers.
*High Evolutionary: The High Evolutionary appeared on the X-Men Season 4 episode "Family Ties". He also was the main villain in Spider-Man Unlimited.
*Hydro-Man: Besides his various appearances as an adversary on Spider-Man, Hydro-Man appeared as a member of the evil Frightful Four on the Fantastic Four episode "'The Inhumans Saga, Part 1: And the Wind Cries Medusa". Rob Paulsen provided Hydro-Man's voice on Spider-Man while Brad Garrett provided his voice on Fantastic Four.
*Nick Fury: Besides a recurring role on Spider-Man, Nick Fury appeared on the Iron Man episodes "The Beast Within" and "Not Far From the Tree". Philip Abbott was the original voice of Nick Fury on Spider-Man (before Jack Angel took over following Abbott's death) in addition to providing his voice on Iron Man. He also made a cameo in the X-Men episode "Sanctuary".
*The Scarlet Witch: Scarlet Witch was a regular character in both Iron Man (as a member of Force Works) and Avengers: United They Stand. She was voiced by Jennifer Darling on Iron Man and by Stavroula Logothettis on Avengers (In both appearances, she was voiced with a thick Eastern European accent). She also appeared in the X-Men Season 4 episode "Family Ties" being voiced by Tara Strong.
*Thor: Thor appeared on the Fantastic Four episodes "When Calls Galactus", "To Battle the Living Planet" and The Incredible Hulk episode "Mortal Bounds". John Rhys-Davies provided Thor's voice on both occasions. Thor also had a non-speaking cameo in one episode of X-Men and Avengers.
*Whirlwind: Besides his various appearances as an adversary on Iron Man, Whirlwind appeared as a member of the Masters of Evil in the Avengers episode "Command Decision".
Possible contradictions
One notable continuity issue lies with Captain America. In Spider-Man, he was the leader of the Six American Warriors during World War II and got trapped in a vortex machine while fighting against the Red Skull, though he got released by the Red Skull's sons, Rhienholdt Kragov and the Chameleon when they released the Red Skull. Captain America appeared in X-Men, where he teamed up with a pre-adamantium skeleton-Wolverine against the Skull. It is possible that Wolverine's memory could have been altered during the Weapon X events and this event could have taken place before Captain America was trapped in the vortex or even before the Six American Warriors were formed. It is suspicious, however, that there was no mentioning of them by Steve Rogers nor by Wolverine. Also, in The Avengers, Captain America appears without mention of the vortex, even though he was still trapped at the end of Spiderman TAS.
Another possible inconsistency was that the X-Men showed a female president followed by Robert Kelly as president during "the 1990s" (as Wolverine states in ""), while Iron Man and Fantastic Four both showed Bill Clinton to be president. Yet another president was shown in The Avengers.
Yet another is with the character of She Hulk. The character made several non-speaking cameos as a member of the Avengers in the second season of the Fantastic Four cartoon, while her origin wouldn't be told until the later Incredible Hulk series, and her non-speaking cameos started before the episode for that series featuring the Hulk aired.
Adapted storylines from the comics
===="Age of Apocalypse"====
An Age of Apocalypse-like timeline is shown in the episode "One Man's Worth" from X-Men: The Animated Series. The death of Xavier at the hands of Fitzroy during his college years cause a destructive war between humans and mutants, with Magneto leading the Resistance against the mutant-hunting Avengers. Some of the mutants are shown in their Age of Apocalypse costumes from the comics.
===="Armor Wars"====
The Armor Wars were adapted as a two-parter in the Iron Man animated series, with Hawkeye appearing in Captain America's place at the Vault. In this two-parter, the Ghost was the one who stole the armor designs from Stark Enterprises and gave them to Justin Hammer. After Crimson Dynamo allowed the heat-seeking missile to follow him into a missile silo resulting in an explosion that spread a radioactive cloud for miles, Nick Fury gave Tony Stark the remains of Crimson Dynamo's armor. Upon the analyzation of the armor remains, Tony Stark suspects that other armored characters might by using his Stark Armor designs. Instead of Scott Lang finding out which armored warriors had the Stark armor designs, it was HOMER (who had tested his Negator Packs at the time of the discovery) who discovers this and printed out a list of every known armored warrior.
The armors of Controller, Beetle, Stilt-Man, Blacklash, Blizzard, the Guardsmen, and Stingray (whose armor wasn't based on Stark technology and only fell victim due to Stark's paranoia) were targeted by Iron Man as well as War Machine's armor. Justin Hammer created Firepower (an automaton rather than a man in armor) to take out Iron Man. After Firepower was destroyed, Iron Man then deleted the files of the Stark Armor designs from Hammer Industries' mainframe.
