The '90s Marvel Cartoon Multiverse Was Confusing

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Multiverses might be all the rage in super hero movies right now, but this isn't the first time Marvel ventured across realities. Kyle Anderson takes you back to the 90s to break down the confusing multiverse of Marvel cartoons.

With Avengers Secret Wars coming to the MCU in 2025. We thought it’d be fun to look back at Spider-Man The Animated Series: Secret Wars. This 3 part arc of the classic 90’s series was inspired by the 1984 Secret Wars comics. These 3 episodes showed us heroes and villains from across the Marvel Animated Universe coming together for the ultimate battle against good and evil!

My retrospect of the first animated superhero universe begins now!

We get one more hour of action as we look at the next two shows to join the universe, Ironman & Fantastic Four.

New heroes join the Universe just in time for the ultimate crossover.

The universe ends with three forgotten shows.

With the Marvel Cinematic Universe reaching its climatic conclusion to 10 years of serialized storytelling, Josh from Panels to Pixels takes a look at the Marvel Animated Series of the 90s; its history and how its legacy can still be felt in pop culture today.

From 1992 - 2000, eight shows across 253 episodes made up the Marvel Animated Universe, introducing a whole generation to the characters that would go on to dominate box offices worldwide.

They were: X-Men, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man Unlimited and Avengers United They Stand.

So dust off your video tapes, grab a bowl of breakfast cereal and get stuck in to this video essay/documentary/love letter to the cartoons of our childhood.

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X-Men '97 Is Finally Set To Fix Marvel's Failed Shared Universe 22 Years Later

X-Men '97 episode 7's cameos may hint at another animated series revival, which could lead to the return of the MCU's shared universe predecessor.

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Marvel Animated Universe (1994-1997) - Timeline

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This includes the television shows Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and The Incredible Hulk.

Marvel Animated Universe (1990s) - Timelines

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This includes the television shows X-Men and Spider-Man.

[Hawkee]

When you get the general picture the reason why animated cartoons based on comic books become successful is because they use these cartoons as a way to market two pieces of merchandise one is toys and the other is video games. And in the 90's Marvel essentially used these cartoons that aired on FOX as a way to sell video games and toys and as soon as X-Men The Animated Series debuted X-Men toys became hot sellers and there was also lots of X-Men video games. And when the Spiderman cartoon came out the same thing happened and Marvel was incredibly lucky that this selling point helped them because kids watched the cartoons and got action figures and got the video games as they were fans. But I'd have to admit that some of the Marvel cartoons were confusing in the 90's but there was some that were weak in my eyes like the Iron Man cartoon and Silver Surfer cartoon and why they made many versions of The Avengers cartoons was to debut The Avengers characters that were rarely popular like Falcon Vision Wanda Hawkeye Ant-Man and Wasp and these cartoons made The Avengers very popular with fans even today. Because in FOX cartoons FOX still had DC Comics cartoons with Batman The Animated Series and once FOX saw the Marvel cartoons added to the lineup they knew that Marvel would have to share competition with DC Comics and still today DC Comics is still Marvel's rival in heroes and comic book sales. But in Marvel's eyes they see that cartoons make the characters popular and sell

[Charles Knox]

Originally Posted by Hawkee

When you get the general picture the reason why animated cartoons based on comic books become successful is because they use these cartoons as a way to market two pieces of merchandise one is toys and the other is video games. And in the 90's Marvel essentially used these cartoons that aired on FOX as a way to sell video games and toys and as soon as X-Men The Animated Series debuted X-Men toys became hot sellers and there was also lots of X-Men video games. And when the Spiderman cartoon came out the same thing happened and Marvel was incredibly lucky that this selling point helped them because kids watched the cartoons and got action figures and got the video games as they were fans. But I'd have to admit that some of the Marvel cartoons were confusing in the 90's but there was some that were weak in my eyes like the Iron Man cartoon and Silver Surfer cartoon and why they made many versions of The Avengers cartoons was to debut The Avengers characters that were rarely popular like Falcon Vision Wanda Hawkeye Ant-Man and Wasp and these cartoons made The Avengers very popular with fans even today. Because in FOX cartoons FOX still had DC Comics cartoons with Batman The Animated Series and once FOX saw the Marvel cartoons added to the lineup they knew that Marvel would have to share competition with DC Comics and still today DC Comics is still Marvel's rival in heroes and comic book sales. But in Marvel's eyes they see that cartoons make the characters popular and sell

Actually Power Rangers was the #1 show with the general audiences and was also the #1 toy seller during that period. The Marvel, DC cartoons and stuff like the Tick was more popular with us geeks and nerds. I remember Poee Rangers and the knockoffs dominating the toy aisles when I was a kid.