Yeah, This Marvel Holiday Short is a Toy Ad, but It’s Still Pretty Good

Listen, good stop-motion is good stop-motion, even if it’s just trying to get you to buy some Hasbro toys.

That’s my best pitch for “Merry Mayhem,” a short and adorable stop-motion Christmas-themed cartoon put out by Marvel HQ, starring a number of the Hasbro Marvel Bend and Flex Figures. Starring Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Venom as a chaotic Grinch, it’s a short but sweet glimpse at the Marvel characters enjoying the holiday season.

But the reason I’m really sharing this is because the stop-motion work is authentically great. It takes a lot to take some consumer action figures and make them move like actual entertaining animation. It’s a fine art, and one this little video nails. I would love to see more superhero stuff live in the stop-motion space. It just has such a distinctive look.

And, listen, if it starred a mischievous Venom, that wouldn’t bother me, either. 

For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.