The day has finally come, and by that I mean Sunday

Yes, due to the fact that I had pre-ordered Marvel vs Capcom 3 I got it a couple days in advance, and already there's news of DLC down the line. You know, besides Jill and Shuma-Gorath. Six new costumes for 500 points? Sign me up. And since I pre-ordered it, I got the free comic with art from both the game itself, promotional art and some fan art. As for the comic itself? Well it's only purpose is to give the pretense that the game has any sort of story to it.

Somehow Albert Wesker of Resident Evil got in touch with Doctor Doom and they hatched the evil plan of fusing both of their worlds together, and then conquering them. Doom gathers together some villains from his world, namely Magneto, M.O.D.O.K., The Super Skrull and Taskmaster. Now I should mention that something about this bugs me: Why would these people help Doom? Modok I can understand, since AIM and Doom have worked together in the past(I assume), and Taskmaster is a Mercenary, though World Conquest doesn't seem like his M.O. Meanwhile you have Magneto, who I just never thought liked Doom, they just don't come off as having each others best interests in mind. And that brings us to K'lrt, the Super Skrull. He's an alien, with his own Empire to think of. Why is he paling around with Earthlings? Any way, they need a power source to run the world squishing machine, so Skrull suggest using Galactus' ship. Wesker likes this idea and goes about recruiting... no one. Because Capcom games take place in separate universes, the only other "Bad Guy" he can get is Akuma, who really is only interested in fighting. At least I assume he gets him, since we never see him in the comic.

Flash forward to our heroes beating the snot out of each other, as is tradition is crossovers, when suddenly Galactus shows up. And that's where it ends. The comic has no bearing on the story itself, other than having Dr. Doom, Wesker and Galactus as the Final Boss. He summons Cosmic (read Chrome) versions of either Wesker or Akuma and Doom and Dormmamu, a being who probably outclasses even Galactus. By the way, Galactus is a bitch to fight when compared to Yami, the final boss of Tatsunoko vs Capcom, though he's a lot easier than Abyss. A time limit, a dual boss fight against two Cosmic Character and attacks that drain the health bar you can't see behind Galactus' hugeness faster than a Frat boy drains a keg. Which you can hardly block, i should mention. 38 endings, which means 38 times fighting him, each time with another character having to be put on the bench on the chance that I beat the game with them again.

Aside from Arcade mode, there's the Online tournament scene. I do alright, not great or anything. I managed to beat a guy who beat another guy with eleven wins, so that means I won thirteen times, right? The ranked fights were down today, so I checked out the lobbies, where I accomplished that previous win, snatching it from the jaws of defeat while in my underpants (well my character was in his underpants anyway) and found out that everyone else couldn't get on either. All in all, a very enjoyable experience, though I'm going to have to bone up before Megacon, find out what works for me. If you want to hit me up, my gamertag is EctoBiologist42.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 roster is Locked, Stocked and somehow barreled.

Okay, I probably stretched for that last part of the title, but my point still stands. The standard 38 characters, as well as the first two DLC/Pre-order bonus characters have been revealed, and so has the Final Boss. Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the power of ...GALACTUS!!!


Galactus is so strong, he doesn't K.O. your team, he K.O.'s the Planet. Specifically if you are on your last teammate and have only 10 seconds left. Backing him up are two Cosmic versions of evil characters. You will have to face off against a dual fight against a combination of either Dr. Doom, Albert Wesker, Akuma, or Dormmamu, boosted by the powers of Galactus to Herald status, giving them a nice chrome finish.

With two weeks left until release, here's how the roster looks:

On the Marvel Side we have:
* Captain America
* Iron Man
* Spider-Man
* Thor
* Wolverine
* X-23
* Storm
* Jean Grey
* Hulk
* She-Hulk
* Deadpool
* Dr. Doom
* Magneto
* Super Skrull
* Taskmaster
* Sentinel
* M.O.D.O.K.
* Dormmamu
* Shuma Gorath
With Galactus as the Final Boss

On the Capcom side we have:
* Ryu
* Chun Li
* Akuma
* Crimson Viper
* Mike Haggar
* Morrigan
* Felicia
* Hsei Ko
* Sir Arthur
* Zero
* Tron Bonne
* Dante
* Trish
* Nathan Spencer, The Bionic Commando
* Chris Redfield
* Albert Wesker
* Jill Valentine
* Viewtiful Joe
* Amaterasu

Now all that's left is to wait to see wait comes out as DLC. The most likely predictions are Frank West, more costumes, and at least two characters who have never been playable in a MvC game. Frank cover the Capcom side of that equation, but who can tell will be in the Marvel side?

