Spooky season is upon us, and what could be scarier than voting the characters you most want to see in Marvel Snap a second month in a row?
I know what you’re thinking. Eminga - didn’t we do this last month? And to that I say - yes! But this time it’s slightly different and you have some chances to writen a season pass (see at the end)! If you’ve been following along with the last few Most Wanted articles, you’ll know that we are saying goodbye (or good riddance?) to the ten characters who performed lowest on September’s poll. We’re also going to graduate any characters from the poll that have officially made it into Marvel Snap. (More on that later.)
While it’s hard to say goodbye to some of these characters, and I’m still not over breaking up Raza from the Starjammers, the data doesn’t lie and there isn’t enough demand to keep our ten lowest on the list. If you missed it, you can read more about these also-rans in last week’s September results article here.
(If you don’t want to read about the newcomers to the poll, along with this week’s character spotlight, you can jump directly to voting by clicking here.)
Newcomers
You’re probably wondering who our lucky newcomers are. The group as a whole is drawn from various requests I’ve seen here in the comments, along with on social media. There’s also a character here just for Scosco.
The first newcomer I want to mention is the one I saw requested most across all comments and social media - Molly Hayes. When I made the original list for voting it wound up being more than 300 characters long, and I felt it was too cumbersome to ask anyone to actually vote on. When I pared it down, I unfortunately wound up axing a few of the Runaways. (Yes, I know Chase and Xavin are still not on the list… Maybe next month?) The more I thought about Molly, the more I realized she’s actually the perfect Marvel Snap character. Who wouldn’t want to own a variant card of Molly wearing every kind of animal hat?
The next three characters are linked thematically. We’ll start with Singularity - a mysterious cosmic being. Singularity has had a few interesting run-ins with the characters of A-Force - the first which took place as a Secret Wars tie-in. Singularity seems to have limitless power, with pocket dimensions and unfettered teleportation through these pockets. Singularity is joined on the list by Abraxas, another cosmic entity, but with more villainous vibes. Abraxas has deep ties to Galactus, who keeps him from destroying the multiverse, and is frequently stopped with the help of the final character in this trio, Valeria Richards. Valeria’s intelligence (and thoughtfulness) surpasses that of her fathers. She deserves a spot on the list, simply based on the fact that her brother ended September’s rankings as the second most wanted character. Without a movie tie-in can Valeria ascend to such heights?
The next two additions are popular mutants who didn’t make the cut onto the September list. I know, there are hundreds of mutants that I’ve left off. It’s difficult to make everyone happy, and admit that there are still countless mutants who deserve to be included. I hope that the additions of Wakandan Gentle, and the brother of Warpath, Thunderbird are a good start at correcting some of the omissions from last month. Justify their inclusion by voting in their favor!
Before I get to the largest group of newcomers, I want to talk about how datamines will affect inclusions on the list. Believe me when I say that I am the first to hang my head in shame when a datamine presents an obvious character who was left off the list. It would be easy to simply add on these datamined characters every month, but I don’t think that would be exciting knowing that their presence on the list will be short lived, and influenced by the knowledge of their future inclusion.
Instead, I’d like the datamines to inspire me with characters related to datamined seasons that don’t seem to be coming to the game. With that being said, William Stryker is our next new addition, with the strong potential of an upcoming Weapon Plus season. (Side note: I am of the strong belief that civilian characters belong in Marvel Snap - so many other Marvel games don’t have gameplay space for regular ol’ humans, so I think it’s special that these otherwise NPCs get a chance to shine with gameplay on par with more traditional heroes and villains.)
The final batch, or should I say, legion of characters are all pulled from the same super team: The Legion of Monsters. To go with October’s Undead Horde season, I thought it would be fun to add in a number of monstrous characters, so please welcome Shiklah, N’Kantu The Living Mummy, Manphibian and Zombie (Simon Garth) to the Most Wanted list. This entire crew serves up a lot of potential for interesting mechanics, and just down below we’re going to take a look at Simon Garth in the first Character Spotlight for October.
