Marvel Rising: Disney To Launch New Animated Film Franchise In 2018

Could Marvel finally be mounting a challenge to DC animation?

Dec 8, 2017 December 8th, 2017

Although DC have been the kings of the animated realm for some time now (two decades, depending on who you ask), Marvel could be set to mount a genuine challenge to their title. Marvel Rising - a new animated franchise - will be the vehicle to accomplish that task.

Centred around the younger generation of Marvel heroes, Rising will be women-led and diverse from top to bottom, featuring the likes of Spider-Gwen (voiced by Dove Cameron), Carol Danvers (Kim Raver), Patriot (Kamil McFadden), and Ms. Marvel (Kathreen Khavari), as they team up to do some super-heroics. Chloe Bennet also reprises her role as Daisy Johnson from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Six four-minute shorts focusing on Spider-Gwen (going by the name of Ghost-Spider) will be released in the run-up to the release of a full-length animated film, called Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors, which will premier in 2018. The trailer is certainly neat and, while it's no Infinity War, Rising counts as yet another reason to be excited for Marvel in the coming year.

Best of all, each and every short will be released for free on the Marvel HQ YouTube channel, meaning that pretty much anyone with a internet connection will be able to watch the series (again, for free), before the full feature releases later in the year.

In any case, it's fantastic to see Marvel spotlight their newer characters. Each and every member of the Rising group have established themselves as fan-favourites in recent years, and while they're unlikely to get films of their own (bar the Captain), popping up on animation is sure to help.

How do you feel about Marvel Rising? Are you excited? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

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Ewan Paterson

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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