Unless you’re living on the West Coast of the US, then odds are that your plans for this past weekend amounted to battening down and preparing for the giant snowstorm that pummeled most of the country. As I prepared for the snow and the likely event I would have to work remotely for a few days, I almost missed some big news going on. Not one, not two, not even three, but four trailers for major animated works dropped in rapid succession. All of them were for animated series or films coming this spring, and they have got me hyped. So hyped, in fact, that I decided that I had to write things about them. Invincible is coming back, we’re getting a new Star Wars show, the upcoming Mario movie got a new trailer, and Glitch is giving us another original series. In other words, there’s a lot to look forward to this spring!
Invincible Season 4 Trailer
For our first trailer for Spring 2026, we got a look at the upcoming fourth season of Invincible. At the end of the last season, Mark’s reputation as a hero was dragged through the mud. His biggest hater, Angstrom Levy, unleashed several evil versions of Mark from alternate universes on the world and used them to kill millions, including heroes such as Rexsplode. Then Conquest showed up and almost killed Mark, his brother, and his girlfriend before he put him down. Now Mark is left to deal with the trauma as he adopts a harsher mindset; he’s now willing to kill his enemies if it means saving lives. And then his dad and Allan show up asking him to join the upcoming war against the Viltrumite Empire.
The Viltrumite War in the comics is one of the biggest arcs in the entire series, and for good reason. Mark and his brother will be traveling to deep space to put an end to the Viltrumite Empire for good, and that means that we are getting more violence than ever before. This is the equivalent of seeing an army of people teaming up with Goku and his friends to fight evil Saiyans. In addition, we’ve also got the emotional aspects of the story, as the trailer shows that Nolan and Debbie are meeting for the first time since Omni-Man outed himself. That is going to be crazy to watch.
Yoshi joins the Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Despite what the critics had to say about it, The Super Mario Bros Movie proved to be a financial success at the box office. Fans loved how faithful it was to the games, they loved Jack Black as Bowser, and they were looking forward to a sequel. That sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, just dropped another trailer, and it confirmed another important character from the Mario mythos is making their debut: Yoshi.
Yoshi is one of the most popular characters from Nintendo, and for good reason. Whether he’s serving as Mario’s companion and steed or going on his own adventures, the adorable green dinosaur has been beloved for decades. Getting to team up with him is a highlight of many Mario games, and I think a lot of gamers are going to be happy to see this film show how he and Mario first meet. Plus, it looks like he and Toad are going to butt heads a little over being Mario’s best friend!
Maul: Shadow Lord releasing April 6th
Of all things that Dave Filoni has done for the Star Wars franchise, I think one of the best has to be bringing Darth Maul back from the dead. The now ex-Sith Lord has been a recurring enemy that the forces of good have faced ever since, and while we know how his story ends, we don’t know how it got to that point. Maul: Shadow Lord seems to be looking to fill in some of those blanks this spring.
At the end of The Clone Wars, we saw how Maul went into hiding to ride out the rise of the Empire, justifiably terrified about what his former master was about to do. Now that the initial storm has died down, he’s looking to take advantage of the chaos and carve out his own power base in the galaxy and find an apprentice of his own. Shadow Lord seems to be aiming to show how he will go on to build the organization that will come to be known as the Crimson Dawn. While I’m not all that interested in that aspect of the franchise, anything that has to do with Maul is enough to get my attention.
There’s extra importance to the release of Maul: Shadow Lord this spring. This isn’t the first spin-off Filoni’s made for The Clone Wars, and he probably finished long before he got promoted to co-president of LUCASFILM. Now that he’s one of the two people running Star Wars, though, he’s going to be under pressure to show he can live up to Lucas’ legacy. With no Kathleen Kennedy to blame, any mistakes the show makes will ultimately fall on him. Fingers crossed, he makes a good impression.
Gameoverse, Glitch’s new series, releases Spring 2026
Lastly, we have news from the world of indie animation, courtesy of Glitch Productions. The company started by the Lerdwichagul Brothers that has dominated the indie scene in recent years is teaming up with the popular streamer RubberRoss to create its second 2D animated series, Gameoverse. And if Knights of Guinevere is focused on a horror spin to old-school Disney, then Gameoverse is looking to do the same with old video games.
According to the series description and the trailer for the series, Gameoverse is about characters from video games trying to stop the destruction of the worlds those games take place in. Presumably, this is because winning the games will lead to their worlds being destroyed. Thus, the only way to prevent that from happening is by preventing the heroes from ever winning.
