With the recent premiere of Avengers Assemble, and HULK and Agents of SMASH looming, I thought it would be a great time to take a look back at Marvel’s history in the animated realm.

Marvel has had a mixed history with their animated slate, with some shows dying before their prime and others that seem to lack that little extra to make it special, but we combed through decades of shows to bring you the best of the best.

Our Marvel Top 7 Animated Series!

7)The Super Hero Squad Show – Doing a show aimed at kids while still being fun to adults is a really tight line to walk, but SuperHero Squad pulls it off well. It takes a much more light-hearted and cheesy approach to the Marvel Universe, but embraces the characters and the world Â in such a loving manner with great animation to match.

6)Spider-man TAS (1994) – Everyone’s favorite web-head is no stranger to animation, having starred in over half a dozen animated series to date, And the more that remains near and there to most our generation’s heart was the 90s series. From a catchy theme song to a great mixture of comic stories, villains and team-ups. It was one of the shows to watch when you were a kid. Time hasn’t treated it as kindly, but is still a blast to re-visit with lowered expectations.

5)X-Men TAS – Another classic show from the golden era of Fox Kids. X-men TAS remains to many people the definition of the X-verse (myself included). It tackled big and popular story arcs from the comic, and was one of the first comic series to do long-form story-telling. It had fantastic voice work, and great fights. It does kind of take an odd turn in the final season, but the first 4 are great TV.

4)X-men Evolution – Redefining popular characters is always a dicey ordeal. Can’t change them too much or not the characters we know and love, and can’t change them too little or what’s the point? X-Men Evolution walked that line well by giving us younger versions of our famous heroes without making them too obnixious as teenagers. We got to see their own plight and problems compounding by the natures of growing up different. It was a fun take on the X-Verse.

3)Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes – The most recent show on our list, also happens to be the best Avengers cartoon to date. It featured a very diverse roster (looking at you Avengers Assemble), some great Marvel villains (both popular and obscure), a fun dynamic among the team and a mixture of long-form stories and one and done adventures. And while the show was cut short, there are plenty of episodes to love here.

2)Wolverine and The X-Men – This was a pretty dark show. It started with the X-Mansion exploding and Professor X assumed dead, but over the course of 20+ episodes, it turned into a hell of a ride for Wolverine and the various members of the X-Men. The show offered a bleak outlook for the universe, and just when things were kind of turning around it got even darker… and ended.

1)Spectacular Spider-man – Completing the trifecta of Marvel shows that were ended long before their time. Spectacular Spider-man had everything you could want in a cartoon series: intelligent story-telling, fantastic voice acting, amazing characterization and mah gawd some of the most fluid and beautiful animation to cross the genre. I mean the fight with the Sandman on the beach still remains one of the highlights of any animated series I’ve ever seen. And the way they turned his origins into the Venom subplot was a work of art. Sorry, I will probably gush over this series until the sun comes up if given the chance. This isn’t just the best Marvel cartoon on our list, but I believe it is head and shoulders above anything else they produced. If you haven’t seen it before, do yourself a favor and track it down. Sadly, only went for 2 seasons or about 26 episodes so it is a short shows. Well worth checking out though!