There were some big announcements this weekend at the Marvel Animation panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest of which had to be the line up for the Marvel Anime films. These films will be produced by Studio Madhouse, which been making some of the best anime for the last 25 years and had previously handled the artwork on the recent Hulk Vs. movie.

The four anime style films being made are Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men, and Blade. Comics writer Warren Ellis will handle the script for all four films. On hand at the panel was Madhouse Producer and Co-founder Masao Moruyama said that they will do everything in the power to get the films out as soon as possible.

The Iron Man and Wolverine films are scheduled to be out in (late) 2010, with the other two to be released presumably in 2011. Test animation for the Iron Man and Wolverine films was shown at the panel and it looks A-Maze-Ing! Ellis reported that the films are still in an early stage and he is actually still writing the Iron Man film. The Iron Man film will be set in Japan, and the preview showed Iron Man in a suit that looked very similar to the film suit as he battled across Tokyo. Ellis said that the Wolverine script will closely follow the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller miniseries from the 80’s. As a comics fan and an anime fan, I absolutely cannot wait for these.

The other thing announced at the panel was an animated film based on the Planet Hulk storyline. The good news on this is that the film will be out in February 2010; the other good news is that it looks REALLY good, and they seem to be following very close to the original story. It seems like Marvel is taking a cue from DC’s animation strategy and doing more adapted works. The final preview shown at the panel was on for Thor: Tales of Asgard, which is a young Thor and Loki story, with them searching for a magical sword, and fighting Frost Giants.

The rest of the panel was taken up with a look at the cartoon line up currently running on Nicktoons Network, and panel attendees were given a preview of new episodes of Iron Man Armored Adventures and Wolverine and the X-Men. Fans of Iron Man can expect to see episodes featuring the Black Panther, Ultima, Ghost, and M.O.D.O.K. and fans of the Wolverine show can expect to see the return of Colossus (along with his sister) as well as an appearance by Deadpool. New episodes of Iron Man start Friday July 24th and new episodes of Wolverine start on the 31st.