Comic book characters have a long history of appearing in other media. The first video game to feature a superhero was Atari’s Superman in 1979, and there are over 100 Marvel-based video games alone.
However, most comic book videogames recycle the same old superheroes like Batman, Spider-Man, and whatever the flavor-of-the-month superhero squad is. There’s a lot of comic book characters that have been woefully ignored, and so here we present a list of comic book characters that we would love to see in modern video games.
Spawn
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was immensely popular back in the 90’s, being one of very few non-DC / Marvel comic book characters to be in the list of best-selling comics of all time. The character’s popularity led to a feature film, animated series, and action figure adaptations, as well as several video games for older console generations.
Spawn hasn’t received any spotlight for a long time, though the character has made cameo appearances in numerous films and video games, including as a playable character in 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11. With a Spawn film reboot in tentative pre-production, it’d be a great time to bring this 90’s comic book icon back to consoles, in his own God of War-style hack and slash adventure.
Wonder Woman
It’s absolutely mind-boggling that Wonder Woman has literally never received her own video game. Actually, we take that back, she does have her own slot-machine game on Casumo casino.
Seriously though, with so many other comic book characters receiving their own games, and so many games today featuring female protagonists, and Wonder Woman being one of the highest-grossing DC movies of all time ($821.749 million worldwide!), just who in the hell exactly isn’t on-board with a Wonder Woman video game?
The world needs a Wonder Woman video game more than it needs another Tomb Raider reboot.
Black Panther
The Marvel Studios adaptation of Black Panther became the 9th highest-grossing movie globally of all time, earning over $1.3 billion USD worldwide. The film’s success proved that modern audiences crave diversity and cultural awareness in modern cinema, even in superhero films.
A video game adaptation of Black Panther could certainly capture almost the same success, perhaps for some of the same, but also different reasons. It’d be amazing to explore the simultaneously beautiful and futuristic land of Wakanda, and pit players against villains such as Klaw, Venomm (not the Spider-Man character), and Doctor Doom.
John Hartigan & Marv (Sin City)
The Sin City comics were skillfully adapted into two feature films which blended the gritty, neo-noir atmosphere of Frank Miller’s comics, with some pretty striking visual effects. A television series is also reportedly in the works, and so why not a video game?
The crime-thriller story of John Hartigan would make for an excellent Max Payne style action-shooter game, and Marv was a walking bad-ass. Who wouldn’t want to control Marv and pummel the psychopath Kevin into a bloody pulp?
Doctor Strange
The surrealist, mystical universe of Doctor Strange made many believe the writers at Marvel were high on magic mushrooms back in the 1970s, which they deny. Whatever the case, the mind-bending visual effects of Doctor Strange would be perfect in video game art, bringing the player through Doctor Strange’s rather strange universe.
The villains of Doctor Strange would also be incredibly unique video game bosses. You’d have the Lovecraftian-inspired Shuma-Gorath, the dream-world ruling Nightmare, and of course Doctor Strange’s greatest foe, Dormammu.
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider has received very little love in popular media lately. The 2007 and 2011 films were commercially successful but critically panned, earning Nicolas Cage a Razzie Award for Worst Actor. His tendency to overact in films didn’t lend itself very well to a dark antihero film like Ghost Rider, but let’s move on.
A 2007 Ghost Rider game was actually released on the PS2, featuring a Devil May Cry combat system, which worked well, and it even had Blade as a playable character. The game overall suffered from painfully linear level-design, however, and so a modern version would be much better as an open-world title, allowing the player to drive around freely on Ghost Rider’s infamous Hell Cycle.
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