After the Marvel Animation panel at Comic-Con 2009, I was overwhelmed with excitement about the Marvel Anime series. Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men and Blade all done up with stunning art and stories by my all-time favorite writer, Warren Ellis. Eff yeah! After seeing the first episode of the Iron Man anime this year, my excitement largely trickled away.

The first episode (I was under the assumption that the Marvel Anime series was going to be four movies) introduced an anime version of Tony Stark who had decided to hang up his iconic helmet and focus on the expansion of Stark Enterprises in Japan. The main focus of this seems to be installing his physics-raping unlimited power hubs and producing a new fleet of IronMen. He flirts with the local ladies, makes witty comments and all around gets his Tony Stark on. The art and animation is, at times, absolutely stunning but, in my opinion, does not make up for the awkward, slow pacing of the episode. The pilot episode seemed like a twenty minute establishing shot closing with a 2 minute, action-packed crescendo.

The panel included Masao Maryuama, Chief Creative Officer of Madhouse Studios (creators of Ninja Scroll, Trigun, and Gungrave), Jeph Loeb, Executive Producer and Head of Marvel TV, John Riever, Senior VP of programming and Production at G4 and Kristin Adams, one of those female G4 hosts that has to settle with pretending to know/care about geek pop culture to stay involved with some aspect of show business. The shows will be Japanese interpretations of American characters targeted towards Japenese audiences and later subbed or dubbed (still undecided) for American viewers on G4 (got it?). Masao Maryuama discussed (via translator) that Japanese anime is largely influenced by American graphic novels and how interpreting these characters is “like the sun returning to his father”. Despite having completed Japenese episodes, there is no firm release date for the Marvel Anime series in the United States, but the G4 staff hinted at a Spring 2011 launch for the launch of Iron Man, which will be the first of the four to premier.

Seriously, dude, don't leave ComicsOnline, we got all sorts of Comic-Con 2010 coverage.