TVSquad

No, we're not talking about a return of the old Beatles cartoons; that would be the Fab Four. We're talking about the long-running Marvel Comics series created by Stan "The Man" Lee that became a popular movie last year. Starting in the fall, Cartoon Network will air 26 new half-hour episodes of the Fantastic Four animated series.

Produced in cooperation between Marvel Studios and Moonscoop, the animated series will incorporate both 2D and 3D animation styles. According to Marvel Chief Operating Officer Michael Helfant, the animated series will be part of an aggressive strategy to promote their comic book characters through a number of different media outlets.

This will be the fourth Fantastic Four animated series that has been produced in the last  forty years. In the late 1960's, the powerhouse animation studio Hanna-Barbera produced a short-lived series. In the 1970's, another short-run series ran Saturday mornings on NBC with the Human Torch character being replaced by a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E (which made fans turn over in their graves even when they weren't dead). In the late 1990's, they were paired with Iron Man for a syndicated series that lasted two years.

This is the second Marvel comic book character to appear on a cable network. A few years ago, MTV aired a Spider-Man animated series after the success of the motion picture.