X-Men: The Animated Series Will Be On Disney+ At Launch

Saban Entertainment

The Disney+ package gets sweeter by the day. Prepare to recapture your youth – X-Men: The Animated Series will be available on the streaming platform.

The titanic new entry in the streaming arena will bring with it a roster of classic 90s animated shows at launch, amid a catalogue of other beloved and new material.

This includes, but isn’t limited to: Spider-Man (1994), Spider-Woman (1979), Spider-Man (1981), Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, Iron Man (1994), Fantastic Four (1994), Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer, and Spider-Man Unlimited.

GJ Kooijman, an established podcaster from the Netherlands, is currently beta-testing the service (lucky swine).

He shared a number of excited tweets after discovering the treasure trove of cartoons, writing after finding the mutant team’s show: ‘Holy shit. The original X Men Animated series is on Disney Plus?!?!’

There is a small caveat: they might not be universally available, according to Kooijman. He wrote on Twitter: ‘This *could* be for the Netherlands only and the US might not get all these shows. For example this is the MCU content available in #DisneyPlus for me while it’s been said it would be smaller for the US.’

Disney+ officially launches in the US, Canada and Netherlands on November 12 – but the UK won’t see the service until 2020.

All of the Marvel animated shows will be available to watch in the UK – but why do we need to wait?

Disney

It’s all a licensing issue: Disney may have bought 20th Century Fox, but there are still television deals in place for European networks. Unfortunately for us, these contracts can’t be scrubbed at the drop of a hat, so they simply need to run their course.

As per Wired, Simon Brew, editor of Film Stories magazine, explained: 

It’s a temporary problem, and not unique to the UK… 20th Century Fox has pre-existing deals with broadcasters and streamers, signed before Disney took it over.

And Disney itself had long and rich contracts with the likes of Sky. Ideally, Disney would have liked to have bought Sky too, but it was effectively gazumped by Comcast.

Disney+ is set to offer every film the company has ever made: so you can bet on their selection of animated classics, from Snow White to Lilo & Stitch to Frozen, as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s offerings in full.

Marvel Studios

Two franchises are dominating the excitement for the platform – one of them is Star Wars.

The Mandalorian is whetting fans’ appetites already, and Ewan McGregor is confirmed to be making a return as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Check out the trailer for The Mandalorian below:

The other is Marvel, who are dropping a bomb of exciting content. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, What If?, Hawkeye, Ms Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk are all coming to Disney+.

If superhero stuff isn’t your bag, there’s plenty more to be excited about. For example, Hilary Duff is returning to the iconic role of Lizzie McGuire.

Netflix must be sweating. I need it, I need it now.

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Cameron Frew

After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.