When Marvel’s recent restructuring made Kevin Feige the head guy for all of Marvel Studios, including TV, it quickly became clear that no project was safe. Runaways, Cloak & Dagger, both popular live-action series in their own right, were brought to an end and I think we’ve been waiting to see if the same would happen to the four animated shows greenlit for Hulu just last year. Well, we’re starting to see the ax fall on them now.
It’s been confirmed to Newsarama that Hulu animated shows Howard the Duck and the troubled Tigra & Dazzler have been canceled by Marvel. Both series have some big names attached, which makes this a little surprising. Kevin Smith was acting as writer/exec-producer on Howard the Duck, and revealed the series’ cancellation himself…
“I got a text from [fellow executive producer] Dave Willis in the morning saying, ‘We got Tigra and Dazzler’d,'” Smith said. “I called him and asked ‘Is that what I think that means?’ And Dave said he had just got the word that there will be no Howard the Duck show. The only explanation was ‘We have no plans for this character at this time,’.”
Getting “Tigra & Dazzler’d” is in reference to the late December story which saw that show’s entire writing staff fired and the show set back to square one. At the time, an entirely new creative team was to be hired but that has now changed. The series is now off the books for Marvel.
Development continues on the two remaining series, Hit-Monkey and M.O.D.O.K., the latter which just revealed its full cast led by Patton Oswalt. Presumably, they will continue forward and actually debut this year, but at this rate would anybody be surprised if both are canned tomorrow? This should also signal the end of The Offenders, a big crossover effort between all four series.
