The Marvel Cinematic Universe: we all go and see the movies, and the box office shows it. Currently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has brought in over twelve billion dollars. To put that in perspective, Tony Stark is worth nine billion.
And with Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Avengers: Infinity War coming out over the next eight months, it doesn't look like the Marvel movies will be slowing down anytime soon. It's getting to the point where you may think every character from the Marvel comics will show up in these movies. If you do think that, you're wrong.
Some Marvel characters, like the X-Men and Fantastic Four, won't be showing up because Marvel doesn't have the film rights to them (although ever since Marvel and Sony came to a deal over Spider-Man, we shouldn't count anything out). Others, even some really good ones, won't show because there's no room for them. And others still... well, sometimes your best just isn't good enough.
So which characters aren't likely to show up in the theater anytime soon? Well, while Kang the Conqueror isn't around to tell us all the future, we have a pretty good idea of who you won't be seeing.
Here are 10 Amazing (And 5 Terrible) Marvel Characters We’ll Never See In The MCU.
15. Terrible: NFL SuperPro
For some horrible reason, in the early 1990s, the NFL and Marvel decided to team up and create a new superhero, NFL SuperPro.
The comic, written by Fabian Nicieza - who co-created Deadpool with Rob Liefeld in the same year - told the story of Phil Grayfield, a former NFL player whose career ended when he suffered a serious knee injury saving a child. One day Phil, who became a sports reporter after his injury, is interviewing a scientist who has created a new football uniform that is virtually indestructible.
During the interview, a group of thieves raid the scientist's house and steal a bunch of NFL merchandise while torching the building. A tied-up Phil knocks over experimental chemicals, which combine with the fire and some super rare football souvenirs. For some reason, the combination of those elements turns Phil into a near-invincible superhero.
Phil puts on the scientist's indestructible football uniform and brings the thieves to justice. The series somehow went on for eleven more issues after that. Nicieza later admitted that he took the writing job to get free NFL tickets.
Something tells us neither Marvel or the NFL are looking to bring this character back.
14. Amazing: She-Hulk
In the late 1970s, two of the biggest shows on TV were The Incredible Hulk and The Six Million Dollar Man. When Stan Lee saw that the producers of The Six Million Dollar Man, which was based on a book, were going to do a spin-off show about a woman with the same abilities called The Bionic Woman, he realized what those producers were up to - if they created the character, they owned the character and wouldn't have to pay royalties.
Worried that the producers of The Incredible Hulk would get the same idea, Lee quickly gave orders to the Marvel Bullpen - they needed to create a female version of Hulk before Hollywood did. So was born Jennifer Walters, cousin of Bruce Banner, who got her powers when she received a blood transfusion from her gamma-radiated cousin.
Over the years, She-Hulk has gained a solid following. Before Deadpool showed up, she was well aware that she lived in a comic book universe. As a hero, she has worked with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. As a lawyer, she had defended Captain America and Spider-Man.
Sadly, the film rights to She-Hulk are tied up with Hulk, which is controlled by Paramount.
13. Amazing: Vance Astro
In 1969, Marvel introduced the original Guardians of the Galaxy, a superhero team made up of citizens from different planets protecting the good people of the galaxy from evil a thousand years in the future. The leader of the team, Vance Astro, is an Earthling astronaut who, in the year 1988, volunteered to take part in the first manned interstellar mission. Vance, whose real name was Vance Astrovick, hid his mutant ability of mutant psychokinesis abilities to take part in the mission.
To make sure he lived for the thousand year voyage, Vance was given a To protect him from aging, covered with a skin-preserving copper alloy body-suit, and his blood was mixed with a preservative fluid.
As the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Vance has worked to preserve 20th-century history by collecting artifacts, including Captain America's shield.
To make it really crazy, in current day Marvel, Vance Astrovik is a hero called Justice who has been a member of the New Warriors and Avengers.
With two confusing timeline version of Vance Astro, and neither one fitting into the stories of the MCU, it seems unlikely that we'll be seeing him anytime soon.
12. Terrible: D-Man
In the 1980s, wrestling was super popular. There were even wrestling cartoons, and Marvel wanted in on that action.
So, in 1985, when ever-loving blue-eyed Thing from the Fantastic Four had his own comic, they made him a wrestler. Since he had superpowers, Thing couldn't wrestle normal guys, so he joined the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation - a place for superheroes and supervillains to fight for money.
While there, Thing met Dennis Dunphy. Dennis wanted to be a sports star, but the strength augmentation therapy he went through made him too strong to play with regular Joes, so he turned to super wrestling. When the UCWF fell apart, Dennis decided to become a superhero and chose the name Demolition Man, or D-Man for short. Why he decided to steal one of Wolverine's costumes, no one knows. He hung around with Captain America for a while.
During an adventure, D-Man appeared to die in a plane crash but in truth, he survived. When he was found living in the Arctic, D-Man's mental health had deteriorated greatly. Brought back to the US, D-Man was unable to keep a stable life and ended up homeless. Then he turned evil and was killed, but we'll get to that later...
11. Amazing: Dracula
The character of Dracula existed well before Marvel Comics came around, but that didn't stop the company from adding the most iconic vampire to their universe.
