Jeph Loeb Discusses Developing More Adult-Oriented Animated Marvel Shows for Hulu That Push the Wall

Earlier this year it was announced that Marvel and Hulu were developing a series of animated shows that consist of Marvel’s Howard the Duck, Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., Marvel’s Hit-Monkey, and Marvel’s Tigra & Dazzler Show. Those will all lead up to a team-up special called Marvel’s The Offenders.

These shows will have more mature and adult-oriented content, and in a recent interview with Deadline, Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb teases the direction that they are taking as they develop these shows. He explains:

"I’m a huge Archer fan, and Dan Buckley, who’s the president of all things other than the studio here at Marvel, and I started talking about how we have this mutual love of animation and also pushing that wall. The idea of doing something that was more adult, some of which was started with the idea of doing Deadpool animated. What we really liked was the notion of putting together a group of titles that could then be a group, as we had done with Defenders."

Loeb went on to say:

"We just started looking through things that made us laugh, and you know Patton Oswalt playing M.O.D.O.K., Will and Josh, who had this take on Hit-Monkey, the idea of a monkey assassin just made us smile. When Chelsea Handler and Erica Rivinoja came in, and we started talking about how do we do what we sort of refer to as Laverne and Shirley in the Marvel Universe.

“When you put Tigra and Dazzler together and you know that Chelsea’s going to voice Tigra, you just know that’s going to be just fun, and then it was just inevitable that we were going to do Howard the Duck, and we just knew that the kind of Howard the Duck we wanted to do was not going to be a live-action guy in a suit or a CG creature, or whatever, we just wanted to do it as a straight-ahead, smart, funny, political…"

I’m looking forward to seeing how these shows turn out. I’m hoping that they deliver fun stories and great animation. Not like the kind of stuff that Marvel animation has been doing in recent years. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle these characters as they develop them in a more mature manner.

Here are the details that have been revealed for the shows so far. What are you most excited about with these shows being released?

Howard the Duck:

Marvel’s Howard The Duck is trapped in a world he never made, but America’s favorite fighting fowl hopes to return home with the help of his unstoppable gal pal Beverly before the evil Dr. Bong can turn him the crispiest dish on the menu. Writers Kevin Smith and Dave Willis will also executive produce along with Jeph Loeb.

M.O.D.O.K.:

Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. centers around an egomaniacal supervillain with a really big head and a really little body, who struggles to maintain control of his evil organization and his demanding family. Writers Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt will also executive produce along with Jeph Loeb.

Hit-Monkey:

Marvel’s Hit-Monkey tells the tale of a wronged Japanese snow monkey, mentored by the ghost of an American assassin, as he cuts a wide swath through the Tokyo underworld in this darkly cinematic and brutally funny revenge saga. Writers Josh Gordon and Will Speck will executive produce along with Jeph Loeb.

Tigra & Dazzler:

Marvel’s Tigra & Dazzler Show is a story about two woke superheroes and best friends, Tigra and Dazzler, as they fight for recognition among powered people who make up the eight million stories in Los Angeles. Writers Erica Rivinoja and Chelsea Handler serve as executive producers along with Jeph Loeb.

The Offenders:

Marvel’s The Offenders, is a story in which nobody asked them to – and we’d be better off if they didn’t – but MODOK, Dazzler, Tigra, Hit Monkey and Howard the Duck are all forced to team up in order to save the world and certain parts of the Universe. Jeph Loeb will executive produce.