There are many reasons why people have fallen in love with Marvel Rivals. Easily one of the biggest reasons is the quality of the title and how NetEase has learned from the “sins of other games in the genre” to give a gameplay experience that literally anyone can jump into and have fun with, no matter what character they play as. To that end, the game has a large roster of Marvel Comics characters to play with, using unique multiversal origins to ensure that things feel both familiar and yet different. To that end, the NetEase team is aware of certain “visions of characters” and steers their voice-acting crew to steer away from some of those comparisons.
For example, the character Mantis is played by Colleen O’Shaughnessey, whom you might know for her incredible work as Tails The Fox in both games and a set of live-action movies. She’s a big fan of Marvel Comics, and when she was hired to do Mantis, she immediately pictured the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character, who is aligned with the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, as she noted to ComicBook.com, she was told NOT to do things like the MCU version:
“I’m a huge Marvel fan and I of course have seen all the movies. And they’re like ‘it’s not the same Mantis that you know from the movies.’ And so that was a little strange for me, because that’s the picture I have in my head and that’s the character that I have in my head. It was challenging to make her different, to just do my own take on Mantis. Luckily, they liked what I did. But I love the Marvel Universe so it was so exciting to be part of that.”
It might sound odd at first to steer away from the MCU version of the character due to her popularity amongst certain fans. However, as many have fairly noted, how Mantis is portrayed in the MCU isn’t exactly accurate to the comics. Even her original creator called out how different Mantis is in the movies compared to how she is in Marvel Comics lore.
Plus, as noted, these aren’t the “standard versions” of the Marvel Comics characters. Instead, they are variants of them across the multiverse, which can be seen in the game’s dialogue and lore.
That being said, Colleen loves being in Marvel Rivals, and she’s already gotten compliments for her portrayal of Mantis. So, it all worked out in the end.