Marvel got the vampire itch in 1971 when the Comics Code Authority relaxed their rules about bloodsuckers appearing in funny books. In 1972, readers were introduced to Vlad Țepeș Dracula in Tomb of Dracula. The book was an instant hit with readers, so Marvel quickly started a second book, Dracula Lives! which was done in the black and white magazine format so that Marvel didn't have to follow CCA rules.
During the seventy-issue run of Tomb of Dracula, the lord of vampires not only had run-ins with Mephisto, Spider-Man, and the X-Men, the book also introduced readers to one of Marvel's best-known characters, Blade.
Recently, Dracula showed up in Old Man Logan. In the story, Drac calls all the vampires together, including one time X-Men member Jubilee. Logan tracks Drac down and decapitates him, then has the dark lord's head thrown into the sun.
As cool as all this is, introducing Dracula to the movies could be problematic for Marvel since the character is best known for his Universal Studios movies.
10. Amazing: Daimon Hellstrom: The Son of Satan
With Ghost Rider and The Tomb of Dracula being big hits for Marvel, Stan Lee wanted to create a third occult based book. Stan's initial idea was to do a book about Satan himself, but editor Roy Thomas suggested focusing on the son of Satan instead.
The book, Son of Satan, told readers about Daimon Hellstrom, the child of mortal woman Victoria Wingate and the Devil himself. While Daimon and his sister Satana were trained by their father to use the dark magics they were born with, Daimon rebelled against his father and chose to use his powers to help mortals instead of bringing about the end times.
While Son of Satan only ran for seven issues, Daimon continued to show up in other Marvel comics, including Defenders, West Coast Avengers, and Midnight Sons. Daimon fell in love with and married one of Marvel's oldest characters, Patsy Walker, also known as Hellcat.
A Marvel movie about the Anti-Christ could be amazing, but there's no way the studio would take that risk.
9. Terrible: Paste-Pot Pete
The only explanation for Peter Petruski is that he wanted to be the lamest villain possible. The guy got himself some crazy glue-shooting devices, put sticky gunk on his boots so he could walk on walls, and called himself Paste-Pot Pete. Not all that surprisingly, it took seconds for the Human Torch to take Pete down in his first attempt at being a bad guy.
After that, Pete teamed up with some other villains, but that didn't go well either. Once again, Human Torch showed up and it turns out that his fire can indeed burn through glue.
Every time Pete showed up, be it fighting Human Torch or Spider-Man, he always lost and lost bad. He quickly became a joke in the super community. Finally, tired of being treated like a joke, Pete changed his villain name to Trapster and went after a lower tier hero - Daredevil. For the first time ever, Pete was going to win; he had Daredevil all glued up and was gloating when Doctor freaking Doom showed up and knocked Pete out because Doom had his own thing going on with DD.
Paste-Pot Pete is just too lame to show up in a movie.
8. Amazing: Rage
One of the oldest comic characters is Captain Marvel. Not Marvel's Captain Marvel; the one created by C.C. Beck in 1939. These days, due to legal stuff, that version of Captain Marvel is called Shazam and belongs to DC. That character's story is that he is a young boy who turns into an adult superhero.
It is a great idea, but Marvel took a while to make its own version - Rage.
Thirteen-year-old Elvin Daryl Haliday was a normal kid growing up in Brooklyn when he was exposed to toxic waste that made him suddenly age. Along with aging, he gained super strength, super speed, and super stamina. Rage, looking like a huge powerful adult but having the mind of kid, went to the Avengers Mansion and demanded membership. Rage was indeed given a spot on the team, but when Captain America learned he was really just a kid, he was demoted. Rage quit the Avengers and joined the New Warriors.
What makes Rage great is that his whole story would speak to kids. We'll never see him on the screen is because he is way too close to Shazam.
7. Amazing: Quasar
Wendell Vaughn graduated from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, but he was missing one of the important pieces that it takes to be a good S.H.I.E.L.D. agent - Wendell refused to kill. While he wanted to be a field agent, Wendell was instead placed on security for a research facility.
It was at this facility that Wendell came into contact with the Quantum Bands, which he puts on when A.I.M. attacks the facility. The bands, which had killed every person who wore them, almost killed Wendell as well- until he decided to let the Bands take some control. The secret was that the other wearers tried to use the bands to kill, but Wendell wasn't about that stuff. With said bands on his wrists, Wendell Vaughn becomes Quasar.
During his own comic series, Wendell, who was given his hero orders from the cosmic entity called Eon, would travel the galaxy battling evil and having some insane adventures. At one point, Wendell's dad Gilbert dies and Eon uses his corpse as a puppet because Eon didn't want Quasar to take time off to bury his dad.
While Quasar may show up in the Marvel movies, it would likely be Wendell's replacement and current Quasar, Avril Kincaid.
6. Terrible: Ulysses Solomon Archer
Ulysses Solomon Archer was born into a family of truckers. Both his parents were truck drivers, a career choice that cost them their lives. Orphaned, Ulysses and his brother were taken in by truck stop owners Poppa Wheelie and Wide Load Annie. When he comes of age, Ulysses goes off to college, gets himself a degree, then returns to the Archer profession of truck driving.
