10 Best Marvel Cartoons Of All Time, Ranked

Broadly speaking, Marvel doesn't get nearly enough credit for its work in animation. The films in the "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" series certainly enjoy widespread critical acclaim, so much so that they make a compelling argument for animation as the superior medium for comic book adaptations. But when it comes to other projects based on stories from the pages of Marvel Comics, the praise is quieter than what you'll hear heaped upon the likes of Cartoon Network's boundary-pushing "Teen Titans" and "Young Justice," the 2000s "Justice League" series, HBO Max's "Harley Quinn," and, of course, the peerless "Batman: The Animated Series."

Perhaps DC Comics truly does produce the best animated TV shows in the superhero genre. However, you'd have to consider the 10 greatest Marvel cartoons of all time before coming to that conclusion. From time-tested classics to forgotten gems, the brand's body of work is more diverse, ambitious, and timeless than you might remember. And with Disney+ and Marvel Studios teaming up to produce bold new adaptations of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, these shows prove they have the potential to reach heights the Dark Knight could only dream of.

"Iron Man: Armored Adventures" is admittedly a bit of an odd TV show to recommend to fans of the titular character, who has basically been entirely defined by Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This complete re-imagining of Tony Stark's origin story is far from what you'd expect, but that's part of what makes it so memorable.

Gone is the billionaire playboy philanthropist of the MCU. Instead, Nicktoons introduces audiences to a teenage version of Tony Stark (Adrian Petriw), a tragic, relatable hero in the same vein as Peter Parker. After surviving a horrific plane crash — which kills his father — thanks only to an experimental suit of armor he had been tinkering with, Tony is inspired to use his invention to save lives. He does this while maintaining a secret identity (a notable departure from the public celebrity enjoyed by Downey's Stark) and attending the advanced Tomorrow Academy high school with his close friends Rhodey (Daniel Bacon), Pepper Potts (Anna Cummer), and Gene Khan (Vincent Tong). Gene's friendship with Tony in particular is an especially exciting wrinkle unique to this take on "Iron Man," as Gene — a tragic figure himself who mirrors Tony's own character arc throughout the series — is secretly the powerful supervillain The Mandarin.

"Iron Man: Armored Adventures" was a massive deal for Nickelodeon when it debuted in 2009, and was even retrospectively included in TV Guide's Top 60 cartoons of all time in 2013. Looking back on it today, its ambitious seasonal storytelling, Iron Man-meets-Spider-Man narrative formula, and striking animation style will excite any longtime Marvel fans interested in a fresh take on the MCU's golden boy.

After the successful 2025 release of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," audiences at large are broadly aware of the Silver Surfer. And yet, despite the film representing the character's second adaptation in a popular mainstream superhero blockbuster, he remains underutilized as a supporting player, his singularly dazzling cosmic adventures never explored — except in the eponymous 1998 animated series.

Originally airing on Fox Kids for just a single 13-episode season, "Silver Surfer" was one of many hidden gems newer Marvel fans got to discover through Disney+. It takes viewers back to the very beginning of the character's journey: To save his planet from imminent consumption by the fearsome Galactus (James Blendick), Norrin Radd (an exceptional Paul Essiembre) sacrifices his freedom, his memory, and his humanity to become a nomadic herald for the planet-destroyer. But when intervening cosmic forces (including none other than the Mad Titan Thanos himself) restore the Surfer's mind, he begins a tragic yet thrilling odyssey to find his way back to his lost home and his grieving lover (Camilla Scott).

Brilliant Homeric framing aside, "Silver Surfer" is a feast for the eyes, a series most deserving of being praised as a comic book brought to life. It rarely shows its age despite an ambitious animation style, immersing viewers in the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe that the brand seldom embraces.

Created by A.C. Bradley, Disney+'s "What If...?" gave fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe what they had been begging for after "Avengers: Endgame" wrapped up the Infinity Saga. Films and series introducing the yet-to-be-named Multiverse Saga struggled against the constraints of continuity, trying largely in vain to offer standalone stories that were neither compelling enough on their own to entice new fans nor surprising or narratively progressive enough to satisfy old ones.

As this trend began to quietly erode the vast fanbase Marvel Studios once enjoyed (and is presently trying to win back), "What If...?" was the only series that successfully pulled off what every other Marvel project was attempting. By adopting the anthology format and taking each story to the edges of the Marvel Multiverse, newer viewers barely needed to see the last episode — much less the last decade of MCU content — to enjoy a breezy animated adventure with recognizable characters and voice actors (though some context is needed for those climactic season finales).

Especially in the first season, episodes like "What If... Zombies?!" and Chadwick Boseman's perfect yet unintended final performance as T'Challa (for which Boseman earned a posthumous Emmy Award) offered even the most casual superhero fan something appetizing. At the same time, premises that dug into overlooked MCU lore — a fateful partnership between defense contractor Tony Stark and hardened soldier Erik Killmonger; the assembling of a hypothetical '80s Avengers line-up to fight a young Peter Quill; a crossover between the Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier — offered longtime fans the kind of stories they'd theorize about but never expected to see. Even if it suffered a steep decline overall by its third and final season, Marvel's "What If...?" was a bold and necessary step toward a better MCU.

