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MARVEL Cosmic Invasion is an excellent send-up to the coin-up sidescrolling brawlers of generations past. Besides being generally fun, it checks a vital box all good Marvel licensed games must: its playable roster is full of a healthy blend of major names and deep cuts from across Marvel’s various superhuman teams and organizations. The fact that they actually included my guy Beta Ray Bill over regular Thor tells me that the developers of this game have a lot of love for Marvel’s expanded universe and massive character stable.
Of course, insufferable nerd that I am, I have an inexhaustible wishlist of Marvel superheroes I would’ve liked to play as in this game. I don’t have any problem with any of the heroes (or hero-adjacents, in Venom’s case) that you can already play as, but in a hypothetical scenario where an endless supply of additional playable characters could be added to the game, I have a select few I’d prioritize over others.
10 Hulk
Big Bruisers Represent
While I like the roster of heroes selected for Cosmic Invasion, I can’t help but notice that just about all of them are roughly the same height and build. Having similar characters probably makes things easier when building out hitboxes and whatnot, but I’d still like some larger dudes to join in on the festivities, and there’s nobody larger than Marvel’s own jolly green giant, the Hulk.
Despite his noted combat acumen, Hulk hasn’t appeared much in traditional sidescrolling beat ‘em ups over the years; the only one that springs to mind is 1996’s War of the Gems, and that’s more of an action platformer than a beat ‘em up. He shows up in Marvel VS Capcom all the time, so we know he could work in this capacity. Someone just has to be the one to implement him properly.
Assuming we catch him on a good day, Hulk’s raw size and strength would make him a very attractive character for players who like a bit of the ol’ unga-bunga. Less acrobatics and projectiles, more big punches with high damage values and huge hitboxes. I’m not really sure what his special ability would be, though. Maybe he could just… get madder and do more damage.
9 Nightcrawler
From Place To Place
Cosmic Invasion already has a couple of standouts from the X-Men stable in the form of Wolverine and Storm, but we could always have a couple more. For instance, one of my favorite X-Men, both in general and specifically in video games, has always been Nightcrawler. Everyone loves a guy who can casually teleport, even if that’s technically not how Nightcrawler’s powers work.
Nightcrawler has appeared in plenty of Marvel and X-Men-specific video games over the years, with one of his most notable roles being as my second-favorite playable character in the classic X-Men arcade game. You never forget the first time he goes woosh-woosh-woosh all over the screen, leaving a rainbow trail. Again, not how his powers work, but it looked cool, so who cares.
Since that classic fighting game, Nightcrawler has also diversified his skillset, making consistent use of swords in the comics. If we combine his classic teleport-fu with that swashbuckling swordfighting for Cosmic Invasion, we’d have quite a fun and flashy character to play as.
8 Iron Fist
Fighting Is His Business
Danny Rand, better known as Iron Fist, is the martial artist superhero from the mystical city of K’un-Lun. Well, technically he’s known as “Ghost Fist” in the comics right now, but Iron Fist sounds better. What the heck is a “Ghost Fist,” ghosts can’t punch stuff. That’s silly.
Iron Fist is a certified living weapon, with both expert-level martial arts skill and powerful chi manipulation abilities. Put them together, and you’ve got a guy who can punch a hole clean through a sheet of solid steel without breaking a sweat. In short, he’s the perfect candidate for any fighting-focused escapades, including a sidescrolling beat ‘em up game like Cosmic Invasion.
The nice thing about martial arts-centric heroes is that you don’t need to put too much thought into making up a combat kit for them. Iron Fist has plenty of flashy punches and kicks from his various comic, TV, and game appearances to use for reference, so all we need are a couple of solid combos, and maybe some chi projectiles for a special ability.
7 Squirrel Girl
Let’s Go Nuts
Doreen Green, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, is a Marvel hero who’s been racking up appearances in the last decade or so, even landing a coveted spot on the Marvel Rivals roster. She has all the powers of a squirrel and a girl, and has notched wins against exceptionally dangerous villains like Doctor Doom and Thanos. Is she getting to be a little overplayed? Eh, maybe, but she’s not there yet, and I’m still down to see more of her.
Squirrel Girl originally started out as a prospective sidekick and mildly clingy admirer to Iron Man, and while she’s mostly matured past that, it probably wouldn’t be too out there for her to follow him into the fray of Cosmic Invasion. Heck, maybe she was just in the neighborhood during the invasion and had nothing better to do.
As for how she’d fight, I imagine it’d be similar to her kit in Marvel Rivals, albeit with more of a melee focus. Some spinning kicks and tail swipes, chucking a few oversized acorns here and there, and of course, calling upon her squirrely minions to deal damage over time. Don’t ask where she’d get squirrels from in the depths of space, they just sort of… show up wherever she goes.
6 Nick Fury
Badass Normal
When you think of an ostensibly normal Marvel superhero going toe-to-toe with superpowered foes, the first one you’d think of is probably Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher. Problem is, Castle is already in this game as Cosmic Ghost Rider, so having Punisher in addition to him would be a little weird. Luckily, there’s another technically normal dude we can call on: Nick Fury.
