Customer Reviews

The Marvel Superheroes '66 Collection

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3 star:		(4)
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I'm sure many of you that have navigated to this item are completely familiar with the program. It's very important before you buy this item that you realize that it is not a kids video. When this show was made in 1966, it was for kids. I watched in on the "Captain Satelitte" (Bob March) program on KTVU San Francisco on weekdays, and it was also on KCRA Sacramento on Saturday mornings. For anyone who was a kid in this era and was lucky enough to be age 8-12 in the mid-sixties, this DVD is for you. If you are a parent and are buying a DVD for your kids that are in the 8-12 year old range today, forget it. I have videotapes of all the episodes obtained at conventions and such and I can tell you from first-hand experience that modern kids don't like these.

The target audience for this DVD is or should be the kids of the 60's who grew up with these characters and want to see the old comic books brought to life. What these videos are, are the images from the actual silver-age Marvel comics of the 60's, crudly animated with over-the-top voice performances that bring the characters to life. The animation itself is simply static images of comic book pages with an occasional animated arm or lip movement and a lot of zooms and pans. They used the panels from the actual comic books to create the animation.

The artwork is classic Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan stuff. The voice actors did a great job with the dialogue and performed their lines in a way that must be considered the de-facto superhero standard because it was so comic-book like.

At this writing, the item has not been released and whether it will be released at all is in question. I'm hoping that someone associated with the project will read this review and take the time to present this item correctly into the marketplace. Please do not release and package this as a kiddie video.

This DVD set should be a "scholarly" reference set. There should be notes identifying all the voice talent and the artists and writers who created the original comics. The actual comic books and artists are easily recognizable in the episodes and so each episode should include the information about the comic where the story was first told. Since the audience is the grown-up boomers, this is the best way to get them to buy. That is what they want I guarantee it.

There was no set broadcast episode order. KTVU showed one segment at a time and you had to wait till the next day to get the next part of the story. KCRA showed an entire three segment arc in one broadcast. When I watched the show on KCRA, there was an opening theme song, "The Merry Marvel Marching Society" and end-title song and credits. Each second and third segment had a re-cap of the story.

As far as I know, the opening and closing titles have never been shown on TV again since the 1960's. All you get now are the individual segments and usually the re-caps are edited out or the three segments are edited together into one. Please don't cut this stuff up to make it "easier to watch." Comic fans want the originals and don't like such "improvments." So, if the elements are available, please give us the original "Marvel Super Heroes" program with opening and end titles and all the recaps. Put the shows in comic-book chronological order and include as far as possible the creative credits in the liner notes.

If a DVD box set of this type is produced, it will be purchased and hoarded by every collector and sold in every comic book shop in the land and at every convention every year forever. The silver age comics are the gold standard and are still hoarded and fervently collected. If you guys produce another kiddie video a few die-hards will buy it, but it won't have any legs and will go out of print for lack of sales just like all the other times these videos were released as kiddie video. Learn the lesson and do it right. I'm telling you who your customer is. Will anyone listen to the customer? Market this to an adult audience this time.

This will be a fun series to watch again. Admittedly the animation is very sparse but it maintains the feel of reading the comics all over again which is what Stan Lee intended (along with no doubt, a sparse budget!)...there were 5 Super Heroes highlighted in this series:
1. Captain America, who has The Red Skull as his main antagonist.
2. Hulk, who frequently battles The Leader.
3. Iron Man and his early years foe, The Mandarin.
4. Thor and his evil brother Loki.
5. Sub-Mariner who was basically angry at everybody.

The show aired in early 1966 and was cancelled after one season, but there were enough cartoons made to make this set worth while. Unlike the later seasons of the 60's Spiderman, when Ralph Bakshi turned the Web Slingers adventures into a drug induced bizzaro fest, the Marvel Super Hero series remained faithful to its source...Just a reminder that you will not be witnessing classic animation in these toons (no MTV Digital Spiderman here) but you will find much to enjoy.... whether you are a baby boomer 40 year old, a teen wanting to experience a more simpler time in comic book storytelling, or a comic book buff who wants to recount how the origins and early plots of these characters developed you will be pleased viewing the Marvel Super Hero Set...recommended without reservation....

Wow...full re-wind to the early 1970's when these used to be on everyday after school. A different character was featured each day with a lineup of Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, Sub-mariner, and Thor. This was not animation per se. What Marvel did was use panel art from actual comics, transferred the are onto cels, and give them some slight animated movement. They then added in voice actors and sound effects. What it basically turned out to be was an animated comic book which was kind of cool because it brought a lot of classic silver age comics to life...more or less. Each character eneded up with 13 complete shows so repetitions were quite plentiful, of course.

Captain America would feature stories including Cap's origin retold from Tales of Suspense, The origin of Caps arch-enemy the Red Skull, And cap battling other villains such as Baron Zemo, The Masters of Evil, The Super Adaptoid, The Swordsman, and one of my favorite stories featuring the Sleeper Robots of the Red Skull.

The Hulk (which featured EASILY the catchiest theme song of the bunch) would feature his origin (although curiously it was not the first episode) and also the hulk battling villains like The Leader, The Gorgon, The Abomination, and also feature the Hulk's breakup with the Avengers.

Iron Man had some of the best villains in my humble opinion including other guys in suits of armore like the Crimson Dynamo, and the Titanium Man. Also included on the villain list is the yellow menace "The Mandarin", The Moleman, and would include appearances by Hawkeye.

The Submariner was always my least favorite on account of he was more villain than here to me. I never really liked the water-based characters like him and Aquaman. Typically the stories involved Atlantis being in danger of destruction. There was a very good story featuring Doctor Doom, too.

