Lately, we’ve been getting some awesome news regarding the Avengers, but this is at the complete other end of the spectrum: a complete and total bummer. At this point, treat this as a rumor, but a rumor with some compelling evidence.

According to Comic Book Movie, Jeph Loeb, the head of Marvel Animation Studios, has cancelled ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ in favor of a new Avengers cartoon that will be produced by MAS and set in the ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ universe. The new show will begin airing in the fall of 2013 and will consist of self-contained, standalone episodes as opposed to story arcs, which Loeb has openly said that he is opposed to.

CBM has a few quotes from Loeb regarding the show. When Superhero Tooniverse asked if EMH was finished with no third season in production, Loeb said:

“I can only tell you that we’re committed to The Avengers universe and that’s as far as I can go.”

In another interview with Toonzone, who mentioned that the show is animated by another studio and has been in development since before the Disney acquisition of Marvel, Loeb simply stated:

JEPH LOEB: We have big plans for The Avengers. TOONZONE NEWS: So do you think the show will get a third season? JEPH LOEB: I can just tell you we have big plans for The Avengers and that’s all I can tell you right now.

In regards to the standalone episodes issue, Loeb had this to say to Collider when promoting ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’:

“That’s certainly something that we’re talking about. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has a tremendous following. One of the things that’s very unique about that show is that it was at a time prior to my coming in. It is a very serialized show, and there are a lot of characters. What we wanted to do with Spider-Man, and going forward, was to tell stories that are individualized. Obviously, we want everybody to watch the show every week, but we also know that people’s time is often taken. So, DVR the show, but if you’re not going to do that, the idea is that you will be able to catch up. I don’t ever want anybody to sit down on Sunday mornings at 11 o’clock and suddenly feel like, ‘Well, I lost the last three episodes, so I don’t really know what’s going on.’ The only thing that is a two-parter is the pilot, which will actually be shown in its entirety on Sunday, April 1st.”

The second half of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ second season will contain standalone episodes because Loeb and MAS took over production after the first 13 episodes were made.

This unfortunate news comes as the second season of the show recently kicked off on April 1st. Avengers fans of all ages, myself included, have received the show extremely positively, making it the most successful series on Disney XD. In fact, it’s been a sort of return to form for Marvel Animation, whose shows haven’t exactly been super stellar after the 90s, aside from a few gems here and there.

Don’t expect an official announcement concerning the fate of ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ to come out any time soon since the studio doesn’t want ratings to drop. However, in my experience with well-loved shows like ‘Community’ or ‘Firefly’, when fans hear that their show is in jeopardy of being cancelled, they’ll tune in more often to try and save it.

What do you think about the disassembling of ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’? Are you in favor of wiping the animated Avengers slate clean and restarting it in the ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ universe? Or do you think that Jeph Loeb is off his rocker? Let us know in the comments!