Spider-Man: The New Animated Series "Geldhoff" (lost storyboards of cancelled episode of MTV animated series; 2003)

Geldhoff concept art from the scrapped Spider-Man: The New Animated Series episode

Status: Lost

Tags: spider-man spiderman marvel mtv

Spider-Man: The New Animated Series was a short-lived CGI animated series produced by Mainframe Entertainment that originally ran on MTV from July 11th, 2003 through September 12th. 2003. Its hectic production resulted in one completely storyboarded episode being scrapped.

Development

The series was heavily influenced by the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, but its production soon became impacted by the overwhelming opening weekend box-office success of the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man film in early May, 2002. At this point, the three executive parties involved in the series (Sony, Marvel, MTV) requested it also be a follow-up to the popular film.

These periods of deliberation between executives from those three sides caused production on the series to greatly slow and as a result an entirely storyboarded episode was tossed away in the shuffle of priorities. Storyboard artist Tim Eldred explains on his blog: "As an immediate consequence, one entire episode that had been completely boarded was scrapped, never to be seen by anyone. I wish I’d kept that board, because it would be a real jewel to share with you now."

Synopsis

Not much is known of what the scrapped episode's plot was about, except for it involving the characters of Geldhoff and the Morlocks. A character in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books exists similarly called Geldoff, who was genetically experimented on to have mutant-like powers resulting in abilities to discharge energy that causes explosions.

Brian Michael Bendis was also working on Spider-Man: The New Animated Series when he was writing the popular Ultimate Spider-Man comics so it is thought that he may have pitched an idea for the character when working on the show and carried something similar back over to his Ultimate Spider-Man comics after the episode didn't materialize.

There exists concept art for the show's Geldhoff and Morlocks dated April 2002, and the first appearance of Geldoff in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books is #40, cover dated July 2003. The concept of the Morlocks in Marvel Comics is typically associated with the X-Men as mutant groups who are outcasts from society and dwell in the sewers. It's possible that Geldhoff in the episode could have been the leader of a gang of outcast mutants.

Availability

The Geldhoff and Morlock characters went through many design iterations which can be seen on the bonus features of the Spider-Man: The New Animated Series complete first season DVD set through April of 2002 up until they were cut right after the theatrical Spider-Man movie released. None of the completed storyboards or any other production material for the episode have surfaced to date.

See Also

• Spider-Man: The Venom Factor (lost unreleased Spider-Man PC game, 1996-1997)
• Spider-Man versus Kraven the Hunter (lost short fan film; 1974)
• Spider-Man 4 (found unreleased video games based on cancelled Marvel film sequel; 2010)
• Spider-Man - original Josh Keaton voice performance (lost audio of film-based PC/GameCube/PS2/Xbox game; 2002)
• Spider-Man Safety Series (partially found direct-to-video animated educational series; 1990)
• Spider-Man Trilogy (partially found deleted scenes of action-superhero films; 2002-2007)
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (partially found deleted Mary-Jane Watson scenes of superhero film; 2014)
• Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro (found pre-9/11 version of PlayStation action-adventure game sequel; 2001)

References

1. Tim Eldred's blog post. 2. DVD bonus features with character concept art.