Nobody Noticed These Huge Characters Were Missing From Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3

Norrin Radd made an impossible bargain with Galactus: if the world-eater would spare Radd's planet and the woman he loved, he would become Galactus' Herald, leading the hungering deity to other worlds upon which he could feast. Galactus imbued Norrin Radd with the Power Cosmic, transforming him into the immortal Silver Surfer. With an origin story like that, the Silver Surfer has been ripe for storytelling right out of a Shakespearean tragedy, something that writers have taken advantage of over the decades. 

That's why, in such a cosmic storyline as Ultimate Alliance 3, it feel like a missed opportunity to not include the Silver Surfer in this adventure. It's even more noticeable when you realize that some of his former Defenders teammates, like Doctor Strange and the Incredible Hulk, are accounted for. Silver Surfer would have been a great asset in the game's climactic space battles, and could have lent a more philosophical point of view to some of the more action-oriented story elements of the game.

While Ghost Rider definitely makes an appearance in Ultimate Alliance 3, the one in the game appears to be the Johnny Blaze version of the character. Blaze is possibly most familiar to mainstream audiences as the Ghost Rider portrayed in two live action films by Nicolas Cage, complete with motorcycle. While Johnny Blaze is no slouch, it may have been interesting for the game to include one of the more recent hosts for the Spirit of Vengeance, Robbie Reyes.

Robbie Reyes was first introduced in the comics in 2014 and immediately set himself apart from his predecessors by preferring to use his haunted muscle car as his mode of transport, rather than the motorcycles (and occasional horses) of other Ghost Riders. Reyes made the jump to live action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where he was portrayed by actor Gabriel Luna. With this version of the character proving to be popular with television audiences and Luna set to star in his own spin-off as Robbie Reyes, it's kind of a shame that Ultimate Alliance 3 didn't capitalize on this newer version of the classic anti-hero. 

Cloak is a character who could have made for some interesting visuals and would have fit right into Ultimate Alliance 3, considering some of the darker and more supernatural aspects of the game's plot. Tyrone Johnson was a runaway kid on the streets of New York City who got mixed up with the wrong crowd. He had no sense of direction, resorting to petty theft in order to make his way in the world. All of that changed when he met a young woman named Tandy Bowen, saving her from a would-be mugger. Unfortunately, the two of them were then kidnapped and experimented on by a rogue scientist, who was using runaway teens as lab rats. There are a lot of mad scientists in the Marvel Universe, you guys.

The resulting experiments turned Tyrone into a conduit for the Darkforce Dimension, another realm made of cold, eternal darkness. Now calling himself Cloak, Tyrone became a violent anti-hero, occasionally absorbing enemies into his cloak and allowing the shadows of the Darkforce Dimension to consume them. The only thing that occasionally calms Cloak's hunger is Tandy's newfound light powers.

Monica Rambeau is no stranger to team missions. Not only was she was a member of Nextwave (alongside Ultimate Alliance 3 character Elsa Bloodstone, in fact), but she briefly led the Avengers when she held the title of Captain Marvel. Over the years, Monica has changed her codename quite a few times, with other titles including Photon, Pulsar, and Spectrum. No matter what she called herself, though, Monica always meant business and got the job done.

Monica made her cinematic debut in 2019's Captain Marvel, where she's portrayed as a young girl in the 1990s. The character is set to appear as an adult in Marvel's upcoming Hulu series WandaVision, where she will be portrayed by actress Teyonah Parris. Not only could this game have been a good opportunity to introduce Monica's heroic side to a more mainstream audience, but her ability to transform her body into pure energy could have led to some visually interesting defensive moves in the game.

Though Nick Fury has a decent presence within the story of Ultimate Alliance 3, it's kind of a shame that his right hand man didn't come along for the fun. Portrayed by Clark Gregg within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. proved to be so popular with movie audiences that he eventually made the transition to the comics page. Not only that, but the character received his own television spin-off.

He may not have made the best playable character, seeing as he doesn't have any special abilities of his own (unless the game included a version of his cybernetic hand from the TV series). However, it would have been fun to see him as a supporting character in the game, rolling up with Nick Fury when the situation gets hairy. Clark Gregg has previously reprised his role as Coulson in animated series like Ultimate Spider-Man, so he likely would have been game to voice him here. If nothing else, this would have been another solid opportunity for him to get his trading cards signed by Captain America.

"The White Queen welcomes you to die!"

Even putting aside her poorly translated appearances in arcade games, Emma Frost has had quite a history of appearances in video games. And she should, considering she's become one of the most popular characters in the X-Men franchise. This powerful mutant was originally conceived as a villainous member of the Hellfire Club, where she used her telepathic and telekinetic abilities in several conflicts with the X-Men, even taking it upon herself to mold young mutants into the Club's own team called the Hellions. 

After several years, she came to believe in Charles Xavier's mission to protect young mutants from those who would harm them. She eventually joined the Xavier Institute as a member of its teaching faculty and became the lover of Scott Summers, a.k.a Cyclops. It was around this time that she developed the ability to transform her entire body into a diamond-like substance, making her a lot harder to put down. Bringing Emma into Ultimate Alliance 3 could have opened the game up for a lot of interesting playing styles, whether she's in her diamond form and using melee attacks or wielding her psionic abilities to heal or destroy in equal measure. 

Okay, so maybe Negasonic Teenage Warhead isn't the biggest character in Marvel Comics history. In fact, she died in her very first comic book appearance in New X-Men #115. However, the character made an impression with movie audiences as a member of the X-Men in the Deadpool movie series. Following her newfound popularity as a film character, Negasonic Teenage Warhead was revived in the comics with a look and set of powers more in line with her cinematic counterpart.

The reason that her absence feels especially noticeable in Ultimate Alliance 3 is that her two regular cohorts from the Deadpool films, Colossus and the Merc with a Mouth himself, are present and accounted for within the events of the game, with Deadpool having settled into the X-Mansion (or at least its kitchen).  It certainly could have been a lot of fun to wreck the forces of evil in the game by turning this young mutant into a fiery human cannonball and ramming through the seemingly endless drones of A.I.M. and Hydra.

Despite the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe left Death out of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline as well, this is kind of a big exclusion for the more comics-accurate storyline of Ultimate Alliance 3. In the comics, Thanos' desire to gather all of the Infinity Stones wasn't born out of a desire to bring balance to the universe, but rather from a much more selfish purpose. After she appeared to Thanos at a young age, the Mad Titan came to fall in love with Death, eventually killing more and more people in an attempt to impress her and win her affections. 

He eventually came to believe that the only way he could win over Death would be to assemble the Infinity Gauntlet and use the power of the Stones to kill half of all life in the universe, sending an unprecedented number of souls to her embrace at once. Though he has been thwarted time and time again, Thanos' obsession with Death has remained. This obsession was referenced in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, where she manipulated Thanos during the events of that game. It would have been interesting to see this connection in the Ultimate Alliance universe, as well.