Cue the music and grab a cheeseburger because it’s time to armor up! On the heels of Spidey and His Amazing Friends’ Season 4 release, Marvel Studios and Disney Branded Television has released another super-powered preschool series, Iron Man and His Awesome Friends.

Available to watch today, August 11, on Disney Jr. and tomorrow on Disney+, Iron Man and His Awesome Friends follows the adventures (and misadventures) of best friends and super geniuses Tony Stark, Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho as they work together to solve problems, both big and small, and protect their city. In order to help them save the day, the Iron Friends each have their own Iron Suits that let them fly with enhanced super-strength as well.

Check out the trailer:

The series stars Mason Blomberg as Tony Stark (Iron Man), Kapri Ladd as Riri Williams (Ironheart), Aidyn Ahn as Amadeus Cho (Iron Hulk), Tony Hale as Ultron, Vanessa Bayer as Swarm and Talon Warburton as Absorbing Man.

With animation from Atomic Cartoons, the show is executive produced by Sean Coyle and Harrison Wilcox. James Eason-Garcia is co-executive producer and story editor; Alex Cichon is supervising producer; Ashley Rideout is producer; and Michael Dowding is supervising director.

AWN caught up with Coyle and Garcia to talk about crafting the characters, the suits, and the big worlds explored in the new series. 

Victoria Davis: To start off, was it always the plan to create shows around other superheroes following Spidey and His Amazing Friends? Or did Iron Man and His Awesome Friends come as a surprise? 

Sean Coyle: I don’t know if it was planned. The timing just worked out where Tony Stark’s story in the MCU wrapped up in a very epic way. And it worked out perfectly that there was a void where we were missing Iron Man. And because of the massive success of Spidey, it felt like the most logical thing to do. Plus, when James and I were approached, with “Do you guys want to do an Iron Man show?” who was going to say no to that opportunity?

James Eason-Garcia: It was one of the greatest moments in my life. I'm such a huge comic book fan and I was checking into the Art of Marvel Hotel in Disneyland Paris when I got the call. I had just bought an Avengers hoodie and there was a giant Iron Man statue next to me. I was like, “This is everything I've ever wanted.”

VD: It’s a dream for my toddler, too. Spidey and His Amazing Friends is one of her favorite shows and it’s a series that’s become a favorite among preschool-age viewers. What was the magic sauce from that show and how did you want to incorporate it into Iron Man and His Awesome Friends?

SC: We did a lot of research and watched a ton of those Spidey episodes for inspiration and to see the things that were working and what we could elaborate on. What I responded to was the celebration of friendship. Aside from being heroes that save the world, the core group of characters are best friends, and that's really fun to watch. It's a ride or die crew. That was the jumping off point.

JG: I also think the greatest thing about comic books, and something that was always really exciting for me, is the wish fulfillment of it, and how we want to be these characters. We want to wear this armor and put on this costume. And Spidey did that so well for a young audience. It immediately makes a little kid feel like, ‘Ah, I want to be like Spidey.’ or ‘I want to be like Spin.’ or ‘I want to be like Ghost Spider.’ We also talk a lot about how it’s not about the armor that you wear but about who you are. It's the kids inside that makes the armor totally awesome.

VD: But I imagine, when it came to tackling the animation, one of the really exciting things to work on was these super suits.

SC: Oh yeah. We had to create a suit that looked like Iron Man but wasn't going to scare kids. Some iterations of the iron suit were a little too menacing. And each suit has its own signature power move, like Ironheart has her heartbeat bubble, Iron Hulk has his iron boom and also an iron stomp. Tony’s Iron Man can create this nano shield, so it was fun to let your imagination run wild. Our goal was also to make these suits seem almost like candy, where they look so amazing that kids just want to reach into the TV and grab them. 

We got a lot of guidance from Marvel, but we get ideas from our writers and designers, too. We are a small part of this massive team of ridiculously talented and creative people. The fact that we get to do this together is the key to success. Surround yourself with amazing people, because it makes your job so much more enjoyable and the work so much more fun.

JG: Our partners at Atomic Cartoons, our supervising director Michael Dowding, and the whole animation team have just been giving us magic in every episode. They all came to us really early on and were like, ‘How do we make these characters feel different from each other?’ And you can really see it in the animation. The way they fly and the way they move in the suits is different. Iron Man is fast and sleek like a sports car. In our interpretation of Ironheart, she’s very athletic, so she has this grace and this athleticism in the way she moves. And Iron Hulk has that hulking weight. You feel it when they land in their cool heroic poses. Hulk lands, and the whole camera shakes.

VD: Speaking of interpretations, there has always been a good amount of material on Spider-Man being a young kid, but we all know Iron Man as an adult man. How do you go about creating this character as a child for a preschool audience?

SC: Our original script had him go on this crazy bender, where he was up all night drinking juice and crashed his tricycle… no, I’m kidding. 

VD: Well, you never know what writers will come up with when the sleep deprivation of production hits hard.

SC: It’s true. But no, that was a real thing, right? Most audiences were only familiar with that adult representation of this character. Our challenge was to figure out what bits and pieces we could pull from that character and add our own little flavor to it and create a character that is still true to Iron Man, where you could believe our Tony could grow up and become the Tony Stark people know, while still being relatable to kids and a friend to kids. So, he wakes up every day, thinking, “How can I use my super genius, all this cool stuff I have at my disposal, and my best friends to make today the best it can possibly be?”

It was super fun, but there was legit pressure to be tasked with making that work. And I hope that we did. 

JG: All of us are MCU fans and Sean and I both come from a long history of preschool animation at Disney Jr, so we were really threading the needle. Iron Man still has his confidence, but it’s a kinder confidence than in the films or comics. And he still has his love of music and his inventiveness.

SC: Actually, when we were designing the characters, there was a lineup of five different Tonys and I drew goatees on all of them, then was like, “This is the one.”

VD: Hey, don't doubt the method if it works.

SC: Hopefully, it did. 

VD: Before we wrap, what episodes are you most excited for people to see?

JG: Because we have iron suits that can fly anywhere in the world, one of the first places we get to go outside Tony’s city is Wakanda. We got to create that setting from the ground up and Black Panther is a main character in our show. It's been such an honor to inherit that character and those worlds and getting to write the words “Wakanda forever” and have our characters do the salute, is a dream come true. And I'm so excited for people to see the big worlds we’ve built for our Iron friends.