During one long haul, Ulysses was forced off the road by an evil jerk called the Highwayman. The crash smashed up Ulysses' head and to save his life, doctors used a new experimental alloy to reconstruct his skull. The new alloy had the bonus property of letting Ulysses pick up radio waves and control trucks.
After taking care of the Highwayman, Ulysses and his family ended up being taken by aliens and brought deep into the galaxy. These days, Ulysses drives space trucks.
Perhaps James Gunn will give Ulysses a quick cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but there's no way Marvel wants people knowing about this lame-o.
5. Amazing: Starfox
Of every character on this list, Starfox is the one who is the most shocking. In the comics, Starfox is an Eternal who was born and raised on Saturn's moon, Titan. If any of that sounds familiar to you, it is because Starfox's brother Thanos is pretty important in the Marvel movies.
Along with superhuman strength and near immortality, Starfox can stimulate the pleasure centers in people's minds, calming them down and making them more open to his ideas. In one story, a serious matter was discussed; Starfox is something of a ladies man and at least one woman believed that he used his ability to convince her to cheat on her husband with him. Starfox was put on trial (She-Hulk was his lawyer) and they were able to prove that he had not used his powers to get the woman to sleep with him.
No one knows Thanos better than his brother Starfox, but sadly it seems that he will not be part of Avengers: Infinity War.
4. Amazing: Molecule Man
Sometimes in the comics, writers and artists will come up with a character who is so powerful that the character becomes rarely used. One of the most famous of those is Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's creation, Molecule Man.
Owen Reece was a shy loser who worked at a nuclear power plant when he was blasted by radiation from an experimental particle generator (you may notice that this origin is very similar to Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen). This radiation gave Owen the ability to control literally every molecule in the galaxy. He could turn soap into hot dogs, shoes into pizza, flashlights into waffles. You get the idea.
Most recently, in the 2015 event series Secret Wars, Doctor Doom used Molecule Man to create a new reality called Battleworld. In the end, Molecule Man gave his powers to Reed Richards so that Reed could rebuild reality as it should be.
A character like this, who could turn Iron Man's armor into tissue paper with a thought, is just too powerful for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
3. Terrible: Deathcry
In 1992, the comic book world changed forever when the biggest names at Marvel left the company and formed their own comic publishing house - Image Comics. As the Image books filled the top ten sellers every month, Marvel (and DC) tried to copy their style in hopes of getting better sales.
During that time, Deathcry joined the Avengers. As a member of the Shi'ar Empire, Deathcry - whose real name is unknown to this day - was ordered by Empress Lilandra Neramani to protect the Avengers from the Kree Empire (because Thor, Iron Man, and Vision weren't powerful enough?). Deathcry hung around for a while before finally deciding that the Kree weren't going to mess with the Avengers (aka readers didn't like her) and returned to her home planet.
She later joined Peter Quill's pre-Guardians of the Galaxy team called Phalanx. It was while she was with that team that Deathcry died. No readers mourned her passing.
Between her horrible name and her "edgy" look, Deathcry is one of the worst characters to ever join the Avengers.
2. Amazing: Nighthawk
When a planned crossover between Avengers and Justice League of America fell apart, writer Roy Thomas and artist Sal Buscema didn't want to throw away their idea so they just changed the names and costumes of the Justice League members and called the team Squadron Supreme.
For Batman, they created Kyle Richmond, aka Nighthawk. For decades, Nighthawk was pretty much just a take on Batman, but then in 2003 J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank rebooted Squadron Supreme and the new version of Nighthawk, while still very similar to Batman, was able to stand on his own.
In 2016, Nighthawk was given his own series by David Walker and Ramon Villalobos. Walker's take on the character centered him in Chicago, with the stories focused on real world problems instead of superhero stuff.
After the series ended with Nighthawk retiring from superhero work, Walker moved on to writing Occupy Avengers. In issue eight of that series, which crossed over with the Secret Empire event, fans noticed that a man who gets gunned down protecting innocents looks an awful lot like Kyle Richmond. With no fanfare, Walker killed the character.
1. Amazing: Scourge Of The Underworld
As you can imagine, over the years a lot of creators created a lot of lame characters for Marvel. Mark Gruenwald, feeling there was a need to trim the fat from the Marvel universe, created a character whose entire thing would be to specifically kill off lame characters. That character is Scourge of the Underworld.
First introduced in Iron Man, Scourge - dressed all in white with a nice and creepy mask - Scourge has killed dozens of C and D-list villains over the years, yelling out his catchphrase each time; "Justice is served!"
When the original Scourge was finally apprehended by Captain America, he was killed by an unseen assailant. As he held the dying vigilante, Captain America could hear someone tell "Justice is served!" far in the distance.
Over the years, many people have taken on the Scourge identity, including one of the terrible characters on this list, D-Man.
While Scourge is a great idea for a character, his style - killing lots and lots of lame characters - would mean that the MCU would have to admit that they introduced loads of lame characters.
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Are there other awesome (or awful) characters we'll never see in the MCU? Let us know in the comments!
