Disney’s XD channel, their platform for releasing animated content aimed at a pre and early teenage audience, has released their first Marvel’s Ant-Man short. The episode is another example of the blossoming partnership between Marvel and Disney after the Mouse House’s purchase of the Marvel Entertainment Company in 2009. As a result of that deal, Marvel fans have seen an increase in their favorite superheroes in terms of merchandise, theme park presence and crucially, content aimed at a younger audience.
As part of their online Marvel Superheroes programming, Disney XD announced that a series of animated Ant-Man adventures were being produced by Passion Pictures, the company also responsible for the Rocket and Groot animated Guardians of the Galaxy miniseries. The Ant-Man series will have a total of six episodes, each running at roughly only two minutes or so and will focus on the Scott Lang incarnation of the character that was made popular by Paul Rudd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Disney XD has now made the first episode of the series available on their YouTube channel. Titled ‘Science Fair’, the episode sees Lang attending the titular event at his daughter’s school. Predictably, things don’t go to plan and after he forgets to put the baking soda into his kid’s model volcano, Scott transforms into Ant-Man to correct his mistake… just as Yellowjacket attacks.
Despite its brevity, the episode is an entertaining offering that captures the humor and light-hearted nature of the character perfectly while also featuring some fun size-altering hi-jinks involving a pet rodent and some cheese. Notably, the art style is a retro throwback to the franchise’s early comic book roots, ensuring that die hard Ant-Man fans will also get a kick out of this segment.
Despite perhaps being aimed at a different audience than the MCU version of the character, the miniseries certainly appears to have merit judging by the debut episode. It’s also important to remember that attracting the next generation of Marvel-heads is vital for the company’s continued success and the fact that characters previously only known in comic book circles are now becoming household names is something to be celebrated in itself.
For some, of course, this online miniseries is unlikely to temper the anticipation surrounding the release of Ant-Man’s next big screen adventure, Ant-Man and the Wasp. The movie is currently in the pre-production stages and promises an increased role for Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne who’ll finally be suiting up as classic Marvel character, The Wasp.
Marvel’s Ant-Man continues with ‘Alien Invasion’ and ‘Soup Time’ on June 10th.
Source: Disney XD