It may look like an overextended "Robot Chicken" sketch (which may actually be a valid selling point for a lot of readers), but it would be unwise to underestimate Marvel's "M.O.D.O.K." Starring Patton Oswalt (a well-known comic book fan himself, who created the series with writer Jordan Blum) as the titular character, this stop-motion animated series puts a mature and subversive spin on one of Marvel's most mocked supervillains.

The show's inherent playful absurdity and action-figure-like presentation lend themselves perfectly to a premise that's simultaneously as lively and outlandish as a comic book and as hilariously banal as a family dramedy. Oswalt's character is still a super-intelligent flying head with tiny arms and legs, whose strained command of the malevolent scientific cult A.I.M. allows him to go toe-to-toe with such recognizable heroes as Iron Man (voiced here by Jon Hamm) in large-scale battles. At the same time, the series also imagines him as an expectedly horrible father and husband, emotionally manipulative and neglectful of his wife Jodie (Aimee Garcia) and barely present in the lives of their children (Ben Schwartz and Melissa Fumero).

At the heart (or, perhaps more appropriately, "head") of this offbeat and darkly comedic series is a jarringly psychological and empathetic story about obsession, personal failure, and family. It's a slower burn than one might hope for from a program that's otherwise a superhero action comedy, but — as M.O.D.O.K. himself might say under different circumstances — the ultimate execution is well worth waiting for.

Similar to "Iron Man: Armored Adventures," "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" is almost even more fun to watch if you're already familiar with the character's tried and true story beats, especially how they're portrayed in the MCU. This Disney+ series isn't an entire rewrite of Peter Parker's origin, nor is it really an extrapolation on what was seen in Tom Holland and Jon Watts' "Spider-Man: Homecoming" trilogy, but rather a smart and quietly audacious remix seemingly made for fans who have been dying to see the webhead's world get a little weirder.

Peter Parker (voiced by "What If...?" Spider-Man Hudson Thames) is still that same well-meaning, good-hearted nerd who gains spectacular spider-powers by chance — though this time as collateral damage while witnessing a battle between Doctor Strange (Robin Atkin Downes) and a symbiote. Things only get stranger from there, as Peter's heroism attracts the attention of an unexpected mentor: Colman Domingo's Norman Osborn. With Oscorp's resources and its CEO's ruthlessness behind him, Peter finds himself on the front lines of a war against super-powered criminals (many of whom are enhanced by a mysterious technological benefactor).

Given how new the series is — it just debuted in January 2025 — we don't want to spoil all the twists that keep the show engaging despite its familiar setting. Seeing what characters appear and how the series has chosen to reinvent them makes up much of the fun of watching "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" for the first time. Even on repeat viewings, however, powerful voice performances, gorgeous animation, and a surprising amount of edge keep us webbed to our seats.

Violent, hilarious, and defiantly hard to categorize, Marvel's "Hit-Monkey" might just be the strangest show on this list — and we'd argue it's all the better for it. Counter to the brand's normal animated programming, this Hulu series (which debuted in the fall of 2021) ditched the capes and tights to focus on a real but oft-forgotten Marvel character who can't really be called a superhero at all. 

The titular assassin (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) is a normal, if peculiarly vicious, Japanese primate who forms a supernatural bond with an amoral American hitman (Jason Sudeikis) just before the latter's death. Spiritually bound to his ghost like a haunted mentee, the monkey embarks on a vengeful journey that tests the limits of his morality in surprisingly grim ways. It may be hard to imagine the tonal shift between gleeful violence and somber introspection working as well as it does given the show's premise and star, but smart writing and a killer supporting cast (including Olivia Munn and George Takei) keep "Hit-Monkey" on target.

Sadly, "Hit-Monkey" was part of the same abandoned Marvel Television initiative that brought us "M.O.D.O.K.," both series meant to build toward a team-up franchise called "The Offenders" (as if the company hadn't learned its lesson with Netflix's disastrous "Defenders" project a few years earlier). Marvel Television as a production company no longer exists as a separate entity from Marvel Studios, a consolidation that coincided with the studios' shift toward creating series within (or directly adjacent to) the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is all to say that, though "Hit-Monkey" has yet to be formally cancelled in the wake of its second outing in 2024, he's one of several Marvel TV characters from this era that we don't expect to ever see again.

While "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" gets a lot of mileage out of rethinking the usual supporting cast of a "Spider-Man" series, "The Spectacular Spider-Man" deserves more credit than it gets for how cohesively it revived both his closest friends and greatest enemies from the comics. Released in the late 2000s (in the twilight of the Sam Raimi era of the films), this series from Victor Cook and Greg Weisman is still so beloved by fans that it got thwipped into "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" in 2023.

