The Marvel MMO and Marvel fighting game may have both been postponed, but that doesn’t mean Marvel is giving up on next-gen game development. Quite the contrary, the company’s moving forward aggressively, today granting THQ the rights to develop a game based on the Marvel Super Heroes Squad.
What’s that? You hadn’t heard about Marvel’s Super Hero Squad comic book? Neither had we. Here’s the skinny:
Marvel Super Hero Squad will feature a super-stylized look of the greatest Marvel Super Heroes designed for a 4-10 year-old audience. Popular characters including Iron-Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Thor and The Fantastic Four will be thrust into adventures in a single caricatured Super Hero City. Along the way, they will have to thwart the plans of Marvel villains such as Doctor Doom, Magneto, Iron Monger, Loki, the Abomination and others — all of whom will have also been caricatured.
THQ’s Marvel Super Hero Squad videogame will appear in 2009. THQ did not specify which systems it might appear on, but with a kid-friendly nature, our guess is Nintendo Wii and/or the DS. However, the company did secure the rights to publish a Marvel Super Hero Squad game on all current and next-generation consoles, handheld systems and Windows PC.
As for the non-game portion of the series, Marvel Animation is currently in production on an animated television series that is expected to debut on air in 2009, and Marvel Comics (which is now featuring Marvel Super Hero Squad comic strips within several of its books) will introduce a dedicated Marvel Super Hero Squad comic book this fall.
Marvel has also secured deals with Hasbro for toys/figures, with Disguise/Cesar for costumes and with Mega Bloks for construction toys.
