Look out Spidey. There are a new trio of Marvel superheroes featuring in their own animated series for young viewers. Marvel’s Iron Man and His Awesome Friends is set to arrive on Disney Jr. and Disney+ next week.
The story follows best friends and super geniuses Tony Stark, Riri Williams, and Amadeus Cho as they work together to help solve problems, whether they be big or small, in their city. Although the trio are pretty good problem solvers on their own, it doesn’t hurt to have Iron Suits that can fly and have enhanced strength.
We recently spoke to executive producer Sean Coyle and co-executive producer and story editor James Eason-Garcia about the show. Obviously Spidey and His Amazing Friends helped pave the way for Marvel’s Iron Man and His Awesome Friends.
“We talk about this internally a lot,” Coyle said. “Our supervising director, an awesome mega talented guy Mike Dowding, sort of coined the phrase that we repeat a lot where we say Spidey swung so that Iron Man could fly. The success of Spidey and that awesome partnership with the Disney Junior team and the Marvel team, it was kind of a no brainer that the time was now to expand that Marvel universe and introduce some new characters.”
He continued, “It’s been an awesome experience. A lot of the messages from Spidey that carry over. Those same themes about teamwork and the celebration of friendship. Definitely, the message of it’s the character inside the suit that makes the hero. Our characters have super suits that can do just about anything…But it’s really the kid inside that is the hero. We want audiences to respond to that and to understand that by watching this show, picking up on some of these stories and some of these messages, being able to [say] I can do that. I can make my world, even if it’s just a small world, I can make my world a better place like these heroes that I love so much.”
Despite the similarities between Spidey and Iron Man and His Awesome Friends, they both seem to take place in their own corners. Especially since an adult version of Tony Stark appeared in the former. However, that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be shared universe or any crossover between them down the line.
Eason-Garcia said, “We always like to say the main MCU universe is 616. We like to say our universe is 123ABC because it’s for preschoolers, right? We can pick and choose what works for us and what’s really going to appeal with our audience and where that fun is going to be.”
“We don’t want to limit ourselves to the point where the show feels so different, that you couldn’t believe that someone from Iron Man and His Awesome Friends could wander into Manhattan one day or that characters from Spidey’s show might wander into our west coast setting one day,” Coyle added. “Like with a lot of the Marvel Universe stuff, a lot of those movies have their own character and own unique flavor, but there is kind of this constant. An underlying connection where you can believe that these characters all know each other and can appear, if they ever needed to, in each others show or movie or whatever the case may be.”
Both Coyle and Eason-Garcia can’t wait for people to watch Iron Man and His Awesome Friends. Eason-Garcia teased a visit to Wakanda early in the season as a high point, but when it comes down to it, he just loves working with the different superheroes.
“It’s the characters that I’m most excited about,” he said. “It’s the combinations of characters. When we get Black Panther and Iron Hulk doing a really cool move together or Cap and Iron Man using repulsers and shields to save the day. It’s that really fun connection of different characters.”
Coyle seconded his appreciation for the different characters, but also spoke on a more general note. “For me, I’m just excited about people falling in love with our characters, honestly…There is so much fun stuff coming your way. There is so much fun and cool and interesting stuff. Really, what we’re doing is we’re making older siblings super jealous that their younger siblings are watching way cooler stuff than they are. It’s Marvel. It’s heroes. It’s superheroes doing superhero things. It’s awesome characters. I can’t wait for audiences to just fall in love.”
Marvel’s Iron Man and His Awesome Friends premieres August 11 on Disney Jr. and Disney Channel with the first 10 episodes made available on Disney+ on August 12.
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