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Worlds & Stories
Meet the characters behind the models. Explore their worlds, identities and interpretations.
Jeff the Land Shark (Marvel Rivals)
A shark, but with feet. Very small feet. Jeff also has an enormous mouth and a collar, which does a remarkable amount to suggest that this is somebody’s pet. The Blokees figure gets the shape across quickly. I wanted to know why the game sometimes shows us only the fin.
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Moon Knight (Marvel Rivals)
A white hood, dark gaps and a cape spreading out behind the shoulders. The Moon Knight figure is easy enough to recognise. The unexpected part was a word in the Marvel Rivals design notes: faience. I was expecting armour and ended up reading about powdered quartz.
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Black Panther / T’Challa (Spidey and His Amazing Friends)
Big pale eyes, small pointed ears and a dark body broken up by bright trim. The preCOOL Black Panther is immediately friendly without losing the mask. I wanted to know what carried through when this established hero was redrawn for a younger audience.
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Hulk (Spidey and His Amazing Friends)
The preCOOL Hulk has green skin, purple trousers and fists that have taken a generous share of the body’s available space. There is no difficulty identifying him. Which makes the little historical surprise rather good: the original Hulk was grey.
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Iron Man Mark 85
There is a lot attached to this Iron Man: large back-mounted shapes, a long forearm blade, another substantial arm treatment. The little red-and-gold person has brought his own equipment department. I wanted to look at how the Mark 85 stays legible underneath it.
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Captain America
The shield is expected. Mjolnir is the interesting extra. On this Endgame figure, the hammer pins Steve Rogers to one film scene. Following it backwards takes me to a comic from 1988, where he was not even using the name Captain America.
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Venom (Marvel Rivals)
That is a lot of Venom to fit into one small figure. The Marvel Rivals version has enormous shoulders and a mouth that could swallow its own caption. What made me look twice was the game team’s description of him: they designed a hunter, not a slow wall of black muscle.
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Nightwing
No cape filling the space between the arms. A blue line across a dark torso, a mask and a pair of sticks. The Blokees Nightwing starts with a lot less visual furniture than Batman, which makes the body’s position much harder to hide. I wanted to follow the acrobat in the design.
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Spider-Man / Peter Parker
Everyone knows Spider-Man. New York’s wall-crawling hero, still yapping halfway through a fight. New stories, new looks, more toys. I’m skipping the spider bite this time. There’s a busy Marvel Rivals suit, a cleaner Brand New Day look, and a little preCOOL Spidey with eyes that take up most of his face.
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