Deep Dive Disney: Wes Builds the Roster for Gargoyles X Spider-Man: Battle Across New York (DLC)

Alright friends, we made it to part two, which means it’s time to discuss DLC. But first, if you haven’t read the first article yet, follow this link and read that first. Last time around each season of DLC had five characters plus a new boss, but since this is a crossover game, we’re upping the number of characters per season by 1. What this means is each season of DLC will contain three characters from each series. Now if you’re hoping that I’ll be using the DLC to bring back fan favorite characters from the last game who had to get cut, I’m afraid I have some bad news. In order to keep things from becoming stale, I’m implementing a rule. I’m only allowed to bring back one character from the previous installment per season with the other two characters being brand new. As for the Spider-Man side of things, I’m going to do my best to make each season adhere to a theme for the sake of consistency. Alright, let’s get started with…

DLC Season 1:

Alright, kicking things off, we have our one returning character, MacBeth. MacBeth wouldn’t really be changed much from his previous appearance. Hell, we could even keep the special match condition when he fights Demona. Since this is a tag battle game, that mechanic can now be implemented in a lot of creative ways. Starting in on our new characters we have Gabriel. Gabriel is the rookery brother of Angela and the de facto leader of the Avalon clan. As for how he’d fight, I can see him as a more agile version of Goliath. Moves a little faster than the big guy, but doesn’t hit quite as hard. It’s also canon that he is the biological son of the two Gargoyles who eventually became Cold Stone and Cold Fire. While Gargoyles don’t really go in for the whole traditional family structure thing, Gabriel, having been raised by humans, wouldn’t exactly know that, so I’d love to see him get to interact with his parents and see how he’d react to their current forms. Speaking of, let’s round out the Cold Stone trio with the evil Cold Steel. The Gargoyle that became Cold Steel was a creep who tried to pit Goliath against his brother because he was in love with Cold Stone’s mate. We don’t get a whole lot of detail beyond that, but all we really need to know is that he’s an evil incel jackass, but an evil incel jackass who is now in an extremely powerful robot body. The main gimmick of Cold Steel was some robotic tendrils that I could see him using both for grab moves and to trip up his opponent from a distance. Alright, moving on to the Spider-Man side of the fence. As you may have noticed, the theme I’ve chosen for this first season of DLC is “Spider-Verse.” First up, Spider-Man 2099. Miguel O’hara was a geneticist and engineer working for a company called Alchemax. Despite his protests, his company forced him to test his experimental process to imprint genetic codes on a human test subject. When the test subject was transformed into a horrible monster before quickly dying, Miguel tendered his resignation and told his sleaze bag of a boss (who was also, unbeknownst to Miguel, his biological father) to go fuck himself. In response, Miguel’s boss laced Miguel’s drink with a drug so addictive that withdrawal symptoms have been known to kill people in order to keep him from leaving (Alchemax was the sole manufacturer of this drug you see). Miguel had no choice but to try the genetic experiment on himself in the hopes of removing the addiction from his DNA. Due to some sabotage, Miguel was accidentally injected with spider DNA. The drug was out of his system and he emerged as the Spider-Man of the future. I can actually see making Miguel the Vega of this game. Leaping all over the screen and slashing with his spider-like claws. Also, like the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, Miguel’s webbing is actually organic, so I can see it working a bit differently from the others. Maybe he can use it to set up traps where the opponent gets stuck or something. In any case, next up we leave the future and head to the past with Spider-Man Noir, who is basically just emo Spider-Man in the 40’s who spends his time punching Nazis and letting matches burn all the way down to his fingertips just to feel something. Also, he’s Nicolas Cage. While a lot of the other Spider-People in this game have focused on speed, seeing as how Noir here, being more of a bar room brawler type, would focus more on power. Make him a real unga bunga character, a man who fights like he has nothing to lose. Also, just for fun, I’d give him a projectile where he throws a Rubik’s Cube at the opponent’s head. Rounding out the first season of DLC, we have the Amazing Spider-Ham. Unlike all the others, who were humans bit by a radioactive spider, Peter Porker was a Spider to begin with but transformed into his current form when he was bit by a radioactive pig. Spider-Ham is basically a Looney Tunes character, so I say we lean into that for his play style. To me, that means making this little piggy a massive zoner. Anvils falling from the sky, pies in the face, huge mallets, real Tom and Jerry stuff. For his super, I’m thinking he’d do what he did to Scorpion when he thought he had a problem with cartoons. Alright, that does it for the playable characters in season one. Now let’s unveil the first DLC boss. Remember, each boss must be a character from one series powered up in some way by something from the other series. Last time we had a Gargoyles character as our boss, so this time, let’s flip things around…

