Last week, it was announced that Marvel and Capcom were teaming up to release a brand-new "Marvel vs. Capcom" game, finally following up on the two wildly successful fighters that were last seen (in my house, anyway) during the era of the Sega Dreamcast. This is great news, as "Marvel vs. Capcom 2" is still worth a few quarters every time I run across it in an arcade or bowling alley -- even when the guy I'm playing against picks Cable and his total BS laser cannon move -- and with the expanded roster of Capcom characters that showed up in the recent "Tatsunoko vs. Capcom" for Wii, I've been dreaming of a truly massive roster that could allow me to have the dream matches I've always wanted.

So today, I bring you the matches I'm demanding from a new Marvel vs. Capcom game! And as sadly unlikely as they might be, we're a full year away from the release date, so maybe, just maybe, these could happen. But probably not.



FRANK WEST vs. J. JONAH JAMESON
Frank West is the hero of Capcom's mall-full-o'-zombies action romp "Dead Rising," a photojournalist who sneaks into a quarantined town in search of a story, only to get trapped for three days in a shopping center crowded with utterly useless survivors and the living dead. As such, he tends to fight with whatever's handy, be it park bench, golf club, or a surprisingly poorly made chainsaw that breaks after around thirty seconds of chopping through rotting limbs, causing Bruce Campbell to sigh, shake his head, and reminisce about how they did it back in the good ol' days.

Anyway, the keyword here is "photojournalist," and in the entirety of the Marvel Universe, there's nobody with as much experience and dedication to giving news photographers a hard time than jolly Jonah Jameson.

Frankly (no pun intended), I'm surprised that Jonah hasn't made it into MVC before. Sure, he might not be that physically intimidating when you stack him up against M. Bison or the Hulk, but before you count him out, consider that he's not just a newspaper editor, he's also a guy who sent a bunch of killer robots after Spider-Man and once just straight up yelled at Godzilla.


So I say we put these two together and see who comes out on top: Golf Club vs. Cigar Smoke! Zombie horde vs. Robbie Robertson and Betty Brant! Or at the very least, get JK Simmons to do voiceover work on the next "Dead Rising" game so that we can at least get someone yelling at Frank to stop messing around with these zombies and get him some pictures of the real menace, Spider-Man!

DANTE vs. DRACULA


I've made it pretty clear over the past few months here at ComicsAlliance that I totally love Marvel Dracula, if only because he is the most pompously over-the-top version of the Count of all time, and one of the only ones who matches up an elegant suit with a high collar and a super-smooth moustache. But is there any possible way he could be more pretentious than Dante?

Sure, his original appearance in "Devil May Cry" gave you the ability to smack demons into the air with your gigantic sword and then juggle them with a pair of handguns named after a Stevie Wonder song, but just look at him. That is a dude wearing a red leather trenchcoat and no shirt. If you saw that guy walking down the street, you would break your fingers trying to upload a shot of him to Twitpic as fast as you could. And that hair... It's like a tanker full of human growth hormone crashed into a Hot Topic and exploded all over Justin Bieber.

Point being, Dante vs. Marvel Dracula would be the ultimate New-School Monster Hunter fighting the ultimate Old School Monster, full of both sides turning into stuff, shooting lightning at each other, and occasionally discussing hair care.


MEGA MAN vs. MACHINE MAN

My pals at Let's Be Friends Again have already wondered what would happen with a Mega Man/Marvel crossover, but there's no shortage of guys with "Man" at the end of their names that could make for an interesting bout. Thus, this match-up.

With the fact that they were both designed by kindly old scientists to benefit humanity, Mega Man and Machine Man have a lot in common, but it's their differences that would make this such an interesting fight. The Blue Bomber has, after all,been a pretty stalwart defender of the human race against the inevitable robot uprisings that have happened with alarming regularity over the past 23 years. Machine Man, however, has rebelled against his human creators, growing steadily more bitter and booze-fueled ever since his rejection by the Celestials and his recruitment as part of the Nextwave squad and, later, A.R.M.O.R.'s special zombie-slaughtering unit.

