Marvel Snap’s lead gameplay designer, Glenn Jones, posted a cryptic message on Discord in response to a question asking about upcoming seasons in Marvel Snap. The ancient texts have foretold this event, believed to have been scrawled on the walls of the ancient pyramids of Rama Tut. I’m here today to help decipher these cryptic emojis in an effort to predict what the future holds for Marvel Snap.
January & February
🐉 🌌
Let’s get the easy guesses out of the way early. January was the Dragon season, featuring Shou Lao as the season pass. In February, if the datamines are correct, we’ll be flying to the stars with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and season pass card Star-Lord, Master of the Sun. Here, the Guardians of the Galaxy is represented by the Milky Way emoji.
March & April
⏳ 🕦
In March and April, we’ll travel back and forward in time through Ancient Egypt. The hourglass emoji for the March season works nicely, as the season pass will feature En Sabah Nur, before his transformation into Apocalypse. The sand works in mysterious ways, however, and in this case, it’s working double duty, as we’ll also see cards like Sandstorm and Ozymandias, creating a brand new Rock archetype.
April’s season pass is currently datamined to be Stryfe. Stryfe is a clone of Cable, kidnapped and raised by Apocalypse. Stryfe, of course, becomes a time-travelling madman, bent on getting revenge against his parents, both real and symbolic. Stryfe’s card was datamined years ago, and I fully expect the text to change in one of the following two patches.
May
🕶️
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. In May, we will see the expected release of Daredevil: Born Again season 2. Second Dinner doesn’t always have the best track record of timing their seasons with Disney+ releases, but Daredevil’s release seems to have been softly pencilled in for quite some time. The glasses emoji is the perfect representation of Matt Murdock, who I predict will be the season pass card. I’m not discounting the idea of a reprint Daredevil: Born Again card, but why use the glasses emoji over a devil emoji? (What, you don’t want the misleading drama of a potential Mephisto season? Sorry, my Snap Most Wanted brain is leaking out into this article…)
Here are some other characters that I wouldn’t be surprised to see show up in a potential Daredevil season this May.
There is, of course, the possibility that we see a season filled with “Born Again” reprint characters, but I personally don’t want to go down that dark road. The notable absences here are Karen Page and Night Nurse. (You’ll see why I left Night Nurse off soon.) I think Karen could absolutely be a card, but in a season filled with civilians, I imagine she, more than Foggy, is at risk of meeting the chopping block.
June
🌊
A few months ago, Glenn hinted on Discord at an upcoming Atlantis season, and the wave makes perfect sense for the return of Namor, and a great way to usher in the summer. Anyone who played Marvel Snap in the beta will remember the first-ever season - Atlantis Beach Club! And with June correlating roughly to the fourth anniversary of the beta launch, Atlantis is back!
I do expect the season pass card to be a reprint of Namor, similar to February’s Star-Lord. My prediction for Namor’s title? Emperor of the Deep. (They could also go with Prince of Atlantis, but that doesn’t sound as cool.)
The back-bench characters of Atlantis are less interesting to me than some of the other corners of the Marvel Universe. My prediction here is that, in addition to Atlantis, we will also see the introduction of Lemurian characters to Marvel Snap. After all, Lemuria has been a location since the very beginning of the game.
In addition to Lemurian characters, I also see Second Dinner bring some of the Gods associated with Atlantis and Lemura, specifically Poseidon and Set. Here are some ideas for a potential Atlantis/Lemuria season.
July
🌅
And with the sunrise comes a Brand New Day. A Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Although Spider-Man doesn’t release until the very end of July, it’s still the perfect month to celebrate everyone’s favorite wall-crawler and his much-anticipated fourth movie.
While the plot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been kept under wraps, I’m going to venture into some casting spoilers and speculation to help predict this July season.
Be warned, there are spoilers ahead.
I expect the season pass card to be a reprint of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, similar to Mr. Fantastic First Steps, last July. I’m curious, though, if the rest of the cards will have “Brand New Day” attached to them, mainly because we may be seeing some of these characters for the first time in the game.
My most confident prediction (and also my number one choice in the Character Prediction League) is Tombstone. Hollywood trades have reported that Marvin Jones III will reprise his role as Tombstone, voicing him in the Spider-Verse movies, and now taking on the role in live action. In addition to Tombstone, other villains have been hinted at, including Michael Mando returning as Scorpion, and other minor villains like Boomerang and Ramrod. (Both of them seem perfect for Series 4 cards.)
The real mystery on my mind, though, is who Sadie Sink is playing? I’ve heard so many rumors at this point that I don’t really know what to believe. Occam’s Razor says that red hair means Jean Grey - and her signing on to be in Avengers: Secret Wars seems to lend some credence to that. Others believe she may be the daughter of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, Mayday Parker. I’m still not completely sold, though, and my secret hope is that she’s actually playing Shathra, who could also travel the Multiverse. We won’t know for a few more months, so I’ll include them all as potential additions.
In addition to these villains, I could also see this season finally introduce J. Jonah Jameson to Marvel Snap. Bring me variants of Spider-Man! I also mentioned earlier that Night Nurse might not appear in a Daredevil season, because it’s rumored that Rosario Dawson will be reprising her role from the Netflix series in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. That means there are two chances for Night Nurse to join Marvel Snap this year.
August
🐮
August finally brings us to the mysterious cow season. Listen, I’m going to be honest with you. This one has been puzzling me since Glenn shared his original comment. I’ve been ruminating on this all day, and I’ve narrowed it down to five guesses. I’m going to give you all of them, in the order of how likely I think they are.
