The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (lost Josh Keaton vocal performance of 2D animated series; 2012)

Captain America and Spider-Man meet in this still from "Along Came a Spider", the first of Spider-Man's three re-dubbed guest appearances.

The animated series The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010-2012) had famous Marvel Comics hero Spider-Man guest-star in four episodes: #39 ("Along Came a Spider"), #44 ("Yellowjacket"), #49 ("New Avengers") and #52 ("Avengers Assemble", also the official series finale).  Before they premiered, a rumor arose that Josh Keaton recorded the voice of Spidey.  He previously voiced this character in the cartoon The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008-2009) and five Marvel-themed video games.

As became the case for several episodes of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, these four aired in Australia first, instead of America.  "Along Came a Spider" received this treatment on June 6, 2012.  Viewers heard not Josh Keaton, but rather, Drake Bell.  Prior to this, Bell had only voiced Spider-Man in the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man, which made its American premiere only two months earlier.  Some viewers thought he gave a decent performance, while others still wished to hear Keaton instead.

A screenshot posted on the Facebook Group "Keep 'The Spectacular Spider-Man' Alive!" confirmed that Drake Bell's name appeared in the episode's end credits.  Josh Keaton found the screencap on Facebook, and commented, "Wow so they redubbed my audio. I recorded a few Avengers eps as Spider-Man and was looking forward to seeing them. Typical Parker luck I guess." 

Marvel fans became enraged that Marvel would not only subject viewers of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes to an inferior Spider-Man voice actor, but do so without informing the original cast and writers (who had moved on to other projects by the time season two of the show started airing).  One fansite, Marvel Animation Age, tried to promote hashtag activism as a means of convincing Marvel/Disney to release the undubbed versions of the episodes.  This would involve Tweeting either "#JoshKeatonIsSpiderMan", or "#DrakeBellIsNotSpiderMan".  However, neither hashtag became very popular.  As controversy arose, Josh Keaton posted on Tumblr that this marked far from the first time one of his vocal performances became replaced, and that Drake Bell didn't deserve Marvel fans' scorn-he dubbed Spidey's guest spots for money, not out of spite.

When the rest of Spider-Man's guest appearances made their TV debuts, they still contained Drake Bell's vocals, instead of Josh Keaton's.  "Yellowjacket" provided an exception, but only because Spidey had no lines.  This also remained the case when the episodes finally made their American premieres, starting on July 22, 2012.  The North American home video releases of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes do not include an option to replace Drake Bell with Josh Keaton. The writer of Spidey's speaking guest spots, Christopher Yost, has not commented on the voice actor switch, as far as this author knows.

When asked why Marvel dubbed over Josh Keaton, Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada explained that children watching The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes immediately after Ultimate Spider-Man might have become confused by Spider-Man sounding different in each show.  The asker of the question proceeded to point out that some of the Avengers had made guest appearances on USM, but not with the same voice actors from EMH.  Quesada gave no explanation as to why Iron Man's or Thor's voice changing would seem any less jarring to those children.

Two of Josh Keaton's fellow Spectacular Spider-Man cast members, Daran Norris and Grey DeLisle, can still be heard in the dubbed-over version of "Along Came a Spider".  DeLisle reprised her role of Betty Brant, while Norris voiced J. Jonah Jameson and a policeman.  However, his performance of Jameson became replaced by one courtesy of JK Simmons, who portrayed Jameson in both animation (Ultimate Spider-Man) and live-action (Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies).  DeLisle's recordings remained intact because Betty Brant had yet to appear in Ultimate Spider-Man, saving Marvel the trouble of worrying that she would sound too different in between shows.

One post from Marvel Animation Age's forum suggests that at least one other English-speaking country aired The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes with Josh Keaton's voice intact, but this never became verified.

External Links

"Keep 'The Spectacular Spider-Man' Alive!" reveals the replacement of Josh Keaton

Marvel Animation Age reviews the re-dubbed version of "Along Came a Spider"

Josh Keaton addresses his fans

Joe Quesada tries to justify the re-dubbing

A hint of the Keaton audio surfacing overseas