Everyone’s favorite eyepatch-wearing commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. has tangled directly with superpowered foes plenty of times, making up for his own lack of powers with a combination of raw combat talent and the best in military-grade hardware. Making a kit for him for Cosmic Invasion wouldn’t be especially difficult; give him some guns, a couple of techno-tricks, maybe do some acrobatics and tactical rolls, and we’re set.
Considering the game already has a mission aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, it wouldn’t even be thematically inconsistent for Fury to join up with your merry band after you clear it. Let another high-ranking agent handle the cleanup, and let Fury in on the action!
5 Man-Thing
Welcome To The Swamp
If we’re allowed to have Venom on the Cosmic Invasion roster, then I say we need at least one more monstrous representative, for diversity’s sake if nothing else. There are actually quite a few heroic monsters lurking in Marvel’s back annals, from mummies to werewolves, and few are as monstrous and heroic as the mysterious Man-Thing.
Formerly Dr. Theodore Sallis, Man-Thing is the combined result of an experimental super serum and an untimely car crash in a mystical swamp. He’s a little hard to communicate with, but he’s empathic and generally good-natured, using his gross vegetation physiology to overwhelm bad dudes with a wave of swamp muck. He works as a guardian of an interdimensional portal called the Nexus of All Realities; space isn’t really in his purview, but he probably wouldn’t be happy about Annihilus’ invasion all the same.
Man-Thing would be another large character, in a similar vein to Hulk. He’d probably be a bit slower and have less combo potential, but his large frame and swiping vines would make him great at stunlocking multiple enemies simultaneously.
4 Mister Fantastic
Keep Up That Fantastic Momentum
The Fantastic Four have been relegated to the backlines of a lot of Marvel media in recent years. Heck, the first time Mister Fantastic showed up in the MCU, it was just to get brutalized by Scarlet Witch. Thankfully, in both the MCU and other major entries like Marvel Rivals, the potential of one of the world’s smartest men is being properly realized, and Cosmic Invasion should be no exception.
Admittedly, I don’t know where exactly Mister Fantastic could fit into the game’s story, but he and his family have had plenty of experience tangling with galactic-level threats like, well, Galactus. Heck, Annihilus is technically considered a part of the Fantastic Four’s rogues gallery before anyone else’s, so it’s weird none of them are in on this.
As for what he’d do, well, he can do anything! He’s Mister Fantastic! His elastic shapeshifting could be channeled into all kinds of wild combos, he could bounce all over the place, or he could reach out and restrain enemies with his stretchy fingers.
3 Gwenpool
Deadpool Is Old News
I’m going to keep saying this until someone at Marvel finally hears it: Gwenpool was a critically underused character, and I want to see more of her. If you’re not going to give her comic series back, at least put her in more games like Cosmic Invasion.
If you’re not aware, and I won’t blame you since Marvel apparently hates her, Gwenpool is a relatively new character who was born out of a variant cover of Gwen Stacy dressed like Deadpool, realized as a girl from the real world who was isekai’d into Marvel Universe 616. Her shtick is medium awareness and interactivity; like Deadpool, she knows she’s in a comic book, but unlike him, she can directly futz with the comic itself, jumping between panels and hiding in the page gutters.
Obviously, we’d have to taper down on some of the really meta stuff if she was in Cosmic Invasion, but it’d still be fun to have her. She can keep things simple with swords and guns for her basic combos, then start getting weird for special abilities like manifesting sound effects or temporarily kicking enemies into the foreground, above the UI.
2 Colossus
You Know Why
Remember how I said Nightcrawler was my second-favorite character in the old X-Men arcade game? Well, my first favorite was Colossus, and if you’ve ever played that game, you already know why. Here’s a hint: it starts with “W,” and ends with “-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAGH.”
Colossus was undoubtedly the most fun character to play as in that game, with his mighty screen-clearing roar, and I have every confidence that same fun would carry over if he were playable in Cosmic Invasion. Of course, if he were to be playable, I would expect him to have that same screen-clearing ability. Yeah, including it might come across a little too fanservice-y, but come on. That’s a vital component of both arcade gaming history and Marvel gaming history. We have to pay our respects here.
All that aside, Colossus would probably make a good tanky character, someone big and stalwart that can’t be knocked back easily by enemy attacks. If there were ever a character ideal for a super armor effect in this game, it’d be him.
1 Howard The Duck
Obligatory Joke Character
I’m of the opinion that fighting games and beat ‘em ups are two genres obligated to have at least one full-on joke character on their playable rosters. Don’t ask me why, it’s just for the fun of it. So, with that in mind, who’s our go-to joke character for a Marvel-themed sidescrolling beat ‘em up? Well, to quote a less-than-stellar movie, what is, what was, and what will be start here with the words, “in the beginning, there was Howard the Duck.”
Howard the Duck is an especially strange character amongst Marvel mainstays, a displaced detective from a planet where anthropomorphized ducks go about their days in a manner not dissimilar to we humans. He has no particular superhuman abilities, though he is apparently a master of the ancient martial art of “Quack-Fu.”
Despite his relative normalcy, Howard regularly teams up with much more powerful and prominent heroes, to the point he’s on a first-name basis with most of them. I have no earthly idea how he’d get wrapped up in the events of Cosmic Invasion, but tell me it wouldn’t be funny to have him there alongside everyone else.
Where to play
WHERE TO PLAY
SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