In essence, this would be a battle of philosophy: The optimism of the future against the pessimism of the present. The desire to serve against the hatred of subservience. The necessity to turn against your brothers for the greater good against the rejection of those you see as your lessers. It's pretty deep stuff.

Also, Mega Man can shoot buzzsaws and tornadoes out of his arm-cannon, and Machine Man can turn his fingers into knives and blowtorches. So, you know, that's pretty cool too.

DR. DOOM vs. DR. WILY


And speaking of guys who have a lot in common, I don't think Dr. Doom and Dr. Wily would ever actually get around to fighting. They'd hit it off too well.

"You know what I hate?"

"The guy you used to be friends with back before his jealousy of your talent drove him to call you mad?"

"YES! You know what I love?"

"Building insanely complex super-weapons and robot duplicates of yourself to confound your intellectual lessers?"

"OH MY GOD, YES! Quick, what's your least favorite color?"

"BLUE!"

"BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!"

THE IRON PATRIOT vs. MIKE HAGGAR


In one corner, we have the Iron Patriot, alias Norman Osborn, director of H.A.M.M.E.R., a sociopath and murderer who managed to get everyone to forget about his past villainy, making a successful bid to become one of the most powerful men in the world, and later throwing it all away in an attempt to fight actual gods.

And in the other corner, we have Mike Haggar, who is literally the greatest video game character of all time.

Like Osborn, Haggar has a past marked by violence (he's a former world champion of the Saturday Night Slammasters pro wrestling circuit) and like Osborn, he parlayed that fame into political power by becoming the mayor of the crime-ridden Metro City. Unlike Osborn, however, when Haggar's daughter was kidnapped by the Mad Gear gang (a pretty legitimate beef), he didn't use the power of his office to respond to them. He decided instead to take his shirt off, put on exactly one suspender, and then hit the streets to beat crime's ass.

Again, it's the opposing philosophies that make me want to see these guys fight. Well, that and the fact that I really want to hear the satisfying "clang" of a jumping piledriver on a suit of knockoff OsCorp armor.

DAREDEVIL vs. PHOENIX WRIGHT


Out of all the match-ups I've brought up in this post, this one's probably the most likely to actually be able to happen in in a new "Marvel vs. Capcom" game, even though neither one has been featured in the fighting games before.

It'd be easy enough for Daredevil to make the transition--he's just a ninja in red pajamas with an extra-long set of nunchuks, after all--but I'm legitimately shocked that Phoenix Wright didn't make it into "Tatsunoko vs. Capcom." He's perfect for it, with his dramatic points, assist-ready sidekicks and, most of all, with his signature "OBJECTION!" and "TAKE THAT" shouts.

And he's the perfect match for Daredevil, not just because of the latter's secret identity as fellow lawyer Matt Murdock, but because they could both call on their dead-but-occasionally-alive-again girlfriends to help out in a pinch.

TONY STARK vs. SCROOGE McDUCK


Okay, so Capcom technically does't own Scrooge McDuck, but they were the company that produced the truly awesome "DuckTales" games for the NES back in the early '90s, and with the Disney/Marvel merger, there's no better time to bring back their pogo-jumping, world-traveling, cash-hoarding version of Uncle Scrooge.

And really, who better to fight the aged impossibidillionaire than Tony Stark, a man so talented with money that he's been able to rebuild his fortune from total bankruptcy at least twice and still have enough money left over to fund his nuclear-powered underpants? If nothing else, Scrooge is short enough that Iron Man's totally cheap Uni-Beam move would sail right over his head (or at least only singe his top hat), giving Scrooge time to set up a lethal golf swing.

Also, and perhaps most importantly, this gives me the chance to mention that in Japan, "DuckTales" for the NES was known as "Naughty Ducks' Dream Adventure," which is now the best thing you've heard all day.

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