Marvel Snap has proven to be one of my favorite discoveries of 2022. Comics have been a lifelong passion of mine, outpacing the amount of time I have spent thinking about Magic the Gathering. This new mobile game takes the wealth of characters in the Marvel pantheon and turns them into unique cards across a wide range of archetypes. All in a deceptively deep card game. A match takes place over six turns, cards have varying energy costs, and your pool of energy grows steadily across the fixed number of turns. The variance of notable characters and locations creates simple gameplay which keeps my attention during my downtime. As such, my time with the game has made me think longingly about the potential characters we could see come to the game.
And while I have a pretty wealthy knowledge of the history of Marvel Comics and their characters, my biases do lean more towards the X-Men and the Avengers from Civil War forward. With that knowledge, I want to close out 2022 by going over my list of notable characters across all of Marvel that we really ought to see in Snap at some point. To be clear, today’s list will not be including any actual card designs, as I don’t want to accidentally put unsolicited designs out into the world. Regardless of how game-breaking these characters could be, I’ll leave that up to the imaginations of he design team.
Banshee, a mutant capable of sonic screams, who has played a part in the Marvel Universe since his introduction in 1966
Banshee
Sean Cassidy, aka Banshee, is an Irish mutant whose origins go back to 1966’s X-Men #28. He possesses the ability to fly through the use of his sonic screams, a power that can also be used to incapacitate a single target or entire crowd. If nothing else, he was a member of the Giant Sized X-Men team, firmly placing him in the history of the mutant team. Due to how malleable the card designs are in Marvel Snap, I have no doubt that Sean’s power is already versatile enough to be used in the game, but add to the fact that he has been a leader of smaller mutant teams, a horseman of Apocalypse, and presently is host to the Spirit of Variance. Sean Cassidy could be interrupted in any number of ways to premiere in Snap.
High Evolutionary, a character who is soon to premiere in the MCU. His comics counterpart works to influence the evolution of humans through his control of the human genome.
High Evolutionary
First seen in 1966’s Thor #134, Herbert Wyndham is Marvel’s answer to Doctor Moreau in a broad sense. I know him mostly for trying to master evolution, first by trying to evolve animals into a humanoid form, before turning his attention to humans themselves. But unlike Mister Sinister’s love for cloning to selectively better the human genome, Wyndham has a drive to accelerate and alter human genetics to drive human evolution.
I honestly don’t know how much the Marvel Snap team at Second Dinner is able to work in tandem with the larger Marvel IP. But the High Evolutionary is about to make his debut in the third Guardians of the Galaxy film in early 2023. So if there is going to be strong brand integration, I would expect that this character will be on our radar in the coming months. While I would have no problem with the character taking on differing traits in the film or the comics, I don’t think that there is any reason to not play up the character that exists in the comics to help to keep some distinction. With connections to established Snap characters such as Spider-Woman, the Scarlet Witch, and the Avengers, I think a story could be developed that introduces the character in a standout way.
Count Nefaria, long time foe to the Avengers and X-Men, seen here in one of his early appearances from the 1960’s.
Count Nefaria
Count Nefaria is many things to many people. To some, he is the descendant of a long line of Italian noblemen and powerful figurehead of the Maggia. To others, he is a podcasting vampire. Nefaria has been a persistent antagonist to The Avengers and X-Men since 1964’s Avengers #13. Unfortunately, I think that he has fallen far enough off the radar in the modern age. He may never see his rightful place within Marvel’s larger intellectual properties without somebody being his champion. I will be that champion.
While starting out as an affluent international criminal scientist, Luchino Nefaria eventually gained the typical super human physiology that becomes a necessity with most comic book characters. But over time Nefaria has obtained ionic powers, akin to Wonder Man, along with energy manipulation. While I don’t believe Marvel Snap needs outright bad cards, I believe Nefaria would be fitting either as a vanilla card with average stats. He could also fit as a niche card which people don’t take seriously, but has its place in decks whcih find value in whatever he does.
Red Hulk, aka General Thunderbolt Ross. A more recent Hulk character who generates gamma radiation as he gets angrier.
Red Hulk
Overall, I have few criticisms about Marvel Snap. But, I’m a little afraid it will be hard to create suboptimal designs which don’t make an immediate impact, if they fall into the higher series of cards. As a Magic player, I’m used to the idea of a strictly better or strictly worse version of a card, so the idea of this coming to Marvel Snap seems like an eventuality. Not every card is going to be Earth-shattering, but I absolutely think there is space for some redundancy in the form of less powerful versions of cards. They may be more of an in-joke than an established strategy, the kind of thing which adds depth to the culture the game creates. In Red Hulk, I wholeheartedly believe we might have a fine candidate for this category of card.
