This is a treatise that covers two subjects.
A) Why a Marvel character introduced after the year 2000 should be in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
B) Why its important for fans of these characters to be vocal about getting them in a game like this.
This work will be separated into several sections so as to make it easier for people with different levels of investment in this game to be able to easily find the information pertinent to them if they do not wish to have to read the entire document.
Section 1. A short introduction to Marvel Vs. Capcom.
This document is intended to reach all Marvel fans out there as well as fans of just MVC, and as such I think it’s important to give a little bit of perspective on the game as a whole.
The Marvel vs. Capcom series of games have been some of the greatest fighting games in the history of the genre, and while they easily stand on their own in gaming history, the reason that Marvel fans who are not gamers should care, is that the MVC series has introduced many, many people to Marvel characters that have not always been the most well represented in the cartoons and movies that non comic reading Marvel fans generally get their knowledge from.
The latest entry in the series, Marvel vs. Capcom is no slouch in this, introducing characters like Taskmaster to a public outside of your average comic reader, and giving them an instant boost in popularity that even appearing in a cartoon or movie might not be able to bring.
This is because unlike in TV or movies Marvel vs. Capcom instantly allows its players to empathize with its characters by giving them full control over the full range of abilities, and letting them put them to the test in situations that they have more control of.
In summation, games like Marvel vs. Capcom can be a great boon to the notoriety and popularity of a Marvel character even above mediums like TV or movies.
Section 2. The Mix.
Right now Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has a fairly wide variety of Marvel characters in it. We have the classic Avengers characters who have been getting movies of late, some of the more iconic X-Men characters of the 70s and movies, some classic villains like Dr. Doom, Supper Skrull, Modok and Taskmaster, and some newer stars like Deadpool and X-23. The game does two things very well with this roster. It represents the classic Marvel line at its simplest and most pure giving people the characters that really exploded Marvel in the 60s and 70s, and it also does a very good job of representing characters who people would know from movies.
Coming in November we get Ultimate Marvel Capcom 3, which gives us six new characters. Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Hawkeye, Nova and Rocket Raccoon. These are great new characters, and while sticking with an emphasis on focusing on Marvels current movies and cartoons (Rocket Raccoon will be showing up in the second season of Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes). It also does a lot to represent trends in the Marvel Comics Universe that are currently going on, capitalizing on characters who have been revitalized in the last several years.
Saying all of this though, the game is still sorely lacking representation of characters introduced after the year 1990. With but one exception every single character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is at least 20 years old, and that one exception is X-23. X-23 is a very hot character, she certainly adds something that you aren’t seeing elsewhere in the game, and with her new book having launched a bit before the game came out, helping her popularity was definitely a good call. On the other hand, isn’t it sad that the only Marvel character from the last two decades they chose to include is quite literally a clone of one of Marvel’s most popular characters.
Section 3. The Opportunity A.K.A. The Megaman Situation.
For those of you who don’t know Capcom is the company that created a long running and beloved franchise called Megaman. One of the most requested characters to be added to the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was a character named Megaman X, for whatever reason though, several months ago when the roster for the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was decided Megaman X was not chosen to be in it. Coincidentally, in the months since that decision Capcom has had to cancel all of its Megaman related projects for other game systems.
This has left one of Capcoms large fan bases very upset at Capcom. Many rashly calling out that Megaman is dead. This is a fairly disproportionate reaction, but it has left Capcom in a bit of a bind with it getting a decent amount of coverage on the web and in some parts of the gaming press. While its not certain, nor even what I could call highly likely, there are definitely those of the opinion that Megaman X will be added to UMVC down the road as downloadable content, and when/if that happens another Marvel character will have to be added as well.
I am dedicated to making sure that that character is one introduced at least in the year 2000, or hopefully even more recently, and I sincerely hope you will support me in that goal.
Section 4. The Argument.
While there are many fans of Marvel’s younger breed of characters many people would still probably ask why these young, arguably obscure characters should be added to one of Marvel’s headlining games.
I hope go over that and convince you of the necessity of more recently created characters here.
For the past several years Marvel has been very interested in strengthening its core titles. With the Marvel movies coming out and the Event story structure of comics in modern times its been very important for Marvel to make sure many of its older more recognizable characters have very large roles in its games and other non comics non movie media. It’s also been important to introduce the public to less well known classic Marvel characters who may not have been as publicized in the 90’s. Lastly its been very important to make sure these games tie into the modern Marvel comics world, to make sure they reflect the ways in which the Universe is moving.
These are all smart moves on Marvel’s part. Selling Marvel’s strong stable of characters outside of just the comics is important, and so its vital to take what you are pushing in the comics and put it out in front of people, even when those things are not necessarily what the people clamor for, however this also leads to one extremely large flaw.
