Marvel’s Avengers Game: Characters Confirmed to Appear

Due to be published by Square Enix next year, Marvel’s Avengers will allow players to take control of numerous Marvel comic book heroes as they face off against fearsome foes. We don’t need us to tell you that the prospect of playing as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is an exciting one.

Avengers, which is being developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, sounds like the story will have quite a massive scope to it, and so far, a handful of iconic characters have been confirmed to appear. There are sure to be more announced in the coming months, and perhaps there will even be a few surprise appearances that we won’t know about until we play the game.

For now, though, here’s the full list of heroes and villains you can expect to see in Marvel’s Avengers…

Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, and Hulk

The first trailer for Marvel’s Avengers, which was revealed at E3 2019, showed a very familiar Avengers line-up, especially if you’re familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s basically the original movie team, with one notable exception. The trailer features footage from an early segment of the game, which has Iron Man (aka Tony Stark) doing battle alongside Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Thor, Captain America, (Steve Rogers) and the Hulk (Bruce Banner). The trailer teases the destruction of San Francisco during a deadly attack that the Avengers fail to stop (on Avengers Day, no less), which leads to the superhero team breaking up. We assume that, like in Avengers: Endgame, this breakup won’t last very long.

Taskmaster

The masked menace behind this tragedy is Taskmaster (real name Tony Masters), a villain from the comics who recently appeared in Marvel’s Spider-Man and will soon be seen in the Black Widow movie. Taskmaster’s main gimmick in the comics is that he can mimic an opponent’s fighting style, which makes him a formidable foe to face in hand-to-hand combat. That said, being the mastermind behind a terrorist attack that the Avengers can’t stop is a step up from copycat fisticuffs. 

Taskmaster was created by David Michelinie and George Perez for The Avengers #195 (1980). You can read more about this baddie right here.

Ant-Man

Ant-Man has also shown up in the promo footage, using a shrink ray to defeat an evil robot. Although we’d argue that he looks a bit more like Paul Rudd than Michael Douglas, this is apparently the game’s version of Hank Pym (as opposed to Scott Lang, who is played by Rudd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies). We haven’t yet seen this version of the original Ant-Man in his superhero suit, but that seems like a very plausible inclusion. It also remains to be seen if Hank Pym will be playable, but we hope that he is. That shrink ray looks fun.

The Hank Pym version of the character first appeared in Tales of Astonish #35 (1962) by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby.

The Abomination

Popping up very briefly in the game’s first trailer is the Hulk’s old enemy, The Abomination, who movie fans will remember from The Incredible Hulk movie that most people forget is part of the MCU. The embiggened form of Emil Blonsky goes toe-to-toe with the iconic green rage monster in a brief clip of what looks like an epic battle from the game. Will The Abomination have a bit-part or a huge role in the game? Only time will tell, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see him acting as hired muscle for a more thoughtful big bad (such as the aforementioned Taskmaster).

The Abomination first appeared in Tales of Astonish #90 (1967) and was created by Stan Lee and Gil Kane. 

Kamala Khan

Kamala Khan was confirmed to appear in the game in new footage shared at SDCC 2019. Although the clip is yet to be published online, Polygon reports that Kamala was visible in the video, looking on during the San Francisco incident the leads to the Avengers’ defeat. Readers of the comics will know that Kamala traditionally becomes Ms. Marvel, a superhero inspired by Captain Marvel who uses her shape-shifting Inhuman abilities to fight the good fight. Since there is a time-jump between the events in San Francisco and the main narrative of the game, it seems logical to assume that young Kamala could age-up after this scene and become a playable character. She could even become a member of a new team of Avengers!

This version of Ms. Marvel was first introduced in Captain Marvel #14 (2013) and was created by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, and Jamie McKelvie.

Hawkeye (Teased)

Well trained in spotting when Hawkeye isn’t in a thing (an online tradition that dates back to Avengers: Infinity War‘s lengthy promo tour), certain segments of the internet flipped out when Clint Barton was absent from the first trailer for Marvel’s Avengers. He was the only member of the original movie team not to appear, and although this game is set in a different continuity, that did seem a bit odd. Teasing that the character might pop up later, Marvel’s Bill Rosemann said this on Twitter in response to the comments: “Hey #Hawkeye fans, we hear you…and we love Clint too! Stay tuned, True Believers!”

Spider-Man (Teased)

It’s unclear if Avengers is connected to Marvel’s Spider-Man, but some fans of Insomniac’s web-slinging title are hoping that it is. Marvel’s Bill Rosemann was asked at E3 if the games are connected, and this is what he told IGN: “Last time we were here, a year ago, discussing that certain character, the roof caught on fire. And if I was to comment on that character now, I think the roof would fall on my head! So I will just say, right now we’re just focused on creating the best Avengers game.” The fact that this comment isn’t exactly a confirmation or a denial keeps hope alive that Insomniac’s brilliant version of Spidey will swing into Marvel’s Avengers at some point.

Marvel’s Avengers launches May 15, 2020 for Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. As more characters are confirmed, we’ll be sure to keep you (and this list) updated!

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!