The lasting magic of "The Spectacular Spider-Man" is owed in large part to its ability to get the audience invested not just in Peter Parker (Josh Keaton), but the web of people in his young life. The series wastes no time building up and connecting characters like Eddie Brock (in this iteration a childhood friend of Peter's, voiced by Ben Diskin), Dr. Connors (Dee Bradley Baker), Flint Marko (John DiMaggio), and the Osborns, allowing them to develop gradually into the supervillains fans recognize them as over the course of the first season. This creates an overarching tension that feels engaging and rewarding for dedicated fans of the series, especially since it's balanced with lighter, yet no less compelling drama in Peter's personal life that also unfolds patiently.

With how consistently solid and mature the writing is (reminiscent of Weisman's later work on "Young Justice," in terms of understanding the target audience without talking down to it), one could argue that "The Spectacular Spider-Man" deserves an even higher spot on this list. Unfortunately, Disney XD canceled the series after its second season, leaving many plotlines unfinished and ultimately unsatisfying.

Of course, any list of Marvel cartoons wouldn't be complete without the X-Men. And while what is undeniably the best of these series is understandably expected to feature much higher, we'd be remiss not to note its successor that — though not quite superior — is commonly and unfortunately overshadowed.

Released on Kids' WB in the early 2000s, "X-Men: Evolution" felt like a necessary balance to what Fox was doing with these characters in the films at the same time. The leading mutants of the show were almost all of high school age, giving them more room to grow than the stoic, adult heroes of the "X-Men" movies, as well as conflicts unique to the ensemble of the preceding animated series. Rogue (Meghan Black), Cyclops (Kirby Morrow), Jean Grey (Venus Terzo), and Kitty Pryde (Maggie Blue O'Hara) began their stories by splitting time between training at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and attending a normal, human high school nearby. This dichotomy between the unforgiving human world and the sheltered halls of the X-Mansion allowed "X-Men: Evolution" to novelly expose its characters to injustice at a vulnerable, revealing point in their character development.

This isn't to say that "X-Men: Evolution" never grew up. The teens — alongside their adult mentors Professor X (David Kaye), Wolverine (Scott McNeil), and Storm (Kirsten Williamson) — regularly stood up to existential foes like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the all-powerful Apocalypse. Once the mutants were exposed to the public, their troubles followed them wherever they went, taking the form of both epic super-powered brawls and thoughtful ideological conflicts.

Spider-Man has had an appropriately amazing track record for Marvel TV. Even those shows that didn't make the final cut for this list are worth mentioning. The classic, frequently meme'd '60s series, the Sam Raimi-adjacent series from 2003 (featuring Neil Patrick Harris), and Disney XD's "Ultimate Spider-Man" from the 2010s are individually entertaining interpretations of Marvel's most beloved superhero. But when it comes to crowning one the definitive work of web-slinging art, none can compare to "Spider-Man: The Animated Series."

Released from 1994 to 1998 on Fox Kids, the series was a near-perfect translation of classic "Spider-Man" comic books to screen in terms of tone, visual storytelling, and (for the most part) characterization. This was especially true for Peter Parker, voiced by the irreplaceable Christopher Daniel Barnes, whose mature, incorruptible, and quippy portrayal of the webhead remains distinct in the auditory memories of those who grew up watching the show.

It isn't always talked about as highly as other '90s superhero cartoons, namely "Batman: The Animated Series" and our admittedly uncontroversial choice for the No. 1 spot on this list (keep scrolling). Though later seasons became a bit unwieldy (and liberal with the reinventions of certain iconic villains), "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" never lost the charm of its light-hearted thrills, nor could even its worst moments undermine its best. The three-part "Alien Costume" arc is still one of the most impressive story arcs in a children's animated series, as well as the best adaptation of the comics' original Venom storyline to date.

Along with "Batman: The Animated Series," "X-Men: The Animated Series" is so good that it can't just be considered the best Marvel cartoon of all time; it's one of the best animated series ever made, period (it certainly has a theme song worthy of such a distinction). Where "X-Men" might even have an edge over its peer from Warner Bros. and DC Comics is how well it was able to pull off both memorable, moving standalone episodes and ambitious multi-episode arcs plucked straight from the pages of the best "X-Men" comics. Storylines such as "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and "Days of Future Past" were brought to life so vividly, benefiting greatly from the expansive world-building of the program at large, that an "X-Men" fan would not be out of line to suggest this series is the best adaptation of the comics yet.

Of course, the popularity of the series endured, compelling Disney to order a revival in the form of "X-Men '97." Some may argue it should be given its own place on this list — though, if it were, it wouldn't be far from where it rests already. Behind-the-scenes drama notwithstanding, "X-Men '97" is an unmitigated triumph for Marvel's animated efforts, practically peerless in terms of overall quality. It's all at once a faithful continuation of the original series' ideas (so seamless in its execution that it may as well be considered a sixth season) and a masterwork of stylistic evolution. With respect to the unimpeachable and timeless quality of "X-Men: The Animated Series," the revival series feels like the kind of show the original creators would have made were they provided today's resources and runway.