Thor was always my favorite. Transformed from a lame doctor into the God of Thunder, thor battled the most powerful foes like the Enchantress, the Executioner, Loki, The Absorbing Man, The Destoyer, and featured a great adaption of "Whom the Gods would Destroy" from Journey into Myster #126. Thor would also meet Hecules as well.

As archaic as the animation may be this is still a fantastic trip back in time to the glorious silver age of comics. Hey, the DVD will certainly be cheaper than trying to track down all the comics. Great Stuff!

When I saw these as a kid I knew that being a Marvel comic reader (as opposed to DC) was now officially okay. I recognized instantly (you will too) that the animation was lousy. However, even lousy animation with Marvel stories was better than the cheesy Batman TV show. Looking back at these (I have some of these on video), my opinion hasn't changed. The transition from comic book to cartoon is rough (Thor's melodramatic speeches, for example) don't translate well. However, when we get Kirby artwork on the TV screen, now THAT counts for something, even if the "animators" just move a still shot across the screen.

Who would like this? Those of us who still enjoy a nostalgic trip down memory lane and collectors of Silver Age comics. Young children who have not become jaded by modern animation techniques might be enthralled by the stories themselves. Marvel has recently tried to recapture the younger crowd with its Marvel Age line of comics--good luck to them. It would be nice to see young people reading again. It's become a lost skill in our video-driven age.

As others have said about this coming release--please do it right!

No, these shows aren't "animated" in the traditional sense -- they are similar to the old CLUTCH CARGO tv show, an old-time radio drama combined with COMIC BOOK visuals. I would be very disappointed if Disney (how the hell did THEY get the license to Marvel's animated product? What about FOX? Or SONY?) did not release this, but seeing as how I just stumbled across this listing, and knowing the "wisdom" of DisneyCorp as I do, it wouldn't surprise me. If anyone at Disney Video is reading this, please regard this as a plea to reconsider, and market this accordingly -- to middle-age comic book freaks, the kind that will gladly pay $50 a pop for Marvel's own hardcover reprints of their classic Silver Age comics (by and large, the very same stories featured in many of these 'toons). If Disney was smart, they would package and market this thing to resemble the "Marvel Masterworks" hardcover collection of reprints. Good quality remastered prints of the 'toons with some introductory remarks for each character's series by Stan Lee. Perhaps include some "bonus" materials, like a booklet containing original ads from the '60s Marvel comics hyping the series, along with various "Bullpen Bulletin" ITEM!s plugging the show. Maybe even include a reproduction of the original Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club kits, just to make this a Silver Age Marvel fanboy's droolworthy, must-have double-bagged item. Of course, it goes without saying that the shows should be arranged in chronological order, and the original comics' issue numbers and dates, on which the episodes were based, be noted in the liner notes. Sadly, I dispair of it ever happening. But as another commenter noted, if they did it right and marketed it right, it would sell forever in comic book shops across the land. Ahh, well.

I'm ready for this one to be released. I remember being 7 or 8 years old and watching it everyday on Channel 17; here in Nashville, Tenessess. I remember the theme songs to all of the superheroes of The Hulk, Captian America, Sub-Mariner and Iron-Man. This is good, because I tell my children right now; you don't know cartoons and superheroes; the way I know do. And at that time, we all want to be these superheroes when we played outside and just for a moment, when we were watching these REAL cartoons on our black and white television sets in the mid-70's; our imagination took us there for that small moment.

Yes I remember this tv series, I was 12 at the time. And I
could hardly wait to watch it every eveing a 6:30 pm.
As the first reviewer stated, These are not for kids of today's
High tech, live-action, Loud noise kid shows. They are more for
kids of my generation (45-50),who have read the comics, and got into the Marvel comic universe. I would highly recomend this set for old folks like me. So this set of dvds should be marketed more toward an older buyer like myself.
But at a much lower price. 50 bucks for Star Wars dvds I can see, but 53 dollars for a 50 year old cartoon series? No way!

I remember sitting in front of the TV in pajamas every Sunday at 6:30 in the morning with my brother watching these "cartoons". They were great then, and even better now! I saw the Submariner episode from a VHS recently... outstanding!!! I have always loved the voiceovers, the language in the Submariner and Thor shows. This series is a true classic that any boy who watched TV in the mid 60s will remember and want to own. Captain America and Buckey! The Mighty Thor! Prince Namor the Submariner! The Hulk! Tony Stark, Ironman!

I watched this show every chance I had when I was a wee lad. These cartoons were good fun and made many a Marvel Comics fan in their day. Because they were geared toward young viewers, unlike later attempts to "darken" these comic characters for young adult audiences, these cartoons are more suitable for kids than ever, although some children may not like the older animation style. The animation is not expensive or top-notch, nor was it when these were new. Like most cartoons made for TV then and now, the animation was not beautifully done to save money. However, these shows are great fun and you can watch and share them with your children without suitability issues. For kids interested in TV history or just curious about what older shows were like, these cartoons are great fun. My son loved seeing the old Spiderman cartoons, Speed Racer and other old shows I watched when I was his age now that we can get them on DVD. We've also enjoyed many shows and films made before both our times that are now available on DVD or VHS, like Little Rascals and Space Patrol. If you and your children enjoy exploring older shows together and like comic book heroes then this set will be much enjoyed. If you saw these shows when you were younger, there's plenty of nostalgia value in them as well. These will surely be fun for casual comic book fans and many hard-core fanatics as well. Recommended.

I love these old cartoons, but I have recently found out (from www.tvshowsondvd.com) that this will not be released and that the Fantastic Four cartoon from 1994 will be in it's stead. Is anyone else as annoyed as me?