Marvel Rivals Is Giving Overlooked Superheroes Their Moment
Marvel Rivals Is Giving Overlooked Superheroes Their Moment
A tiny shark with legs. A K-pop star who fights with ice. A girl who can take down enemies with squirrels. Marvel has some wonderfully strange superheroes, and Marvel Rivals is finally giving them the attention they deserve.
When we covered the Marvel Rivals character roster in July 2024, just 26 heroes had been announced. By October 2026, that number had grown to 54, including some gloriously unexpected additions.
Jeff the Land Shark Is Nobody’s Sidekick Anymore
Imagine telling someone unfamiliar with Marvel that one of the game’s most memorable characters is a small, smiling shark capable of swallowing an entire enemy team.
That’s Jeff.
Originally introduced in the West Coast Avengers comics, Jeff the Land Shark went from adorable supporting character to starring in his own adventures.
In Marvel Rivals, he’s a healer who swims around the battlefield, helps teammates and occasionally turns a perfectly organised enemy attack into absolute chaos.
He’s adorable until he swallows your entire team. Then he’s a problem.
From K-Pop Stars to Squirrel-Powered Chaos
Luna Snow probably wouldn’t have made many people’s dream Marvel gaming rosters a few years ago.
A South Korean pop star with ice-based superpowers, she combines healing and attacking in a way that makes her surprisingly valuable on the battlefield. Then there’s Squirrel Girl.
Her comic-book reputation for defeating ridiculously powerful opponents already makes her unusual. Marvel Rivals embraces that absurdity, letting her fight alongside gods and mutants without pretending she’s any less ridiculous.
Sometimes a superhero’s greatest weapon really is an army of squirrels.
Robot Spiders, Demon Swords and a Giant Red Dinosaur
And the roster gets stranger. Peni Parker pilots SP//dr, a powerful mechanical suit controlled through a psychic connection with a radioactive spider.
It’s an entirely different take on the familiar Spider-Man formula. Magik brings something darker. Armed with her Soulsword, she moves through portals and transforms into a demonic version of herself.
Then there’s Devil Dinosaur, a giant red prehistoric creature who joined the game in May 2026. His partnership with the young genius Moon Girl is one of Marvel’s more unusual combinations.
A dinosaur fighting alongside superheroes? Why not?
While the MCU tends to dominate mainstream conversations, the wider Marvel universe has room for much stranger characters. Strange but popular nonetheless, some even have their own Funko POP! figures in the Marvel collection. What’s particularly interesting about Marvel Rivals is that players don’t need to know a character’s comic-book history to become attached to them.
The Next Marvel Fan Favourite Might Be Someone Unexpected
With 54 playable characters, Marvel Rivals has moved well beyond its original lineup. Adding familiar names attracts attention, but the game’s more unusual characters give players something they might not find in another superhero game.
And perhaps that’s its greatest opportunity. Someone who downloads Marvel Rivals to play Spider-Man might end up reading about Magik’s adventures in Limbo, discovering Squirrel Girl’s ridiculous victories or finding out how a prehistoric dinosaur became best friends with a teenage genius.
That’s quite a lot of Marvel to discover from a single video game.