'Helstrom' Canceled By Hulu After One Season, Ending The Final Live-Action Marvel Show Not Made For Disney+

Bad news for all you Helstrom-heads. Hulu has canceled the Marvel series after one season – a season you probably didn't even realize had premiered already. The series, which drew on characters from Marvel Comics, is (or I guess we should say was) the last of the lingering non-Disney Marvel TV shows. The series followed "Daimon and Ana Helstrom, the children of a serial killer, hunt the worst of humanity."

Helstrom, we hardly knew ye. And now we never will. That's because Hulu canceled Helstrom after one season, ending the era of live-action shows from former head of Marvel Television Jeph Loeb. At one point, Helstrom was meant to be part of a lineup called "Adventure into Fear," which would've included a Ghost Rider series starring Gabriel Luna, reprising his role from ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But the Ghost Rider show never made it to series, and when Helstrom premiered this year on October 16, 2020, it was met with a shrug. It's currently sitting at 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the Critics Consensus stating: "Helstrom's strong visual effects can't save it from the fact that its characters simply aren't interesting enough to overcome their familiar setting."

Here's a synopsis of what you missed if you didn't watch the series: "As the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer, Helstrom follows Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana Helstrom (Sydney Lemmon), and their complicated dynamic, as they track down the worst of humanity — each with their own attitude and skills." Helstrom was created for television and executive produced by Paul Zbyszewski along with Karim Zreik and Jeph Loeb.

With Helstrom now at an end, there are no more lingering Marvel Television shows. Loeb exited Marvel Television last year, and then the company was folded into Kevin Feige's Marvel Studios. There are two remaining Marvel titles from Loeb, and they're both animated – M.O.D.O.K. and Hit-Monkey, both of which are headed for Hulu. There were supposed to be two other animated shows, Howard the Duck and Tigra & Dazzler, but they both were canceled before they really got off the ground.

Now, going forward, Marvel TV projects are part of Marvel Studios and will be airing exclusively on Disney+. Previous Marvel Television shows include Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which ended in August of this year; Agent Carter, which was canceled in 2016; the already-forgotten Inhumans, which also only lasted one season; all of the Marvel-Netflix shows, like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and so on; Runaways, which lasted three seasons and ended in 2019; and the two-season Cloak and Dagger, which was also canceled in 2019.