Silvermane:

Another face you probably weren’t expecting to see. Silvio “Silvermane” Manfredi was a major player in New York City’s underworld and a rival crime boss to the Kingpin. Apparently he was quite formidable in his youth, but thanks to old age, those days are long behind him. At first, Silvermane sought a mystical tablet to restore his youth, but that had the unfortunate side effect of de-aging him into infancy. After being restored to his natural age, Silvermane sought a cybernetic upgrade which worked for him for a while, but let’s say that, in this game, that’s no longer enough. I threw Silvermane into this game because he reminds me a great deal of a certain Gargoyles character, namely, Halcyon Renard. Like Silvermane, Renard was an incredibly old man who sought to cheat the reaper. However, unlike Renard, who was generally a good man who had a lapse in judgement and tried to stick his brain in a golem, Silvermane is an evil bastard. However, since Czech gangster Tomas Brod was heavily involved in the Golem episode and is now operating in New York City, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Silvermane heard Renard’s story, either from Brod himself or through the grapevine, and got the idea to try it for himself. However, Silvermane is looking for something a little more sophisticated than an ancient Golem. To that end, our mystery villain has put Silvermane in touch with brilliant geneticist and amoral lunatic, Anton Sevarius, to build him a new body. And not just any body, a Gargoyle body. Yup, Sevarius is giving a ruthless mob boss the strength, stamina and durability of a Gargoyle. And you know Anton isn’t going to stop there. He’ll probably throw in a few extra features to make this body a sweet ride. Sevarius is like the Xzibit of genetic engineers. Silvermane’s new body would be enhanced with cybernetics, and a few surprises for the player. As a boss, Gargoyle Silvermane would be a big, bigger than average Gargoyle, and he’d naturally hit like a truck. I’d also throw in laser eye projectiles and an energy absorption ability. Alright, that wraps it up for season one, let’s move on to Season 2, where the name of a game, is Bad Guys.

DLC Season 2:

Starting off, we have our returning character, my favorite member of The Pack, Dingo. Dingo would fight like he did in the last game, we’d even keep the super where he bonds with Matrix and goes into Super Mode. Next up is Fang. Like Talon, Fang was mutated into a flying electric cat monster by Anton Sevarius. Fang, being a complete scumbag, wasn’t really keen on Talon’s goody-two shoes, protect the innocent approach to leadership and unsuccessfully tried to stage a coup. Fang would fight basically like Talon fought in the last game but would have a greater emphasis on speed than on power. Fang is coward and would probably rather run from trouble than get in a fight, so we’d have his play style reflect that. Next up is Yama. Yama was a member of a thriving Gargoyle clan living harmoniously with the human inhabitants of the Japanese village of Ishimura. Much like Fang, Yama betrayed his clan, allowing them to be kidnapped by a shady Japanese business man who planned to use them as attractions for his theme park, but in his defense, he genuinely believed his actions would benefit Gargoyle-kind. Still, for his actions, he was exiled by his clan and eventually joined the Gargoyles equivalent of The Suicide Squad along with Fang and Dingo as well as Robyn Canmore, hence why these three characters are in this season of DLC together. Yama was trained in the ways of the Samurai, so he’d be a pretty tough customer with plenty of speed and quick strikes. He’d probably get a lot of mileage out of the blades in his forearms and at the end of his tail as well. Alright, moving on to the Spider-Man side of things we have… oh fuck me, do I have to say it? *checks notes* Apparently yes, yes I do, but I don’t have to like it. *Sigh*… It’s Morbin’ Time… That’s right, the comic book character with the movie so bad it bombed at the box office twice, Morbius the living Vampire joins the fray. As for how he would fight, I mean, he’s a vampire, let’s have him fight like a vampire. He’d have plenty of grab moves where he drains the opponent’s blood and regains some health and he’d be able to teleport across the screen in a cloud of bats which could also be used as a projectile. For our next entry, I’m taking the advice of Mr. Can’t Take a Joke, Thorgi. According to him, every fighting game needs “The Weird Pick.” That character who’s going to make the player say “Wait, what?” You can't just have the faces, you need the freaks. Well, allow me to introduce the weirdest weird pick I could come up with. Our next character is called Swiss Miss, and you won’t find her in any comic book, movie or TV show. And no, smart ass, you won’t find her in your hot chocolate either. Swiss Miss was created exclusively for the Broadway Musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. See, the framing device of the musical is the “geek chorus” trying to write the ultimate Spider-Man fan fiction, and one of them, feeling that Spider-Man doesn’t have enough female villains, created her own original character, Swiss Miss. To be fair, that girl from the geek chorus has a point. Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery is one of the best in comics, but sadly, it’s kind of a sausage fest, so screw it, let’s throw in Swiss Miss in order to pay homage to what is, in my opinion, a highly underrated Musical. How’s that for a deep cut. And speaking of deep cuts, Swiss Miss’s move set can best be summed up in five words: Slice ‘em and Dice ‘em. Our friend here is basically a living Swiss army knife, hence the name, so she’s got bladed weapons all over her body. I say let’s make her a rush down character who uses those blades for some devastating combos. Also, since Swiss Miss originates from a Broadway musical, let’s have this season of DLC include a new stage that’s literally a Broadway Stage. We can even have dancing Spider-Men in the background. Anywho, it’s time to close out this season of DLC and I wouldn’t dream of doing this game and not including Carnage. Cletus Cassidy was a violent serial killer who once shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock. During this time, the Venom symbiote was about to give birth and that offspring bonded with Cassidy, thus, Carnage, one of Spider-Man’s deadliest foes, was born. Carnage is all about one thing, and it’s right there in his name. There would be no finesse in his fighting style, just chaos. I propose that Carnage would be the most unga bunga character in the game, charging in head first and attacking with reckless abandon until the opponent is a bloody corpse. For an ultimate, I like the idea of Carnage calling in his cronies from his group, aptly named Maximum Carnage, for a massive team attack. Alright, there’s our playable characters so let’s move on to the new boss.

Jon Castaway:

Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, Jon Castaway was the main villain from the controversial third season and that season is not considered to be canon by the show’s creator Greg Weisman. While that statement is accurate, the first episode of that season, which features Castaway, was written by Greg Weisman and is indeed considered canon so therefore, Castaway is fair game. And really, even if he wasn’t, this is a non-canon hypothetical fighting game, we can do whatever we want. Jon Castaway (who may or may not have formerly been Jon Canmore), was the leader of a hate-group called the Quarrymen, basically the KKK but for Gargoyles. Since it has yet to be officially confirmed that Jon Canmore and Jon Castaway are one and the same, I will not be doing so here, but I will allude to it in his interactions with his possible sister, Robyn Canmore. In any case, I have an interesting idea as to how Jason would fight. Let’s say our mystery villain provides him with a huge mech suit built to resemble one of the Sentinel robots. Thematically, it makes sense, both The Quarrymen and The Sentinels are products of hatred, dedicated the eradication of an entire race. As for how he’d fight, I’m envisioning a powered-up version of the actual Sentinel from the Marvel vs. Capcom games since that character is already pretty broken to begin with. Alright, one more season of DLC left to go. Everybody ready? Let’s do this!