===="Clone Saga"====
In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the Clone Saga appears in two forms. First in the show, Spider-Man is reunited with Mary Jane after she disappeared into a vortex in his last fight with the original Green Goblin. It was soon revealed that this Mary Jane was a clone as was the resurrected Hydro-Man all of which were the product of the experiments of Miles Warren. Spider-Man tears his costume in a fight with the Hydro-Man clone. The Mary Jane clone saves him with water powers she has by virtue of her body structure being derived from Hydro-Man. Warren runs off from an upcoming flood Hydro-Man's clone would create and finds a piece of Spider-Man's costume, hinting at the possible cloning of Peter Parker. Due to their unstable cell structures, the Mary Jane and Hydro-Man clones evaporate in front of Spider-Man. The death of the Mary Jane clone devastates him, and he is next taken to another dimension by Madame Web to fight in the animated version of the Secret Wars. Warren managed to get a sample of Spider-Man's DNA from a torn piece of his costume.
After that was the two-part Spider Wars series finale, where Spider-Man is presented in an alternate reality version of the Clone Saga. In this version of events, though, the revelation that Peter is the clone, and Ben Reilly is the original leads Peter to become incredibly depressed and vulnerable. The Carnage symbiote takes advantage of this and merges with Peter Parker, becoming the composite being known as Spider-Carnage, who then attempts to destroy all of existence; which includes all universes; from his native universe.
Later, after his plan to destroy all of reality is stopped by the original Spider-Man and other Spider-Men from different realities; including the Scarlet Spider; Carnage attempts to destroy every reality, one at a time, starting with the universe that was home to a wealthy, armored version of Spider-Man. However, the "prime" Spider-Man follows Spider-Carnage into that reality. Realizing that his armored counterpart is so arrogant because he has never failed, the "prime" Spider-Man contacts that reality's version of Uncle Ben, the only person who might be able to get through to Spider-Carnage. The gamble works, and Spider-Carnage stops the chain of destruction he had been about to initiate. He sacrifices himself by jumping in one of his unstable portals from the Time Dilation Accelerator in his reality which disintegrates him. The "prime" Spider-Man at one point remarks: "This is starting to sound like a bad comic book plot!" and part of the arc was called "I Really, Really Hate Clones".
The Spider-Carnage character first appeared in comics, and was the result of a forced merger between the Carnage entity and Ben Reilly, who had taken on the role of Spider-Man at that time. The Peter Parker with whom the symbiote merges with was wearing the original version of the costume; however, when the symbiote merges with him, his costume takes on the appearance of Ben Reilly's Spider-Man costume, which was itself subtly changed by the creature merging with him.
===="The Dark Phoenix Saga"====
The entire saga of the Phoenix is retold and adapted in the third season of the , subdivided into the five-part "Phoenix Saga", in which Jean acquires the power of the Phoenix and the battle for the M'Kraan Crystal occurs, and the "Dark Phoenix Saga", showcasing the battle with the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix Force's transformation into Dark Phoenix, and the battle to decide her fate. These particular episodes are as close as the cartoon came to directly duplicating the comic book storylines — the "Dark Phoenix Saga" is so accurate to the original stories that the episodes have the additional credit, "Based on stories by Chris Claremont.".
Notably, however, as the Phoenix Force retcon had occurred before the creation of the series, the episodes were made with this change in mind — rather than having Jean develop her powers independently (as was the original intent of the comics), or be replaced by the cosmic Phoenix Force entity (as events were later retconned), the two concepts were merged, into Jean's actual body being possessed by the Phoenix Force, leading to a true struggle between two independent entities. Jean is shown piloting a shuttle, and when her telekenetic shield fails Phoenix enters her body. Rather than destroying an inhabited system — which was the cause for the decision to kill off the character in the comics — the animated story had her destroy a deserted system and only disable the attacking Shi'Ar cruiser.
These changes made it possible for aspects of the original ending of Uncanny X-Men #137, in which Jean survives, to be used. Jean does still commit suicide (taking control of the Shi'Ar's laser beam to fire on herself, rather than finding an ancient weapon), but with her death, the Phoenix Force is purified, and then uses its powers to resurrect Jean, drawing on the combined life-force of the assembled X-Men to bring her back to life. Jean retained her original basic powers, whereas in the aborted comic book ending, she would have been lobotomized by the Shi'Ar and lost them entirely. She was voiced by Catherine Disher.
===="Days of Futures Past"====
The Days of Future Past storyline was adapted in the X-Men animated series. The storyline concepts were combined with another alternate future story - that of Bishop and the idea of a traitor within the ranks of the X-Men. In the original comic book version, the traitor was responsible for killing the X-Men. Bishop believed Gambit was the traitor. This story was combined into the Days of Future Past plot, and the traitor was the one who killed Senator Kelly. The traitor turned out to be Mystique imitating Gambit's form.
The future that Kelly's death led to was similar to the comic's. Every mutant was put into concentration camps. Eventually the Sentinels decided they would have to take over in order to protect mankind. Under the machines' rule, the entire North American continent was turned into a wasteland with its human population living in fear of their robotic masters and its mutant population rendered almost extinct. Only a small group of mutant rebels remained free and unharmed, led by an aged Wolverine.
