Marvel Studios are going all in on their upcoming slate of animated TV shows. A new featurette for Disney Plus showcases the MCU’s entire TV line-up for 2025. As well as highly anticipated live-action shows like Daredevil: Born Again and Wonder Man, the teaser also featured the upcoming animated shows, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Season 3 of What If…?, the long-awaited Marvel Zombies, and the brand-new Eyes of Wakanda. As well as giving fans their first official look at the shows, the featurette also unveiled their respective release dates.
Kicking off the animated slate is Season 3 of What If…? The popular animated anthology uses The Watcher to showcase alternate timeline stories where popular heroes swap places. Based on the comic book run of the same name, Season 3 is confirmed to feature Cowboy Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), a robot Captain America, and the beloved X-Men hero Storm. Full episode details have yet to be released. What If…? Season 3 releases on December 22, 2024.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will then kick off the new year. Originally titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year, the new series promises to take Peter Parker back to his roots. The show takes place in an alternate reality where Norman Osborn mentors Peter Parker as he becomes Spider-Man, instead of Tony Stark. The show features a voice cast of both MCU newcomers and established Marvel veterans. Hudson Thames will voice Peter Parker and Colman Domingo voices Norman Osborn. Meanwhile, Charlie Cox will voice Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio will voice Kingpin in the animated series, making their official jump from live-action to animation. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is scheduled for release on January 25.
Marvel Studios Should Take More Risks With Their Animated Projects
Then, Eyes of Wakanda and Marvel Zombies will round out the back half of 2025. Marvel Zombies, based on the comic of the same name, is set in an alternate timeline where a savage zombie plague infects the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the remaining heroes are forced to fight back. Meanwhile, Eyes of Wakanda is a mysterious new series set in the MCU’s Sacred Timeline. The show goes back in time to the early days of Wakanda, where four warriors are tasked with traveling the world to recover dangerous vibranium artifacts. Eyes of Wakanda debuts on August 6, 2025. Meanwhile, Marvel Zombies doesn’t have an exact release date, but is expected to infect Disney+ in October next year.
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Marvel Studios’ biggest achievement is kicking off the MCU, which has become the most profitable cinematic franchise of all-time. The old DCEU was frequently compared to the MCU, but could never live up to the same level of success. However, one area DC always beat Marvel in was animated movies and shows.
The new slate of animated Disney+ shows appears as though Marvel Studios are trying to turn the tide. One of the key selling points about an animated project set in an alternate universe is that it can feature any hero from the comics. The DC Animated Universe found its footing by (mostly) faithfully adapting beloved comic book storylines featuring dozens of heroes. The MCU has shied away from these kinds of adaptations, instead using its animated projects to tell unique, original stories. That’s not to say one concept is better than the other, but Marvel Studios needs to wholeheartedly commit to making their animated projects work, and the new slate looks like a bold step in the right direction.