DLC Season 3:

For the Gargoyles half of this season, I opted to go with the leaders of various international clans encountered throughout the series, starting, naturally, with our old pal Griff. We went over Griff’s move set last time around and like the other returning DLC characters, we’re keeping him pretty much the same. Next up, Zafiro. Zafiro was the leader of a small clan of Gargoyles who lived deep in the jungles of Guatemala. Zafiro also has one of the most unique designs of any Gargoyle encountered in the series, with a snake’s tail instead of legs and feathery wings, he was likely designed after Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent. With his unique appearance comes a more unique move set. While move Gargoyles attack from the air, I can see Zafiro’s snake-like body allowing him to move pretty quick on the ground and maybe even lead to a few surprise attacks from beneath. Also, like Griff, I’d let him call in the other members of his clan for assist attacks. And finally, we have Kai, the leader of the Ishimura clan from which Yama originates. Like Yama, Kai was trained in Bushido, the way of the Samurai, but while Yama would focus on speed and offense, Kai would focus on power and defense. He’d still make use of the bladed forearms and tail that he shares with his rookery brother, but he’d use them in different ways, perhaps in counter attacks and heavy grapples. It’s time for the other side of the crossover, and the way I see it, now that we’re in the final season of DLC, we can officially start throwing other Marvel Superheroes into the mix, starting, of course, with Iron Man. Like Spidey himself, Iron Man is no stranger to fighting games and, in fact, was one of my mains in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, so I would leave his move set exactly as is, proton canon and all. Also, Iron Man needs to be here because Tony Stark and David Xanatos have to meet face to face. Even though the writers claimed that Xanatos was not created with Iron Man in mind, one cannot deny the similarities between the two and you know them finally meeting would cause fans to lose their minds. Next up, with all the mystical shit going on during all this, it only makes sense that The Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange would get involved. Strange has also been in a few fighting games so we can translate his move set fairly easily, but I’d also throw in a couple spells that we know to be from the Grinorum Arcanorum. He is the sorcerer supreme after all, he’s read all the books. And finally, it’s Clobberin’ Time because our final DLC character is the muscle of the Fantastic Four, the pride of Yancy Street, Ben Grimm the Ever Lovin’ Blue-eyed Thing. I had to include at least one member of the Fantastic Four, they’ve been allies of the wall-crawler since Amazing Spider-Man #1 all the way back in 1963. And if we can only include one member of the FF, it’s gotta be The Thing. There wouldn’t be a ton of surprises in Ben’s move set. He’d basically be your standard tanky grappler with plenty of wrestling moves and heavy attacks. I also like the idea that some of those Heavy attacks would be smashing the opponent with a sign that reads Yancy Street, a tribute to Ben’s old stomping grounds. And of course, he’d be able to call in the other members of Fantastic Four to do some extra damage. Reed would use his stretching powers to smack the opponent from long range, Johnny would fly across the screen and shower the opponent in fire and Sue would be able to put up a barrier for some extra defense. Alright, all of our characters have been revealed, so it’s finally time to unveil our mystery villain, but first, here’s a brief list of characters who were considered for this roster but didn’t make the cut.

All of the Characters from the Previous Installment: Believe me, if I could throw in all the cut characters from the last game, I would, but sadly, I had to make room for the Spider-Man side of the crossover so a lot of fan favorites had to go.

Tomas Brod: The Czech Gangster is a seemingly odd pick but would have made for an interesting addition to the roster and the story. He’s just not a popular enough character to justify a spot on the roster

Maggie and Claw: Once again, the other members of Talon’s Clan had to sit this one out.

Vinnie: Vinnie is kind of an amazing character. He’s basically a generic background character (who sounds suspiciously like John Travolta) who has had a great deal of misfortune in his life thanks to the Gargoyles. He took his revenge be throwing a pie in Goliath’s face. I am not joking. For a brief period of time, I considered including Vinnie as a joke character, but decided against it.

Mysterio: The master of illusions is one of Spider-Man’s most classic foes and a founding members of the Sinister Six. Not only was Mysterio considered for the game, he was also on the short list for potential bosses. I’d have had him conjure up illusions of the bosses from the previous game. Sadly, I couldn’t find a way to make that work and ended up going with Silvermane instead and by the time I made that decision, the base playable roster had already been filled up.

