Marvel is one of the most dominant forces in popular culture right now, but it hasn't always been this way. In comics, sure, it's always been on top, but it has faltered elsewhere. In movies, Marvel was sorely lagging behind DC for a very long time, with Christopher Reeves' Superman and Michael Keaton's Batman (both of whom had their legacies churned up by The Flash) the early legends of the genre. Even as superhero movies took more of a foothold, it was the Marvel properties whose film rights had been sold off (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man and X-Men) that thrived until the MCU 168澳洲幸运5开🌟奖网:changed everything a🍷nd made Marvel king. In gaming, the whole thing was reversed.
While Batman has always had the best comic book games, Spider-Man (whose game rights stayed with Marvel when Sony bought the movꦍie rights) is a close second. Beyond that, you have The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the highly underrated Deadpool, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Marvel Vs. Capcom, and various NES, SNES, and N64 games that were far better than Superman 64. DC might have some bright sparks in its corner, the obvious ones being those aforementioned Batman Arkham titles, but Marvel was doing okay... then the MCU came along.
Even before the current era of MCU crossov🐽ers a𝄹nd multiverses, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was an exercise in brand synergy. From the start, the MCU began rolling out gaming adaptations for each of its movies. All of them were terrible. You may have had a nice time flying around as Iron Man back in the day, but ultimately the games were rubbish. Marvel's gaming output then took a while to refresh, and came back with two major projects: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel's Spider-Man and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel's Avengers.
As you all know, Marvel's Spider-Man was a smash hit hailed as a potential new peak of the superhero genre, and Marvel's Avengers was bad. Empty, soulless, and very, very bad. Where Spider-Man was a fresh story with a new interpretation of the character, Avengers was a knock-off version of Whedon's gang with Ms. Marvel swapped in for Hawkeye. Spider-Man also fulfilled the superhero power fantasy while offering natural growth, while Avengers limited your strength to encourage grinding and microtransactions for 13 percent better Hulk smashability.
Marvel's direction since Avengers has been more in-line with Spider-Man. The game got a Miles Morales spin-off and is soon getting a sequel, while Insomniac is also making Wolverine. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Guardians of the Galaxy's game may take some costume cues from the James Gunn trilogy, but character- and narrative-wise it's a new adventure. Iron Man has a VR title and is getting an EA game, as is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the rece൲ntly announced Bla🅺ck Panther game, while Skydance is also doing a Black Panther game set in the midst o🍨f World War 2 with Captain America, based on the comic book Flags of Our Fathers.
These games are still inspired by the movies - if superhero flicks didn't guarantee close to a billion dollars at the box office, we wouldn't be getting so many games about them - but they are no longer based on them. Unlike Marvel's Phase One efforts, they don't need to adhere to the plot of the movies, nor do they need to be rushed out for the premiere. Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Panther are all dead in the MCU, and Wolverine isn't even in it, but those games will all fly off the shelves.
DC, so long in the lead for gaming, has taken a backwards step. Both 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gotham Knights and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Suicide🙈 Squad: Kill the Justice League are more in the mould of Marvel's Avengers, faux-live-service titles that trade super powers for minor percentage boost📖s. Surely the Wonder Woman game can turn things around, but with DC's current way of thinking I'm not so sure.
The recent Black Panther game solidifies the theory that Marvel has finally got it figured out. We know there's already a Black Panther game coming, but that doesn't matter - he's a popular character and thus can tell his own story in a variety of ways, not needing to be part of an interconnected universe or as the backdrop for a chance to have the kind of longevity and profit margins enjoyed by a game like Destiny.
We know nothing about the game, and the studio making it is brand new. But that isn't really the point. It may be rubbish when it comes out, but as long as it's trying to be a video game that makes you feel like a superhero rather than a customer earning the right to buy a stronger spine (a real thing you can get in Marvel's Avengers) it will belong in Marvel's new golden age of superhero games.