An AVENGERS cartoon without Moon Knight? That’s crazy talk!

And that cartoon wasn’t made by Marvel, it was. like the other marvel animated series of the era, optioned out to an animation company. Which isn’t to say that Marvel had no involvement, but that’s not the same thing as making the show ourselves.

And if memory serves, the notion was that characters such as Captain America, Thor and Iron Man could potentially have their own shows (as indeed Iron Man had earlier in the decade), but that wouldn’t be possible if you optioned the rights to those characters as part of the Avengers show.

The gameplan was that those characters would all guest star from time to time, and be referred to as the founding Avengers who, like the actual founding Avengers in AVENGERS #16, had left the team in the hands of newer members. I don’t recall what made it to air and what didn’t, but I know there was a Thor episode at least scripted, and I think Cap or Iron Man showed up at least once. And they were all in the title sequence.