5 Characters that Need to be Introduced to the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has introduced hundreds of characters into the movie canon; from the recognizable in Captain America and Iron Man, to the obscure in Cosmo and the Tinkerer.  The nice thing is, there are thousands more that they can introduce.

Here are 5 characters that could help improve the MCU.

Note: I’m excluding the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and any characters associated with either franchise.  We all know they will be coming soon enough.

Moondragon – In the comic, the daughter of Drax the Destroyer survived the attack from Thanos that Drax believed she died in (well, her human father’s soul was bound to a new body in Drax); she was saved by Thanos’s father, the Mentor, and taken to their home world of Titan.  She was trained to achieve the full potential of her body, including psionic powers.  The character has popped up in various events over time, with the goal of defeating Thanos.  She has aligned herself with the Avengers, Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy in the comics.

Introducing her in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 would be pretty easy.  You can keep most of the comic origin in place, just replacing Thanos with Ronan the Accuser and eliminating the fact she’s from Earth.  It would make for an awkward reunion with her father in the movie and lead Drax to question his quest for vengeance.

She’d also check off a few boxes for Marvel Studios.  The Studio wants to introduce more female characters and Moondragon in the comics is bi-sexual, both things Kevin Feige has recently said they want to expand upon with their characters.

Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel – Khan was introduced in the comics as an American Muslim teenage living in New Jersey.  Her latent Inhuman gene was triggered and she gained the power to change her shape (a la Mr. Fantastic) and could heal when she returned to her natural form.  She took the mantle of Ms. Marvel from Carol Danvers, who will be introduced in 2019’s Captain Marvel.

Much of her story is fighting lower tier villains while dealing with being a teenage girl from Pakistan in a country that where she doesn’t quite fit in.  They could market this movie as a Spider-Man: Homecoming for girls.  Another plus of Khan is you have both Captain Marvel and the Inhumans introduced already.

Like Moondragon, Khan would help the diversity in the MCU.  Again, she’s a female hero in a male dominated market.  She’d also be the first Middle East character introduced in big budget superhero movies; there was a big deal about Black Panther in the African American community, so this could be a draw to people of Middle Eastern decent and Muslims.

The Hood – One of the big criticisms of the MCU has been their lack of good villains.  With Doctor Doom eventually coming to the MCU, they have one of the biggest bad guys they’ll need.  The Hood is someone they could plug in sooner.  Parker Robbins is a petty thief who accidentily kills a demon; Robbins swipes the demon’s hood and boots, which give him powers.  Eventually the Hood become a criminal mastermind (think super-natural Kingpin) and tries to get his hand on the Infinity Stones.

The Hood would be a good foil for Doctor Strange; both have supernatural backgrounds and the Hood got a power boost from Dormammu, who Strange defeated in his movie.

It could also set him up for a bigger story, as the Hood was a critical player in Civil War and Dark Reign.  With Marvel looking at the bigger picture in their universe, they could have the Hood help set up the next storyline.

Not to mention, I’d like to see a cape vs cape fight.

Richard Rider aka Nova – Viewers of the Infinity War learned that the Nova Corps was destroyed when Thanos took the Power Stone from Xandar (it was mentioned, not shown).  After Avengers 4, I’d be willing to guess that the Nova Corps will be rebuilt and they could very well introduce a human Nova.  In the comic, Richard Rider was a teenager in New York that received powers from the last living Nova Corps member, Rhomann Dey, after surviving the destruction of Xandar.  Dey was dying and needed to keep the Nova Corp alive.  Rider gradually started learning how to use his new powers, eventually joining the teenage group of heroes, the New Warriors (which has been announced as a TV show).

Much of his origin (and that of the Nova Corps) match that of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.  This would give Marvel the chance to make a better Green Lantern movie than DC could.  It would also expand their cosmic line and have a supporting character for the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The beauty of this Nova is you can tell stories on Earth and in space.  It gives the possibility of build him into a franchise within the greater MCU.

The Thunderbolts – With Marvel looking at the bigger picture, they could try to pull off one of the biggest turns in recent comic book history.  The Avengers and Fantastic Four were killed in a battle and there was a void in the superhero community.  In comes the mysterious Thunderbolts; all the characters were new to readers and the Marvel Universe.  At the end of the first issue, it was revealed that the Thunderbolts were the Masters of Evil in disguise; at the time, the Masters of Evil were the biggest group of villains to fight the Avengers.  The Thunderbolts believed they could dupe the public into believing they were heroes and make it easier to take over the world.

This would be difficult to pull off in movies.  The Thunderbolts were the brainchild of Baron Zemo, who was not the Nazi genius from the comics; you could still use the Captain America: Civil War villain since he already had one master plan work against the Avengers.  Many of the other characters would have to be introduced as villains across multiple movies; the impact of the reveal would be lost if you didn’t know that Mach V was originally the Beetle.  This would probably mean fans would have to wait until Phase 5 or 6 before they could pull this off.

Another hurdle would be the existing heroes.  This could have been a good plan after Avengers 4, when the big hitters probably wouldn’t be available.  It would be easy to slide in villains posing as heroes.  There would have to be another big event where many heroes wouldn’t survive.

The last issue is marketing a movie like this.  Fans of the comics know the story of the Thunderbolts, so the swerve has little impact on them; if you give away that these are villains, you’ll get the Suicide Squad comparisons and take away one of the better aspects of the story.

Is there someone I forgot?  Let me know in the comments.