San Diego Comic-Con 2011

Marvel Television Presents: Anime on G4

The first of two Marvel Presents panels kicked off Friday afternoon, the first focused solely on their four anime properties, all collaborations with Studio Madhouse. Hosted by producer Jeph Loeb, the panel marked the premiere of a later episode of Wolverine, featuring his fight with Omega Red. Iron Man and Wolverine, the first two Marvel anime series to air in the US, will have their American premiere a week from tonight on G4 at 11PM in a one-hour block. Tony Stark will be voiced by Heroes actor Adrian Pasdar, while his other co-star on the series Milo Ventimiglia will voice Logan on Wolverine. Pasdar will also be reprising his role as Tony Stark in Marvel's upcoming American cartoon, Ultimate Spiderman, a title that Marvel will talk more about at their panel tomorrow.

Loeb reminded the audience that, “these are actual Marvel characters. They're not just anime versions of them, even though they have that look.” He also announced that the upcoming X-Men Anime will mostly focus on the character of Cyclops, who will be played by Scott Porter, best known for his roles on Friday Night Lights and Caprica. The series, along with Blade, will be shown later this year.

Attendees got the chance to watch part of the first episode of the X-Men dub, which starts with the rise of Dark Phoenix. Although the series will focus primarily on Cyclops, other main X-Men characters include Storm, Wolverine, Beast, and Professor X. Emma Frost also makes an appearance early in the episode, and from the reference to Mastermind, it seems as though the series will be following the Dark Phoenix saga, a favorite amongst fans of the X-Men comics. Loeb pointed out that the look and feel of the anime will be similar to that of Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Notably, though, Astonishing X-Men didn't make reference to Dark Phoenix or Mastermind, so the similarities may just be in the visuals and main cast.

Afterwards, the panel premiered one of the later episodes of Wolverine, where he fights Omega Red, the villain alter-ego of Arkady Rossovich. The character was introduced in 1992, and remains one of fandom's most popular comic book villains.