Hydro Man: Hydro Man was suggested to me, but since his powers are too similar to those of Sandman, who is himself a much more recognizable villain, I decided not to include him.

Silver Sable: Silver Sable is a hero often associated with Spider-Man, but I’m honestly not really a fan of the character.

Daredevil: Daredevil is one of Spider-Man’s closest allies and with Kingpin in the game, his inclusion would have been a nice fit, but I swapped him out for The Prowler at the last minute.

Wolverine: Wolverine was heavily considered for the third season of DLC before I settled on the three heroes I ended up going with.

Tony Dracon: Like last time, at no point in time was Tony Dracon ever considered for this roster and it is still very important to me that you all know that.

Alright, you’ve waited long enough, the time has come to finally unveil our final boss. I would see it all going down a little something like this. Once the player battles his way to the end, meeting the necessary conditions to face the true final boss, a green portal will appear. The player character would walk through the portal and find themselves in a castle in Latveria, In one corner of the room, a withered Oberon is bound to the wall with iron shackles, and at the far end, sitting on a menacing throne, sits the mastermind behind all of this, none other than…

Doctor Doom:

I wanted the ultimate final boss to go hard, and for my money, there is no villain in all of Marvel Comics who exudes Final Boss Energy quite like Victor Von Doom. While the ruler of Latveria is primarily an enemy of the Fantastic Four, he’s tangled with Spider-Man more than enough times to justify his presence in this game. In fact, one of my favorite moments in all of comics was when Spider-Man reluctantly saved Doom from an assassination attempt and Doom declared that he owed Spider-Man a debt. Spider-Man then told Doom to go fuck himself, and to square the debt, Doom opted not to end Spider-Man on the spot. None of that actually has anything to do with anything, but I find it funny so I’m sharing it with you all. In any case, Doctor Doom is a genius scientist, a master sorcerer and arguably one of the most powerful individuals in the entire Marvel Universe, definitely final boss material. Stealing the power of an all-powerful God-like entity is nothing new for Doom. He stole the power of The Beyonder during the Secret Wars event and did the same to Odin in the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance Game where he served as the main antagonist (See, I told you he’d have no problem taking the eye back from Odin). Stealing the power of Oberon would be right in Doom’s wheelhouse. As for how Doom would fight, naturally, he’d have a lot of his old powers from past fighting game appearances, but we’d also incorporate several of the powers that Oberon demonstrated in the first game such as growing giant sized and sending the player to the Distortion World with his cape. I’d also have the stage play into the fight as well. As I said, Oberon would be chained up in the corner of the room and if Doom reaches that side of the screen, he’d be able to heal himself by siphoning off more of Oberon’s power. So not only are you trying to damage Doom, you’re also playing keep away, adding whole new dimension to the challenge of this fight. And friends, that about does it for all the characters in Gargoyles X Spider-Man: Battle Across New York, but we’re not quite done yet…

Secret Ending: Alright, let’s say you go through the entire story mode with a perfect, or near perfect score. Well, then you’d get the secret ending. Remember how I said Thailog and Norman Osbourne will have formed an alliance? Well, after Doom is defeated and taken out of commission, those two show up in Doom’s castle to loot it for valuables and useful tech. One particular item catches their eye, The Phoenix Gate. Our evil duo try to grab it, but a swiftly moving shadowy figure beats them to the punch and grabs the gate for himself. Thailog and The Green Goblin get ready to fight, but suddenly find themselves surrounded by ninjas. The figure, still in shadow, holds up the Phoenix gat and says that he has a proposition for the villains. We then get a good look at the figure's hand…

TO BE CONTINUED…

That’s right, I’m making this a trilogy, and as you’ve no doubt surmised, our next outing in this genre will be a lot more ambitious, but we’ll discuss that when we get there. Thank you all for reading my build the roster article. These types of articles are a blast to write and I’m so glad the responses to them have been positive. Keep an eye out for the third installment in this series and my regular articles as well. Love to all, Wes, out.