Marvel Comics has long had a large stable of diverse heroes on its roster. Still, when it comes to the screen, the focus has been on all publishing house’s long list of white dudes. Sure, there have been notable recent exceptions, like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Black Panther, but the MCU could still stand to up the ante on representation. But now, the folks at Marvel are looking to give their more diverse heroes a shot at the spotlight with a new animated film coming from Marvel Television in 2018.
Called Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors, this will be a new animation franchise starring diverse heroes–Spider-Gwen, Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, Quake, Inferno, America Chavez, Patriot, Captain Marvel, and newly named Inhuman called Exile. With this team line-up, we get six women, an black hero, an Asian woman, two Latinx characters, a Muslim woman, and an LGBT hero. You can check out a behind-the-scenes making of video down below:
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors will first launch with six digital shorts starring Spider-Gwen—rather, Ghost-Spider, as she’ll be referred to in this canon. Although no real reason was given for the name change, I suppose the name “Spider-Gwen” is inherently kind of silly. (It’s not like Spider-Man is “Spider-Peter,” right?) The film will arrive after the shorts, sometime later in 2018.
Marvel has hired an impressive voice cast for the series, including Kathreen Khavari, who returns to voice Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, after playing the role in the animated series Avengers: Secret Wars. Actress Chloe Bennett of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will play a younger version of her live-action character Quake, while Milana Vantrub will be voicing Squirrel Girl, along with playing her in the upcoming New Warriors live action series, which is also set to premiere next year.
Dove Cameron is providing the voice of Gwen Stacy, while Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey will be voicing Inferno, the former protagonist of the Marvel Comics series Inhuman. Cierra Ramirez is Miss America Chavez, Marvel’s first Latino-American LGBT character, while Kamil McFadden stars as former Young Avengers member Patriot. X-Men: Days of Future Past star Booboo Stewart will provide the voice for Exile. Rounding out the cast is Kim Raver as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, Dee Baker as Tippy Toe the Squirrel and Lockjaw the Dog, and another Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star, Ming-Na Wen as the villainous Hala.
Will this line-up see life beyond the small screen? Marvel Phase IV anyone? Now wouldn’t that be something?
What do you think of this new team? Be sure to let us know down below in the comments.
Images: Marvel
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