It’s an exciting time to be a Marvel fan. Not only are the Marvel movies entering phase two with some fantastic storylines on the horizon, but Marvel’s finally getting a LEGO game! This is going to be good: the 616 universe has tons of weird and wonderful characters and scenarios to immortalise in cheery plastic, and the goofier side of the Marvel universe fits perfectly with the knockabout humour of TT Games. However, as a longtime Marvel fan, a few of the weirdest moments seem to be absent from what we’ve seen so far. So we know that in LEGO Marvel, Loki has assembled a team of supervillains, including Venom, Doc Ock, Doctor Doom, and Magneto to grab the Cosmic Bricks before the heroes can get their hands on them. But he’s left out Ultron, which is a shame because Tony Stark seems to be important in LEGO Marvel and confrontations between an evil AI and a technological genius in a suit of armour are always entertaining. Like, for example, during the Mighty Avengers era, when Tony Stark faced Ultron as leader of his own team.
Unfortunately for Tony, he was using the techno-organic virus Extremis to enhance is interface with the Iron Man suit at the time. Ultron hacked it in very short order and used it to turn Tony into his new body: a sexy, naked silver lady that strongly resembled his team mate, Janet van Dyne. Which was extremely awkward for all concerned. Both Galactus and Dazzler are going to be in the new LEGO Marvel game- but I bet you anything they won’t face off. This is for one very simple reason. Galactus would lose, and lose spectacularly. Now, I admit I’m a little biased (I’m a huge fan of the world’s only mutant popstar) but the situation does have precedent. Way back when, Dazzler was actually hired (in a manner of speaking) by Galactus to retrieve something he’d left in a black hole; kind of the cosmic equivalent of dropping your keys down a drain. Only Dazzler could do it, because she can transform sound into light, something you need in a black hole (I think. Marvel science is shaky).
Once Galactus had supercharged her, she was even powerful enough to be a threat to the Big Guy himself. Give Dazzler a loud enough sound and she’ll take down that purple-hatted loser faster than you can say ‘Disco is dead’. *Since this feature was written this character has been announced... typical. All bets are off, then. Fingers crossed for Frog Thor. Okay, so Spider-Man is going to be in LEGO Marvel. Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, aka the most adorable super hero to ever grace Marvel comics with his presence? Or the creepy Spider-Man we have in comics currently, who’s actually Doctor Octopus in Peter Parker’s body? The same Doctor Octopus who dated Aunt May for several years? It might be hard to believe, but the Spider-Man we currently have in comics isn’t even Spider-Man at all. He’s a super-villain masquerading as our web-slinging hero. Kind of puts all the promos in a new light if you watch them that way. Marvel comics is awash with Nazis, from the TV-headed thing that calls itself Arnim Zola to the classic Red Skull.
However, one of the weirdest ones won’t be making an appearance: one Fritz von Meyer, aka the Swarm. The Swarm came into being when... look, do you actually care? He’s a Nazi made out of bees. Frankly, I don’t know why he isn’t in the game already. This is a man made of (presumably) fascist insects. Where on Earth is he? Both Peper Potts and Maria Hill count as former girlfriends of Iron Man, and we’ll likely see them both in the game, but one ex we probably won’t see one of Tony’s earliest exes, Cleopatra. Iron Man’s got this history with time travel, you see. Way back in the Sixties he went on a trip to Egypt to help out an archaeologist friend on a dig. Tony ended up going back in time and meeting the Queen of the Nile herself - who was very smitten with Tony. Even though he kept his armour on the entire time. I guess some people are into that? Devil Dinosaur is a Seventies Jack Kirby creation who, along with his life partner Moon-Boy (a chimp), lived on a parallel prehistoric Earth until he was transported to Earth-616 in a magical accident.
It’s there that things start to get kind of weird. Devil Dinosaur is definitely in Marvel continuity. Writers love to use him (he’s a bright red dinosaur, who wouldn’t), so he’s popped up all over the place. Why not in LEGO Marvel? How best to explain Doop? Doop is, essentially, the cooler cousin of Slimer from Ghostbusters. A floating green bean-shaped… thing, Doop speaks entirely in his own language and is currently employed as adjunct staff by the X-Men, though really he shouldn’t be allowed around children at all. It’s entirely possible Doop is a mutant. It’s actually really hard to tell. Please don’t laugh at Frog Thor. Frog Thor has a lot of pathos and depth. His story almost Shakesperean in scope. A former football star who was cursed by a gypsy, Simon Walterson is empowered by a fragment of Mjolnir to become Thor, Frog of Thunder. This means he has all the powers of Thor, and is also a frog. No, come back, I’m not done. He’s even part of the Pet Avengers, along with Aunt May’s dog and Kitty Pryde’s dragon.
Perhaps this could be a special pet level in the game? There’s loads of villains lined up for the LEGO Marvel game, but it’s a real shame we haven’t seen Boomerang yet. Fred Myers is a super-accurate former baseball pitcher who uses his skills for evil as Boomerang. Doubt his supervillain credentials? He’s worked with Sandman and Justin Hammer (who you might remember from Iron Man 2) and he’s considered a pretty standard Spider-Man villain. Yes, he throws boomerangs at people. But is that really any sillier than Hawkeye’s super archery skills? Probably, but he’s got as much right to be there as Squirrel Girl, at least. Marvel Russia is a strange place. Mostly a howling wasteland with only two major cities, it’s produced some of the best villains Marvel has - Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, for example, or literally every major Iron Man villain until the Cold War ended. One of the best is Ursa Major, who is essentially a were-bear. One of the Soviet Union’s first mutants, Mikhail Ursus basically just transforms into a giant bear, but he’s one of Russia’s premier superhumans and happily confident in his own ability to fight Iron Man and co. despite his complete lack of lasers, rockets, etc.