And there goes what little faith I had in that stupid grid

With this new announcement what ever faith I had in my little chart from way back when has been shattered. Sentinel and Hsien Ko are the two newest additions to Marvel vs Capcom 3's roster of fighters. Add to that the confirmation that Frank West and the original Mega Man won't be in it (at least at launch)completely and totally disproves my previous assumptions. I hear by renounce any and all faith that the characters from that list will be in MvC3 (from the get go.) So, I suppose I should at least give part of the story, huh? Well Frank is mostly complete, but was cut at a late stage in development, Mega Man was deemed "too hard to adapt for a fighting game", despite the fact that he's been in at least the first two. Something about him having "too many possible weapons" and being "difficult to adapt for MvC3." I'm paraphrasing here. As for the announcement of Sentinel and Hsien Ko? Well, color me surprised. I mean, it's not like I'm upset that they're going to be in, it's just that they were seriously at the bottom of my list of possibilities. Well, at least we can now predict 90% of the teams you're going to face online. Hello Storm/Magneto/Sentinel spam fest. But hey, maybe this might help get us a new Dark Stalkers game? Maybe?

Well this puts a hole in my foot.

This is the latest trailer for Marvel vs Capcom 3, and as you can plainly see, neither character in it was on the image I had been using to make my predictions. I am now no longer using it as concrete fact, but instead as a sort of wish list of characters I'd like to see in the future, perhaps. But on to the characters. First off, we have Akuma, evil brother of Ryu and Ken's master Gouken. At first I thought it was odd that they'd include him, due to his similarity to Ryu, but watching him in action made me realize they were different enough to co-exist alongside one another. Not sure what this means for M. Bison though. He would have been perfect for Doom and Wesker's paln, but I suppose Akuma works as well. But the important part of the video is Taskmaster. I don't actually know that much about him, but he seems to be on the same par of seriousness as Deadpool, and that he's voiced by Steve Blum, my all time favorite voice actor. Judging from the video, he'll use other characters moves, such as Captain America's Shield, Black Knights Sword, and Spidey's swing. Oddly enough, he has a bow, but as far as I can tell, no one who's been announced so far uses a bow. Gee, I wonder what this could mean?


OHAI, HAWKEYE.

Phoenix To Join MvC3. In Other news: obscure blogger posts retraction

Okay, so Jean Grey is now joining the fight in Marvel vs Capcom 3, thus rendering the roster I've been using false. I will go so far as to say that the Marvel side is now more or less debunked, but still hold out hope that most of the Capcom side remains true. I won't hold my breath for Red Arremer now, though. I saw Hagger, I know he'll be announced, as will Mega Man.



This will of course be Jean Grey's first appearance in the MvC franchise, and she will be bringing along both of her split personalities. It seems that you can heal herself with one of her super moves, and will turn into the more violent, and presumably stronger, Dark Phoenix personality when her health runs out. Healing seems to be limited to the same you would get for tagging out, only a lot quicker. It is seems that you need to have a full special gauge to perform the transition to Dark Phoenix, who's health gradually drains fairly quickly. Her counterpart from the Capcom has yet to be revealed, though we can probably bet on it being within the next week. As for who will will out the rest of the Marvel side, I can't say for now, all things considered. I'll still hold out hope for Ms. Marvel and perhaps Howard the Duck, but I am now less willing to bet money on this. Granted, I did once give that roster a mulligan for the Marvel side, one to counteract Strider being deconfirmed, so maybe this is it, and we'll find out who she replaced, my bet being Spider-Woman.
-edit- Alright, We've got our Capcom counterpart in the form of The Mayor of Metro City (he's coming to take your life) Mike Haggar.

He obviously plays like Zangief of Street Fighter fame, which is only natural considering their relation. Mike trained Zangief's friend Aleksy Zalazof in Saturday Night Slam Masters. They've also traded moves back and forth through out the years,eventually lending some moves to Frank West of Dead Rising fame. What this means for Zangief's chances of getting in to MvC3, I can't say. At best they're not good. As for Frank West, he's still got a chance though. In conclusion, I will leave you with this.

Webcomics that I've been reading that I think you should too

It's been a while since I've done one of these. There's a pretty good reason for that, and it is this: I do not actively look for new webcomics and am incredibly lazy. I realize that in the past I made promises to add more webcomics to make up for ones I forgot, or made personal notes to edit past ones so that every one had at least three entries. I am not doing that anymore. Big surprise. Any way, on with the show.