Sporting a similar power set to Hulk – with a notable exception being that he generates gamma radiation as he gets angrier – the alter ego of General Thunderbolt Ross has a lot of fans. I’ll admit, I’m not one of them. Since becoming a discount Incredible Hulk in 2008’s Hulk Volume 2 #1, Red Hulk has always seemed like a footnote in the history of Hulk characters. That said, he does have the aforementioned fans who I believe would be excited for his appearance in Marvel Snap. I just hope he exists with a different enough design, instead of making him a strictly better Hulk.
Moira MacTaggert, one of the world’s leading geneticists, earning a Nobel Prize for her work. In current comics, she is also one of the most important mutants to have lived.
Moira MacTaggert
Moira McTaggert is a compelling character which I would love to see how the game designers envision. Dating back to 1975’s X-Men #96, most of her time within the Marvel Universe, Moira was a geneticist who fostered mutants at the safe haven, Muir Island. But in recent years, it has been revealed that she was actually a mutant who had gone completely undetected. She was while living out her life nearly a dozen times, codenamed “Moira X”. She bore witness to the rise and fall of mutantkind, sometimes as a protector or enemy, or even a willing bystander to their history.
Regardless of the wider implications of Moira’s existence, I could also see her place in the game simply tying into the themes of select mutant characters, specifically Banshee and her son, Proteus. I have to imagine alternate versions of characters may be in the back pocket of the design team, and a separate Moira X card could one day exist in its own right.
Gateway, along with several of the X-Men during their late-80’s Outback-era. Gateway is a mute indigenous Australian mutant with teleportation powers.
Gateway
Gateway is a mute indigenous Australian mutant who first appeared in 1988’s Uncanny X-Men # 229. An ally to the X-Men during their time hiding out in the Australian Outback, Gateway is capable of teleportation across time, space, and dimensions. As such, he has obvious applications in a game that relies so heavily on locations and a fixed amount of turns.
In fact, he was one of a handful of characters I was surprised wasn’t in the game at the time of global release. I honestly believe that Gateway would serve as a decent deep cut for a lot of the game’s players, while potentially being a card that would drive a lot of hype when it is unveiled.
Molecule Man, a being that at times has been the most powerful thing to exist in the Marvel Comics universe. He would likely breathe MCU, but should be perfect for Marvel Snap.
Molecule Man
Easily the character with the highest power level ceiling among all the characters on this list – and the argument could be made, among all characters currently included in the game. Owen Reece a.k.a. Molecule Man is indisputably an eventual point for the game to reach, given enough time. First seen in Fantastic Four #20 in 1963, he is shown to have control over inorganic matter on a subatomic level. I became aware of him due to his appearance in the 1980’s event, Secret Wars, in which he realizes the fuller extent of his powers through his interactions with Dr. Doom. From that point on, he is able to warp reality on a whim.
By now we know Owen Reece’s destiny has always been tied to The Beyonder. He may have been intended to be a fail-safe to eventually end the multiverse. As I said, I think a version of this character is pretty much inevitable to one day be seen in Marvel Snap, as he could represent ultimate power at a very steep cost.
Mimic, an unsuspecting lab rat of his father’s testing, he now possesses the powers of any mutant within a certain range. He is Ryan’s favorite character on this list and Ryan will stop at nothing to see Mimic reach Marvel Snap’s design team.
Mimic
All of the hardcore X-Men fans will probably laugh at this choice, citing that Synch is a far more realistic candidate to find their place within Marvel Snap. But, I wholeheartedly believe that Mimic is one of the most underrated characters within Marvel’s roster. They really ought to see a place within this game first and foremost. Calvin Rankin is not a mutant, instead he is a normal human within the Marvel Universe. His father experiments on him and ultimately changes his physiology, to allow him the abilities of a mutant within his vicinity.
This is by far my most wanted character, with the rest having no determined priority over one another. He was the first character I wanted to unlock, and I was saddened to see he wasn’t included. Even outside of the context of this game, I find the origin to have so much potential to it. I would love to see what the game designers do with a character that has to define itself based on the specialness of those around them, instead of who they inherently are.
I have been very impressed with Marvel Snap. While working on this article, I developed a healthy list of characters, long enough to fill another two articles. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was returning back to this topic in the coming months. I hope this has been a fun experience, as I find the game to be a deceptively deep card game that feeds my love of the game and the Marvel universe. Until next time, thanks for reading.
Ryan Sainio (he/him) is a Graphic Designer who has been reading comics for more than 20 years and has a strong allegiance to The Avengers and X-Men.
MTG Content Creator Awards 2022 nominee: Format Specialty Writing & Excellence in Writing Overall