Over the past 10 years Marvel has introduced tons of great new characters like the Runaways, the Young Avengers, X-Statix, and more recently the Avengers Academy and Generation Hope, among countless others. Marvel has done a good job supporting a lot of these characters, however in the grand scheme to strengthen Marvel’s core, these characters have no faired particularly well in outside media. That has to change.
Marvel no longer has “hot” new characters like they did in the 90s. It certainly has its share of new successes every few years, but at this point these are all revitalizations of older characters. Books like Iron Fist, or Guardians of the Galaxy or Incredible Hercules, which get a lot of good reception or critical praise and really revitalize these characters, and then they end a year and a half or two years later because they aren’t necessarily strengthened by Marvel’s emphasis on core books.
This isn’t Marvel’s fault, and Marvel is definitely trying to support these characters, its just hard right now, but its even worse for the young turks. The guys who really are completely new characters. These characters don’t have a long history, they don’t have all the relationships with currently existing popular characters that you can use to tie them into things. These characters are usually busy carving their own identity out in the Marvel Universe so it can be hard to tie them into the big events well, and it goes almost without saying that they don’t get represented well in the outside media.
One of the most prevalent attitudes I come across in this day and age is that since a character is new, that character does not matter, that character does not count. That character is not a “real” X-Man, or a “real” Avengers, or even a “real” Marvel character. This is why these new characters, even more than the older revitalized characters like Iron Fist, HAVE to be put in these games. Marvel has to show people that these are valid Marvel characters, every bit as important and with every bit as much potential as the Hulk or Captain America or Wolverine.
While its important right now to make people aware of classic characters, and make sure they stay important in their universe and outside media, and while its important to keep trying to renew older characters, and make use of potential that might have gone to waste before, or hit at a time that just wasn’t right, eventually if you keep forcing older characters up to bat you risk cannibalizing your old stories, or re-inventing the wheel to often. Sometimes you need characters created in a particular era to work well within an era. At the end of the day, and new character that a lot of people like is never a bad thing. If you aren’t growing you are dying, if you are creating great new characters, and you aren’t putting them into a position where you can capitalize on them you are wasting an opportunity. Lastly on this subject, and this is just my opinion, I think people like to know that they have a super hero that’s for them that’s of their time, that he wasn’t their grandpa’s super hero, or their father or mothers super hero, its their super hero.
Section 5. Support.
If you are a fan of modern characters or if you are just a fan of the philosophy that Marvel needs to continue to push new I.P. in order to remain relevant as time marches one, then I hope you will show your support to this cause. This document will be posted to multiple blogs, on multiple forums, anywhere I think might help get this message out. I really encourage all of you reading this to comment, but not just comment, I urge you to write letters to Marvel. Write to Marvel editorial, write to Marvel games, tell them this is what you want and/or this is what you think is best for the Marvel universe.
It’s really sad that we’ve already missed two opportunities to get newer Marvel characters into Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I realize a lot of you might think that MVC3 is not that big a deal, that it won’t influence that many people. I’d have to disagree, almost every person I know who is a Psylocke fan, and most everyone I know who is a Venom fan is a fan of those characters because of MVC, and I don’t think that’s a experience that’s unique to me.
The MVC series puts every character on an equal footing, no character in it is a side character, no one is unimportant, or just some grunt, or just a boss characters. it’s a really ideal place for people to get to know characters, their personalities, their powers, and most importantly because they play those characters, they empathize and form long lasting relationships with those characters that can really help that character gain a stronger foot hold among the people. That’s why this is so important even though its just one game.
Section 6. In Closing…
I KNOW that there are fans of the newer Marvel characters out there. I see you every time there is an X-Men Live Blog on Marvel.com and you ask after Rockslide, or Anole or the Gen Hopeys. I know that there are Young Avengers fans, and I know that there are Avengers Academy fans, because that book is still being published, and great book that it is I never would have seen that coming.
I know there are fellow Grant Morrison fans out there who are enjoying that Fantomex is shining in X-Force right now, and would love to see him and Noh Varr and Dust out in a game. I know there are other guy’s reading Vengeance right now saying, don’t the Young Masters get a chance.
The Runaways was a phenomenon, if not in sales, then in good will, X-Statix one of the best comics I ever read, and I’ve never very few people who after reading it didn’t agree with me. We have people like Amadeus Cho, like the Scorpion, like so many characters from the Initiative, that show that Marvel wants to create new characters for the world we live in, but these characters have to keep getting support, its an uphill battle these days, not only do they have to show up in books, but they have to do more than that, they have to fulfill that strange ineffable criteria which is “they have to count.”
Getting one or two or three, or eight of these characters in a game like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where a million people all over the world will for a very personal relationship with specifically what that character does and is, will go a LONG way to making sure these characters count, and so if you want them to stay firmly up front in the grand tapestry of Marvel Comics, I hope you’ll support this. I hope you’ll write, and politely shout, and tell everyone involved in this game on both sides to Make Mine MODERN Marvel.
Levi Tompkins
Kansas
7/30/2011
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