- Cow = Cowboy - This makes sense, right? Kid Colt, Phantom Rider, Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid. All great options for characters. (I think Kid Colt would be the season pass.) I like this idea for the August season the most, particularly because you could also find a way to work in one of my favorite characters - Kushala.
- Cow = cow. I’m trying not to overthink it, but I’m also writing a dissertation about twelve emojis, so bear with me. The most popular Marvel cow, Hellcow, is already in the game - but what about the second most popular Marvel Cow - Bova - the High Evolutionary upraised bovine midwife! But what kind of season could Bova be the season pass card for? Well, Bova helped with the birth of Quicksilver and also took care of Mordred briefly. What do the two of them have in common? Excalibur! That’s right, I’ve found a way to link a cow to a Captain Britain season. (Maybe this one should be lower on the list, but it’s also a grand conspiracy.)
- Cow = Skrulls! Skrulls famously hid on Earth disguised as cows. This one is pretty straightforward, actually. Could the cows be hinting at an intergalactic Skrull/Kree season?
- Cow = Pets - Could the cow be hinting at a future Pet Avengers season? Less likely, but I like the idea.
- Cow = Moo Knight - An entire season of characters from Spider-Ham’s universe, including Moo Knight and Pork Grind. Also, a bit of a stretch, but I’d be happy to have this wacky season in the game.
September
🪞
Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me what the September season will bring…. What? No definitive answer? Shoot.
Okay then, let’s take a look at some potential options:
- The mirror could represent reflection and the idea of looking at oneself. But who can honestly look at oneself? Well, Vision can, when he exists as both a creation of Wanda Maximoff and a deconstructed synthezoid no longer powered by the Mind Stone. And what else might be happening in September? VisionQuest! I could see a potential season with a brand new Vision, along with Paladin, who has been cast for VisionQuest, a new Ultron, as well as a crew of all of Tony Stark’s robot inventions, which are rumored to appear. (DUM-E, FRIDAY, EDITH, etc.)
- The mirror could also represent a less literal reflection. And what kind of “reflection” is there in comics? Different Universes. And what ends later this year - Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimate Universe. This brand new Ultimate Universe explores a world where superheroes are few and far between, having been prevented from becoming super through the intervention of The Maker. The world is run by a Cabal consisting of Obadiah Stane and Howard Stark, Emmanuel da Costa, Ra & Khonshu, Emperor Sunfire, the Rasputin family, and a few other evil-doers. Our heroes consist of Ultimate Spider-Man, who acquires his powers much later in life, a young and inexperienced Tony Stark, an outlawed Thor, Peach Momoko creation Maystorm, and Winter Soldier Wolverine. All together - an incredible mix of characters for a potential season.
- My final guess for the mirror is a little bit more literal - what if it just represents the Siege Perilous? A mirror-like mystical gateway through the Multiverse with frequent tie-ins to… You guessed it - Excalibur! That’s right, I’m fitting in Excalibur here somewhere!
October
🦷
What could a tooth have to do with October? How about everything? I’m predicting that October will bring us a Vampire season, with a reprint of Blade, Daywalker season pass. Joining Blade will be a wild crew of Marvel Vampires that come from a variety of places in the Marvel Universe.
Check out some of my predictions below:
November
❓
The question mark emoji here doesn’t accurately portray the actual question mark power icon used by Glenn on Discord, but my best guess for the season is more connected to the question mark itself than the power icon.
The most common guess I’ve seen for this is a new What If…? season, which is absolutely a possibility. It just seems so unlikely that we get a second season of What If characters when there is so much more content to explore elsewhere. I’m also not quite sure what characters are left to pull from the What If…? TV series. You’ve got the original content character Byrdie, and a handful of other interesting choices like The Freak or Nova Corp Nebula. Maybe we could finally get Dum Dum Dugan, as well.
But my prediction for November has more to do with the question aspect of the question mark. I wonder.
I’m guessing that Second Dinner didn’t know the release timeframe for Wonder Man in time to plan for a season to coincide with the TV show. But now that it’s finally releasing, they’re finding a way to slot it into the schedule. I’m hoping that November includes some of the characters from the TV show and the comics for a wide variety of exciting new additions.
December
😷
December…. Doctor…. Mask…. I’ve got nothing.
Okay. Fine. This is very obviously going to be a Doomsday season. I expect several Doomsday-themed reprints, but I also think there’s potential for some new characters, including Steve Rogers (on a motorcycle) and Franklin Richards. In terms of reprints, some good options might be Black Panther (Shuri) or M’Baku, King of Wakanda. This could be the perfect entry for a Winter Soldier base card.
Secret Wars, in 2027, will ultimately offer more options for creatively themed cards, but I’m okay with a handful of Doomsday reprints, as long as they bring something fresh to the game.
Conclusion
There you have my best guesses for understanding the cryptic clues offered to us by Glenn Jones.
I’m personally pleased that we were given this because I feel like it’s something that Second Dinner doesn’t do too often. The vast majority of players care about mechanics and gameplay over everything else. Marvel is just the skin that the game wears. I don’t blame them. But for anyone who found the game through Marvel, entertaining the lore, characters, and speculation is always appreciated, and doesn’t happen often enough.
I also enjoy that posting these emojis was a way to put down everyone who cries wolf about how Marvel Snap is dying. A dying game doesn’t have the next 11 months confidently planned out. A dying game has no reason to engage in speculation with the community. Without even acknowledging the haters, these 12 emojis should do a great job ending any rumors about Marvel Snap’s impending doom.