In the animated series, Bishop is not the mutant police agent that he is in his comic's future. Instead, he's a bounty hunter who captures Wolverine and his team. When the Sentinels betray Bishop, he sides with Wolverine and Forge, who has invented a time portal he uses to alter history and prevent their time from ever occurring. Bishop volunteers to travel back in time, but arrives with amnesia and being pursued by the future super-sentinel, Nimrod. After an encounter with the present-day X-Men, a battle with Nimrod and a mind-scan by Professor X, Bishop's memory returns and he implicates Gambit as the traitor he has been sent to stop. The X-Men travel to Washington to guard Kelly and fight the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Their leader, Mystique, uses her shape-shifting powers to disguise herself as Kelly's aide and lures him away. She then assumes Gambit's form and tries to kill Kelly in front of the real bound and gagged aide she impersonated. The real Gambit arrives in time to stop her, but when Bishop finds himself confronted with two Gambits, he threatens to shoot both of them for security's sake. Rogue stops him, tearing off the armband that keeps him anchored in time, hurling him back to his own future.
Arriving back in his future, it first seemed to Bishop that nothing had changed and that the world was still as he had left it, but he discovers something had changed - a deadly plague has raged around the world, engineered by the ancient mutant, Apocalypse. Traveling back in time once more to stop the virus, Bishop succeeds, but the X-Men perished in the effort. This in turn caused the erasure of the future reality of 3999, home-time to the mutant mercenary Cable, who traveled back to before Bishop's arrival in the past and altered events once more to ensure the destruction of the virus, the survival of the X-Men and the preservation of both his and Bishop's timelines.
When the time-portal-generating mutant Trevor Fitzroy was assigned the task of traveling back to the mid-20th Century and killing a young Professor X, his actions created an alternate present (analogous to the comic book's Age of Apocalypse). Bishop and his sister, Shard traveled to this time and teamed up with the alternate versions of Wolverine and Storm, undoing Fitzroy's actions. As the siblings returned to their own time, Shard emerged through the portal, but Bishop was cast off-course. In 3999, Apocalypse has wrested the power of time-travel from Cable, and his transit through the timestream clashed with Bishop's, hurling them both into Limbo, the "axis of time." There, Bishop was pestered by the maniac "janitor of time," Bender (actually the disguised form of the Avengers foe, Immortus) while Apocalypse mastered the axis' ability to touch all times, forming a complex plot to rewrite time using the combined power of captured psychic mutants. Bishop was instrumental in stopping this scheme, liberating some of the psychics at a key juncture, who used their powers to banish Apocalypse from the timestream.
As of the end of the series, the storyline remains unresolved, with nothing having been shown to alter Bishop's future from the dystopia seen in "Days of Future Past".
===="The Galactus Trilogy"====
The story is adapted into episodes of the . The story is also loosely adapted into the first three-part episode of the TV series Silver Surfer.
===="Invasion of the Spider-Slayers"====
This storyline inspired the episodes "The Spider Slayer" and "Return of the Spider Slayers" of the Spider-Man animated series.
===="The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man"====
The story loosely inspired a two-part story (Sins of the Fathers Chapter 2: Make a Wish and Sins of the Fathers Chapter 3: Attack of the Octobot) in the third season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The major difference however, is that the Kid in question is a girl instead of a boy.
===="Phalanx Covenant"====
The "Phalanx Covenant" storyline was adapted into a two-part fifth-season premiere of the X-Men animated series.
===="Secret Wars"====
An abbreviated form of the Secret Wars storyline appeared in the animated television series Spider-Man. As previously mentioned, one completely written chapter of "Secret Wars" involved the X-Men, but transporting the X-Men cast to L.A. (Where production for the Spider-Man animated series was based) from Canada (Where the X-Men animated series was based) was too costly in the previous episodes the X-Men appeared in, so the episode was dropped and only Storm was used for the rest of the chapters of Secret Wars.
Hulk and She-Hulk weren't used in these episodes because the Hulk show was on UPN. The comic book lasted until March 1997, shortly after the show's cancellation by the Fox Network.
In the final issue of Adventures of the X-Men, it is revealed that the Marvel animated universe existed prior to the main Marvel Universe, and was destroyed by the fracturing of the M'Kraan Crystal.
Video games
*Spider-Man: The Animated Series
*X-Men: Children of the Atom
* X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse
Animation studios
*AKOM - X-Men (episodes #1-70)
*Kennedy Cartoons - Fantastic Four (Season 1)
*Koko Enterprises - Iron Man (Season 2)
*Philippine Animation Studio, Inc. - Fantastic Four (Season 2); X-Men (Season 5; episodes #71-76)
*Rainbow Animation Group - Iron Man (Season 1)
*Sae Rom Productions - The Incredible Hulk; The Avengers: United They Stand
*Tokyo Movie Shinsha - Spider-Man
*Wang Film Productions - Fantastic Four (Season 1)
Marvel Films
Following Marvel Entertainment Group's (MEG) ToyBiz deal in 1993, Avi Arad of ToyBiz, was named President and CEO of Marvel Films division and of New World Family Filmworks, Inc., a New World Entertainment subsidiary. New World was MEG's former parent corporation and later a fellow subsidiary of the Andrews Group. New World Animation (The Incredible Hulk), Saban (X-Men), and Marvel Films Animation (Spider-Man) each produced a Marvel series for television. It was Marvel Films Animation's only production.

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