Since Iron Man returns to theaters this week, this week’s $20 GOTW will take a look back at one of old shellhead’s finest moments. A mysterious orb threatens all life on both the Marvel and Capcom universes, so Ruby Heart unites heroes from the two universes in order to help save it. However, fights keep breaking out, and now that teams are made up of three, things are more chaotic than ever. Marvel Vs Capcom 2 would be the last game Capcom did utilizing the Marvel license, and they decided to go out with a bang. MVC 2 features Iron Man, his buddy War Machine, and several of his fellow Avengers as part of the 50+ fighters on hand.
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It has been 10 years since we were last taken for a ride, and now it looks like Marvel has finally remembered their characters were best served under the Capcom banner.
Capcom had a big media event last week in Hawaii, but all the games they premiered have been supposed to be secret until today. Even as of this writing, this trailer wasn’t supposed to be out yet. Still, someone who loves to see Hulk smash Chris Redfield uploaded it, and for that we thank you.
The trailer shows MvC3 running on MT Framework, which also powered Street Fighter IV and Capcom vs Tasunoko. Capcom has confirmed it will continue with the over-the-top combo systems of previous VS games and will feature 3-on-3 matches. The official image posted above shows the 6 characters from the trailer and some silhouettes of other popular Marvel and Capcom characters. Captain America, Deadpool, Dr Doom, Super Skrull, Mephisto, Black Widow, Frank West, Felicia, Dante, and Chun-Li are all speculated and likely candidates.

Thanks to MaxCon on our forums for the trailer link. More news about this and other Capcom games should surface today.

UPDATE: Capcom Unity has published the press release! Read it after the jump!
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Marvel continues to tease our palettes as of late. Following up on their news of Heroic Age, the House of Ideas is now posting more teaser images of an upcoming X-Men crossover event called Second Coming which will debut in March 2010. The story will feature Hope’s return to the present. The images feature taglines of ‘One will lead them’, ‘One will die’, and ‘One will rise’. The ‘One will Rise’ image is featuring two versions of Hope, the mutant messiah, now in her late teens. She was the mutant baby from the Messiah CompleX storyline a couple years back. The issues of Cable have featured her and Cable prominently as they jump across time to flee Bishop who is desperate to kill Hope and prevent whatever heinous event she triggered in his future’s past. Catch all that? Well the kicker is that one of the two versions of Hope here looks like she is host to the Phoenix force and not in the good way.

Apparently this event was announced at the Diamond Summit ’09 that took place at the beginning of the last quarter for 2009. Marvel.com has a great article on it here. I suspect there will be more teaser images revealed, but this was the first I had heard of the crossover event and I was immediately interested. The adventures in Cable have been great and I look forward to what happens next.

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

When Timely comics became Marvel during the 1960s, creator Stan Lee, along with creators such as Jack Kirby and Steve Dtiko, helped the company create a new breed of superheroes. In the process, they introduced the world to Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and other soon-to-be household names. What made these guys so special was that unlike the characters created by their distinguished competition, it was easy to relate to these guys. For decades, fans read about people like Superman and Wonder Woman who had near-godlike power and an almost mythic stature. Even Batman, despite not having any powers, was the pinnacle of human achievement. With Marvel however, people read stories about people who had superpowers but had to deal with hang-ups and issues like we do. When they weren’t exploring the Negative Zone or fighting Doctor Doom, The Fantastic Four bickered and quarreled with each other like any other semi-functional family. In between battles with Kang the Conqueror and the Masters of Evil, the Avengers played cards, pulled pranks on each other, went shopping, and hung out as if they were a fraternity or club rather than a superhero group. Peter Parker, a.k.a Spiderman, was a normal teenager like anyone else (save for his superpowers of course), so he had to deal with grades, girls, and bullies as often as he had to deal with symbiotes, idiots with fishbowls for heads, and psychopaths flying on gliders. By the way, this is not to imply anything negative about DC, because there isn’t anyone who hasn’t grown up with Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Besides, DC themselves would adopt this real world approach to its heroes, with storylines about Green Arrow’s sidekick having a drug addiction and the Jason Todd Robin confronting an abusive husband.

Marvel comics also frequently dealt with social issues as well. Spiderman was all about responsibility and power, Captain America examined what it meant to be a patriot in modern day America, and Iron Man even tackled alcoholism. One comic book in particular captured the mood of the period like no other. It was called X-men, and its premise about a sub-race of humanity fighting for their very right to exist resonated perfectly with the struggles that the African American community had to face at the time. Over the next few decades, the X-men’s popularity would increase to staggering proportions, making it one of the best selling comics world wide, and spinning off into a franchise of movies, TV shows, video games, and toys.
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Fellow poweteers Sindra and Raistlin joined me this past weekend at the Fall ’09 Boston Comic Con. This small convention has started getting attention and has been growing by leaps and bounds each show. Traditionally held at the Back Bay Events Center near Copley Square, the show runs twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall.

Read on for more about the convention and what I thought!
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Take this news with a grain of salt since I haven’t seen it up anywhere else, but according to this article over at marketwatch.com, it looks like Disney is going to acquire Marvel Entertainment and all its characters including Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Avengers, and the X-Men. As a result it looks like Marvel’s stock price has shot up 25%, while Disney’s is actually down 1.5 %.

[UPDATE] Press release from Marvel is here.

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This week I’m looking at the new generation of movie games starting with the high quality Wolverine, the creative Ghostbusters, and the action packed Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.

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