The Evolution of Marvel Fighting Games

Marvel Comics and video games have had a long, storied, and oftentimes turbulent relationship. Spanning a variety of genres, Marvel games have taken us to many different places, from the thrilling open worlds of Insomniac’s Spider-Man series to the terrible beige-tinged shooting galleries of Punisher No Mercy. But there’s one genre in which Marvel Comics has seen undeniable success: fighting games.

Marvel has been in the business of kicking ass in 2D arenas for over three decades, and in that time we’ve seen many twists, turns, smash hits, and fumbles. So buckle up, true believers, as we take you for a ride through the evolution of Marvel fighting games.

The early ‘90s were not a great time for Marvel. Despite successful X-Men and Spider-Man comic runs (and their beloved accompanying Saturday-morning cartoons), a series of costly business blunders and an industry bubble burst left Marvel filing for bankruptcy. It famously turned to flogging everything that wasn’t nailed down to keep the Arc Reactor powered up.

After a successful collaboration on a Punisher beat-em-up that earned critical acclaim thanks to its satisfying, meaty combat, Marvel and Capcom – in an effort to capitalize on the success of the Street Fighter formula – decided to work together on the very first fighting game starring Marvel characters, X-Men: Children of the Atom.

While the Osaka-based Capcom was experiencing huge success with its new comic book fighting formula, a few hundred miles away in Tokyo, developer Data-East was putting together its challenger. A year later it stepped up to the plate with Avengers in Galactic Storm, an obscure fighting game that is now largely forgotten, lost in the sea of fighting-game hopefuls that filled Arcades in the mid-to-late ‘90s.

After only two years of partnership, Marvel and Capcom took another bold swing with X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, once again evolving the format with a new feature that would impact the fighting genre for years to come. X-Men Vs. Street Fighter expanded the battle from 1v1 to 2v2 while pairing two titans of pop culture.