I was able to attend the SDCC premier of the Iron Man anime series debut, and it was gorgeous, and exceeded my expectations - and I'm a comics and anime fan.
The ongoing series (one of 4) will broadcast on G4 television in 2011, be set in Japan, produced by the inimitable Studio Madhouse, and dialog will be in Japanese with American subtitles.
The 24-minute episode revolves around Tony Stark's humanitarian initiative, his desire to retire iron Man, and his introduction of a new set of armor, and ... other stuff (I hate spoilers). My only wish is that they'd showed opening and ending credits. We anime fans eat that up.
Iron Man is the first series, Wolverine is the second, X-Men the third, and Blade the fourth.
While nothing was said about the timing of the other three series, head of programming John Rieber did say there will be a rolling release of the various series.
They did show world-premier concept images from the Wolverine anime, including Logan, Yuriko, and Omega Red (Jeph: "Doesn't he look bad-ass?").
SCOOP: After the panel, while I was thanking Jeph Loeb for, well, basically being him, he said the four series all occur in one world, and the characters will show up in each others series. Teh shizzle - You read it here first.
And as a meta commentary, observing them the last few days, so many companies could learn so much from Marvel and execs like Loeb:
* How to create new expressions of an IP, authentic to the property, and authentic to the expression itself.
* How to tease and launch a new product - especially at Comic-Con.
* How to run a comic-con media reveal panel - gracefully handle technical challenges in stride, manage questions, and keep things moving.
* How to be confident in your art, and be cool, professional, pleasant, and personable, without revealing things they shouldn't, and without being douchey.
* More, but if I say it I'll look like I'm sucking up to the family, and/or I'll get myself trouble.
-30-
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