Jeph Loeb Appointed Marvel's Head of Television

[Doc Ock]

Marvel TV is a great idea. This is the perfect oppurtunity to showcase Marvels lower profile characters, the ones who are great but are clearly never going to get a movie franchise.
Characters like:

Slapstick.
Moon Knight.
Sleepwalker.
Nova.
She-Hulk.

All of these characters could have great TV series...

Oh boy, i'm ashamed. I've never heard of Slapstick or Sleepwalker....

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Oh boy, i'm ashamed. I've never heard of Slapstick or Sleepwalker....

Damn... Sleepwalker is trashy fun but Slapstick's early 90's miniseries is legendary. You should definitely check it out, Doc!

 

[Spider-Gnome]

Technically, the end of TSSM was probably the third time he'd basically been kicked off a show due to Disney. Disney hired, then fired him from, both "GARGOYLES" and "W.I.T.C.H.", and their buy-out of Marvel naturally made a third season of TSSM next to impossible to do, especially when Disney outbid everyone to have the show on their network, just to kill it (while profiting from it's death throws, via ratings). ll.

But after so many burns from Disney, I'm not surprised or even angry that he decided to have Warner Brothers cut him some checks for a change. Maybe they'll treat him better.

I honestly wish we could write to John Lassiter about the situation. For those who don't know, he's the head of Pixar and became head of Disney Animation. He was the one who reinstated traditional animation again, after Disney foolishly shut it down. John really appreciates the medium & story telling.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

I'll second that Sleepwalker show. I liked Sleepwalker, ignoring the marketing bumbling of calling him Sandman done right.

For the uninitiated, you can do a wiki search, but the cliffsnotes version is Sleepwalker is defender of the dream realm who ends up trapped in the head of an ordinary boy, and whenever he goes to sleep Sleepwalker is able to emerge in reality. It was done very well, even though it only ran 34 issues (33 plus a special). He did get a resurrection of sorts briefly in the failed Epic Anthology and during Ms. Marvel.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I honestly wish we could write to John Lassiter about the situation. For those who don't know, he's the head of Pixar and became head of Disney Animation. He was the one who reinstated traditional animation again, after Disney foolishly shut it down. John really appreciates the medium & story telling.

Was he the driving force behind The Princess and the Frog, then?

 

[Spider-Gnome]

Was he the driving force behind The Princess and the Frog, then?

While I'll admit I didn't particularly care for that one, I am glad they reinstated Disney's traditional animation. I'm not sure about the level of involvement in the project.

 

[Tron Bonne]

While I'll admit I didn't particularly care for that one, I am glad they reinstated Disney's traditional animation. I'm not sure about the level of involvement in the project.

I'm glad they reinstated that as well, but The Princess and The Frog underperformed to expectations, causing The Snow Queen to get shelved, so it's probably going to be awhile before we see another traditional animation feature movie from Disney for awhile (I'm personally thinking about 5 years).

Regardless, I don't know if Lassiter would have any real control over that. Does that extend to TV project as well as film?

 

[SpideyInATree]

I'm interested in seeing what Loeb can do. From many of the comments here it's quite obvious people don't like his past works too much but the guy is intelligent and he does have a strong knowledge of the characters and the respect for them. There could be worse choices.

Come on...Loeb freakin' wrote Teen Wolf!

He had a hand in Lost and Smallville. Even though Heroes kind of fizzled out after the second season it was still a rather captivating show when it first came out. He's had experience with some successful shows and he gets the comics.

I would like to see more of the Direct to DVD cartoons along the lines of the Hulk vs. Wolverine and the Planet Hulk. I really liked those ones. The Ultimate Avengers were pretty craptacular. I think DC has kind of been winning that war in the DVD cartoon market with their awesomeness.

If anybody is interested in hearing Loeb further talk about his new position check out the Word Balloon podcast and he talks a little bit about what his plans are. He doesn't go into detail because it seems every creative force in comics is on that trend of saying, "I can't say much because we have to save all our cool announcements for the San Diego Comic Con".

 

[Dread]

I imagine the Marvel direct to video cartoon films may continue...just not with Lion's Gate. Disney or one of the companies Disney owns could easily release them and reap the sales instead of Lion's Gate. I imagine THOR: TALES OF ASGARD will be the last that is released under that deal, and we've heard nothing about it for months.

DC Animation as a whole is better than Marvel's output for years because they found exceptional people to produce/write/voice direct and stuck with them for a very, very long time. Marvel hasn't been able to do that. TSSM was their best show in years and even if it had to die, they should NOT have allowed Greg Wiesman to set up shop at a DC/WB joint. Instead the peak of their long term talent was usually Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, and the former is now writing for film. Josh Fine has been producer for many projects, and there's others like Frank Paur and Greg Johnson who could be moved up. Both of them really know their stuff and tend to prefer the more mythical, mystical stuff as well as being able to handle stuff like X-Men (as both worked for EVOLUTION at the start of the decade). So it is possible that Marvel will promote from within, as they have done with Loeb.

I still think a "HEROES FOR HIRE" TV show should be a no-brainer for live action TV. It's THE A-TEAM with super-powers and martial arts. You have a cast of ethnically diverse characters (Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Shang Chi, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, and even the newest female Tarantula) with an even ratio of men and women. With the format of them being "heroes for hire", you have a more interesting angle to TV superheroes that haven't been done before as well as a set of talents and powers that are not above a TV budget. Cage has super-strength and is bullet-proof, and Rand has his "iron fist" and chi powers, and Knight has a bionic arm, but aside for that, it would mostly be relied on stuntwork and thus in theory less expensive per episode than "HEROES" was. One would just need to hire a very good stunt crew. Plots could focus on every character and one week it could be an urban story, another it could focus on some of the newer K'un L'un material provided by Brubaker & Fraction, and maybe even another it could be a trip into Central America or Mexico to take down drug kingpins or whatnot. If Loeb doesn't overthink things, then this show almost screams prime time.

The POWER PACK are also tailor made for Saturday Morning cartoons. They're siblings, so no romance (networks seem to always balk about it). The series involves bright super powers, aliens that look like animals, and keeping secrets from parents. Why hasn't this become a cartoon yet?

 

[Spider-Gnome]

TSSM was their best show in years and even if it had to die, they should NOT have allowed Greg Wiesman to set up shop at a DC/WB joint.

This can't be said enough! Weisman was the best thing to happen to Spider-Man in a long time!

Oh, and, Dread, although I'm not a fan of the Heroes for Hire group, that actually sounds like a good idea for a show!

Come on...Loeb ...

He had a hand in Lost

Well he gets point for that!

Unless he's the one who came up with Niki & Paulo.