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SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2010

COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: MARVEL ANIME

SAN DIEGO -- Marvel hosted the world premiere of the Iron Man anime TV series at Comic-Con International on Friday. Jeph Loeb, Marvel's head of television, announced that the show will air on G4.

"I can tell you this," Loeb said. "You know G4. They're going to let the world know we're there."

The series, along with three others focusing on Wolverine, the X-Men and Blade, will be produced by Madhouse, in Japanese with subtitles.

The Iron Man episode screened at the panel is called Enter Iron Man, and is set in Japan, where Tony Stark is talking with the Japanese people about the development of the Iron Man Dio armor, which he hopes to send into production soon. There is also a rumor in the air that Iron Man is retiring.

After the screening, the panel, moderated by Kristin Adams of G4, included Madhouse chief creator Masao Maruyama, John Rieber, head of programming at G4, and Loeb.

Highlights included:

* "The anime is going to live in its own kind of universe," Loeb said. "It isn't going to be anything that is radically different."

* Loeb also commented on the approach. "There was no point in making an Iron Man movie without doing it properly. You've already seen some of the stuff online for Thor, for Captain America. We always want to do it right. We always want to be true to the original characters. ... Madhouse is the best."

* "I'm sure all of you guys all have your own images of what Marvel should look like, and we have our own images," Maruyama said through an intepreter, explaining that Madhouse will find a meeting point between the two. "When we first created Japanese anime, what we did was we created anime based on things like Astro Boy, and back then the young people were happy with what they saw, but they wanted more and wanted something different. Fifteen years ago I was very young and wanted to see something different. We wanted to go in the style of American graphic novels, so back then myself and my friend created this genre of Japanese animation, anime. So Japanese anime, its roots, are really graphic novels of America. So this was not really any different to do in that sense. It was like the son returning to his father."

* "Our doing anime with Marvel doesn't mean we're going to have our characters wearing Samurai hairdo," Maruyama said. "When we do what we do, we're not doing something very different from what Marvel is doing."

* Rieber talked about what the series would mean for G4: "First, obviously you guys know when you heard this lineup, Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men and Blade, these are the most iconic superheroes that are out there, and what Marvel has done with them in so many different ways is phenomenal. For us to be the home to the next extension of where these characters are going to go is really phenomenal.

".G4, we're the only network that's live here from Comic-Con. We love everything about what goes on here. What we love is this culture. We love what Marvel speaks to this culture. ... Beginning with Tony Stark, to take his story in all new directions creatively, and to be the place where you guys see this is so phenomenal. ... We love that these characters and these franchises are going to go that direction, because as a network, we air an awful lot of stuff like Ninja Warrior that you wouldn't see in the United States otherwise.

"We're really one of the only networks that uses subtitles in any programming. We're really excited about this show because we think it really fits in with what we do."

* The Iron Man series will air in 2011. "We're going to work very closely with Marvel to look at the right time to premiere it and how to premiere it," Rieber said. "Of course, you're going to know about it before it airs. This is literally a huge leap forward for G4 in terms of our programming. ... Obviously animation is a very ambitious project. We're going to work very closely with Marvel, and we're going to get them on the air as soon as we can."







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