Mushroom Go: This is what you get when you make a manga out of Super Mario Brothers and only use that as a sort of framing device. It's a lot better than I thought it would be. It offers very reasonable explanations for a lot of things, particularly Power Ups and the mysterious Shy Guys. So far they've only done the equivalent of one and a half arcs. Really small arcs. In fact, there are only 44 pages up right now, at the time of this posting. I suppose I should go into some detail on the subject. Go is found in the middle of the desert. Go is a toad, in the sense that he's one of those guys who wears a mushroom hat. He has amnesia. WAIT! DON'T LEAVE NOW! So he's rescued by a crew of sand pirates on a magic boat known as The Chainless. The Crew is composed of McCoy, a Raven from Yoshi Islnad, and second in command, Palma, a Pianta from Super Mario Sunshine, Guy, a Shy Guy, and Captain Martello, a koopa. After the requisite hazing episode, they're off on there first, and so far current adventure, raiding an abandoned weapons lab. In only 44 pages, they've managed to get me very invested, as well as throw in a lot of references.
Three Panel Soul: Really just this Kitschy webcomic that I like. Really nothing else to say about the matter.

New Marvel vs Capcom announcement

Alright, so last post I was predicting new characters, or at least characters that would be in MvC3:FTW. And I was right, at least, about Storm coming back. I feel I should explain why I predicted Howard the Duck would be in it.



As you can see, this is a possible character select screen, or at least roster list, of characters that will be in MvC3. And in the top right corner, we have Howard the Duck. Now, I have no idea when this image surfaced, but obviously it was before Strider was deconfirmed. But the rest of the list still seems very solid. Granted it doesn't take much imagination to jump to he conclusion that Storm would return, but if you look carefully, you'll see that C.Viper is at the mirror spot of her. And who was just announced today along side Storm? Crimson Viper! Also on the list are Shuma Gorath, She-Hulk, Zero, and Haggar. Yes, I do know Haggar hasn't been confirmed, but he hasn't not been confirmed either. And you saw that picture in my last post. What person would go out of there way to take a Halloween party photo from Capcom HQ and put a MvC3 style version of Mayor of Metro City, Mike Haggar in there? Point is, they all were confirmed later on.
The only problem is that Capcom said there would only be forty characters, and this image has 21. Maybe they meant forty on the launch date, with two being DLC for down the line. Also, this image lacks some of the characters I predicted, namely Zangief, Dan Hibiki, Cyclops and Blackheart. Now, I can understand Cyclops, Blackheart, and even Dan not being there, but to deny the world a showdown between the Red Cyclone and the World's Most Bad Ass Mayor is just criminal. Also, obviously, this predicts several characters that I did not. Thanos, Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Woman for the Marvel side, and Red Arremer, Frank West, and the previously mentioned Viper and Strider. Obviously Strider has been replaced with Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series, sporting her look (and loyalty?), from RE5. I will admit that in the past, I hoped for Frank West to show up in this, like he did for he American Release of Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and according to this, he will. This makes sense, since Zero and Viewtiful Joe also premiered in TvC as well. Red Arremer of course is from the Ghosts and Goblins series, as is Sir Arthur, my personal favorite addition. This should be interesting, since Red Arremer had his own series of games, Gargoyles Quest, but in those he was known as Firebrand and exhibited the ability to change forms, at least in the last one, Demon's Crest. He also appears in the Backgrounds of several stages, just Like Tron Bonne does in her own. Only time will tell if he gets an upgrade from Cameo to fighter.
Now on the Marvel side, we have the return of Thanos, a former Boss character from Marvel Super Heroes demoted to fighter for MvC2. This one leaves me at least a little bothered. We already have Dormmamu, do we really need someone of this caliber in here as well. Especially since the plot seems to say that Doom and Wesker have teamed up to do something evil, and I doubt they could recruit Thanos. Whatever, never mind, let's look at the other two additions. Ms. Marvel seems like a good idea, since she should play like Rogue, since the Latter stole her powers. She's also apparently pretty important nowadays, being the leader of the Avengers, last time I checked. Spider-Woman has also been in the spotlight recently, having been replaced by the Skrull Queen during Secret Invasion. Wouldn't that make for some interesting interactions between her and Super Skrull. I know that she can fly, and has some sort of laser blast, so she might be able to work. And she would bring them up to five female characters on the Marvel side. That's just as many as were in MvC2, and with fewer stupid ones, like Spiral or Marrow. Of course, I have no idea if this picture is real or not, and it might just be a very good creation with some lucky guesses, but I do hope that it's real, and that more characters will be added in down the line.