What makes a good comic toon?

Creating a good animated series based off a comic book work is more difficult than meets the eye. For every Batman: The Animated Series, there are many more Avengers (animated TV series) that don't work.

A lot of Japanese animated series (known as anime) are based on their own comics (called manga). And anime based on manga is known for sticking to the source material. But a number of anime that are based on manga make a lot of changes for one reason or another (such as the episode count is simply too low to make a perfect adaptation of the original work).

But American comics and animated series based on comics are much different. Titles like Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, The X-Men and the like have run for decades. Whereas a majority of manga runs for a few years (with some notable exceptions that have run for well over a decade such as Ah! Megami-sama, aka Oh My Goddess).

This is not even mentioning just how much the basic structure of American comics have changed over the years. Let's face it, no matter what you thought of the story, a network (or even a cable channel like Cartoon Network) could not do an animated version of Identity Crisis.

The structure of comics have led to vastly different characterizations. When doing a Batman animated series, who do you point to? Do you point to the original Batman kills the baddie characterization? The Dick Sprang era? Neal Adams? Frank Miller? Chuck Dixon's characterization?

What about Spider-Man? Do you go with the Stan Lee/ Steve Ditko era? Lee/ Romita Jr.? Gerry Conway? Roger Stern? Tom DeFalco? Or any of the large number of other creators associated with Spider-Man?

Any good animated series based on a long running comic needs to make tough choices. One shouldn't totally throw the baby out with the bathwater. This leads to The Batman situations where the animated series literally has nothing in common with any of the comics besides characters having the same names. The Batman is really just a Batman animated series in name-only.

That is not to say that animated series should strictly be tied down to the comics. Shows shouldn't be afraid to try something a little different. X-Men Evolution managed to work despite being quite different from their source material. But despite the differences in the source material, the characters still felt like they shared something with their comic counterparts. Wolverine still felt something like the comic version of Wolverine that has made the character so popular.

Animated series based on comics shouldn't feel completely tied down by their comic origins. But something has to be there to connect with the original comics. The characterization has to be somewhat similar to the (good) characterization from the comics. They have to feel like the same character in another setting. If the characters are the same in name-only, that's not making a good comic based toon.