I think the problem is that they don't focus on what makes animation great. Instead they take existing comic book story lines (most of which aren't very good) and try to shoehorn the direction and pacing of the comic book into an animated movie instead of taking the core concept and tailoring it to fit the strengths of animated film. Planet Hulk makes for a mediocre book that's fairly antithetical to the character's core concept, but could potentially make for a bad ass animated film. Civil War was pretentious, wanky, boring pseudo-philosophy. But a ninety minute animated extravaganza about heroes hunting heroes? Hell, sign me up for that ****. Imagine the badass set pieces they could pull off with that.
They don't need an "animated film continuity" in the same way DC did. They don't need vast exposition. I don't even think they need a narrative scroll in the style of Star Wars. Take the visceral, core aspects of the better Marvel events and stories, strip the meat from the bone, and shove it into an animation blender. I agree. We don't need origin stories. The audience doesn't see how Iron Man became Iron Man. Throw us into Armor Wars and if that sells well, follow it right up with World's Most Wanted. Don't give us 45 minutes of talking heads about why registration is good or bad. Give us 90 minutes of Marvel's heavy hitters hunting the street level characters through the alleys and sewers of New York. Don't give us a secret cabal of Marvel's movers and shakers rationalizing shooting the Hulk into space. Give us the Hulk ripping wicked aliens to death in geysers of blood and bone.