Graduates
A quick note. If you were counting, that’s eleven new characters, despite the fact I’m only dropping the lowest ten. Our additional character comes from the fact that Super-Adaptoid was accidentally left on last month’s list. (My bad!) I expect there be numerous highly ranked web-slinging characters who graduate next month, but for now, let’s congratulate Super-Adaptoid for making his way off the list, along with some of the other characters added last month.
Please let the record show that when Dum Dum Dugan was originally datamined to be released this month I prepared an image of him wearing his traditional bowler cap, with mortarboard on top of it. You’ll just have to wait until he actually makes it into the game to see it.
Character Spotlight: Zombie (Simon Garth)
So Marvel Snap is finally having a Zombie season! That means we’re totally going to see the character who is an actual Zombie in it… right….?
Just to pull the curtain back, a little bit - my screenshots and research are done using the Marvel Unlimited app. It’s a great entry point for Marvel comics for anyone interested, and it takes up far less space on my bookshelves than my already growing comic collection. I wanted to read some of the original Zombie comics from the 1970s, but realized quickly they are not available on Unlimited. They are available, however, on the Internet Archive as CBR files - so if anyone is inspired to read some pulpy, old-school monster comics, definitely check these out! Not only do you get some classic Zombie, but you can also get a look at some classic Morbius, Voodoo and more.
Simon Garth was a merciless businessman in Alabama, and while a pillar of his own community, he made no friends among the people who worked for him. His gardener Gyps stabs him to death, and gives his body away to a voodoo cult. Fortunately for Simon, the cult’s priestess knows and is in love with him. She saves a part of his soul and resurrects a Zombie, thus Marvel’s first Zombie is born. (Reborn?)
Garth goes quite some time, with little comic book credit to his name, but pops up a few times in the late 90s as both enemy and ally to Spider-Man. He then rests for another decade, before appearing in a Legion of Monsters collection, with a short story in 2007.
It’s not until Marvel Zombies 4 in 2009 that Garth gets another role to chew on. Here, he partners with Zombie Deadpool (actually just Headpool in appearance.) He actually winds up saving his reality, becoming a conduit to safely store the Zombie virus. (Thanks for the assist, Jennifer Kale.)
More recently, Zombie has had a brief team-up with Daredevil as a member of the Legion of Monsters, and then reunites with Deadpool during Venom War.
After the official announcement of the Undead Horde season, it seems like there are a number of questions people have about Horde as a mechanic. The thing that I think most about, in regards to Horde is the longevity of the keyword. There are only five cards being released that use Horde as a keyword. My biggest fear with this is not that there won’t be enough support for the mechanic. I hope, and to an extent, trust, that Second Dinner feels confident releasing the mechanic in this limited capacity… but just in case, I thought it would be fun to design a Simon Garth card with Horde in mind.
My original idea for Zombie was to take advantage of his undead nature, and combine Horde with destroy, but when I looked at all the Horde cards, I decided it would be more fun to play around in the 6-drop space, which was unfilled amongst this season’s Horde cards.
Although Zombie isn’t necessarily the strongest on his own, this card allows for extra Zombie Horde protection, unpredictable power, and still fits thematically, considering Simon’s body is currently home to a universe encompassing Zombie virus.
Most Wanted - Zombie Simon Garth Deck
I created this deck to use all of the Zombie cards that use the Horde keyword, and play to all of their strengths. Squirrel Girl may seem like an odd inclusion here, but I think that Horde will play similar to Zoo, with Zombie Fantastic benefitting from Squirrel tokens and Zombie Giant Man acting as the deck’s Gilgamesh. The large number of On Reveal cards will work well with Wong (tongue twister!), and finally my custom Zombie card can fill any missing spaces at the end of the game, with some control, based on the lanes you fill up.
Conclusion
So what are you waiting for? It’s time to vote on the Marvel Snap Most Wanted October edition!
Do any of these newcomers have what it takes to crack the Top 20? Did September’s results influence your decision to support (or vote against) any particular character? Let me know in the comments which new character you’re most excited to see in the game!
Season Pass Giveaway
We are giving away some season passes! There are two ways to win a season pass. The first is to vote on the Most Wanted form and include your Discord handle at the end of the form. The second is to comment below on this article and tell us your favorite spooky Marvel character and why!