Capcom loves to do crossovers and create impossible fights with Ryu and company. Among them are characters from their own sagas, rival companies and even franchises that were not even born in video games. In a way, we could almost say that two real-world ring superstars (Mike Tyson and Viktor Zangiev) appeared in Street Fighter II without permission or explanation. Do Osaka have no limits? Let’s just say that very few people tend to protest against this type of initiative. Almost nobody.
If you play Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 today in any of its versions you will see that the fighters have three colors inspired by their sagas plus a secondary outfit. Through this outfit, Ryu puts on the shoes of the original Street Fighter again, Hawkeye wears the Ronin suit and in Iron Man we put on the Iron Patriot armor from the Dark Avengers. The most surprising and unexpected of all: Magneto’s suit inspired by the comic book saga Dynasty of M.
Let’s put ourselves in the situation: each of the additional outfits of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 They are and continue to be much more pure fanservice, and those who wear the fighters born on paper are a dream come true since they were inspired by emblematic stages of each superhero or villain, so that through them we saw that Capcom paid homage to essential comics such as Planet Hulkthe incredible “Cablepool” from that issue 26 of Slaughter and Cable or that iconic Wolverine from Weapon X.
For Magneto, one of the most powerful mutants and a key figure in the House of Ideas, the same uniform was chosen that he wore at one of the biggest comic book events ever created in the years before the release of the video game. For many, perhaps the biggest. That was much more than just an additional outfit, and that’s why it didn’t do any favors to the Spanish Royal House. What’s more, the answer to why is not so much in the video games, but in Marvel comics.
An iconic uniform, with a history of its own… and one that Marvel prefers to forget
Originally called House of M, the Dynasty of M It was the big Marvel event published between the last part of 2005 and the first months of 2006 as part of a great initiative that would be a turning point for all the series related to mutants in the main continuity of the Comics and all the other subsequent series.
Without going into further details, the Avenger known as Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, lost control of her powers over the chaos, taking several of her teammates with her. This caused both her and the team to suffer a huge crisis, but it also set up a very complicated scenario: What if Wanda completely loses her mind? and let himself be consumed by his emotions? The answer, however, will end up manifesting itself before his very eyes and it was completely unexpected.
After a simple flash Marvel’s continuity changed completely and practically all the main characters’ wishes were fulfilled: Spider-Man married Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben lives; Steve Rogers, Captain America, was never frozen and is now an old man whose life was not taken from him… Even Cyclops himself seems to be smiled upon by fate, despite the fact that part of the essence of the X-Men is based on ruining his day!
However, the most unique thing is that in this custom-created reality, even Magneto’s dream came true: a world ruled by mutants with him at the helm.
In her efforts to make the world ideal for all those close to her, Wanda created a reality in which mutants, far from being discriminated against by society, are the ruling class. Logically, there is a structure and the ruling monarchy is The Magnus Dynastycomposed of Magneto himself and his three children Wanda, Pietro Maximoff and Lorna Dane (Polaris). So Marvel gave them all a costume change for this event and designed an official outfit for the Maximoff family according to their status and position of power in this reality.
If you find this context interesting, you will like to know that it is just the premise on which the event was built. The Dynasty of M and it ends suddenly with a huge blow on the table that will mean an enormous price for both Wanda and all of Marvel’s mutants.
Now, before we get further off track, we have come to the crux of our topic: Why that Magneto outfit is so important and iconic for the character and how it represented a real added value to Capcom’s game. What remains to be clarified is the reason why it had to be removed.
Believe it or not, Magneto wore the Gala Uniform of King Juan Carlos of Europe
Most likely Magneto’s uniform from the Dynasty of M wouldn’t have caused Marvel Comics any major problems if he had only appeared in the pages of the comics. The big problem is that it suited him too well. So much so that Mike Mayhew’s spectacular illustration served as a cover for the special for the event The Pulse: House of M SpecialAnd there, right there, everything went down the drain.
The artists not only dressed the X-Men villain in a uniform exactly like the King Emeritus’s dress uniform Juan Carlos I of Europebut broadly speaking the cover consisted of changing the face of the monarch while keeping even the background. That was not exactly a tribute but Unauthorized use of official photography and, consequently, the representatives of the Zarzuela Palace They took the initiative giving the publisher a slap on the wrist, who had to apologize and, at the wrong time, put out the fires they themselves had started.
This would have remained just another anecdote, like so many others that happen in the house of ideas. In theory, Marvel stopped it in time so that the only thing left of this specific illustration on the cover would not transcend, it was only seen on the Internet and, beyond the event, it did not go any further nor was it used again. The problem with this is that, given what we have seen, in Japan they did not know the whole story and by the time they found out, It was already too late.
The way in which the alternative aspects of the system were arrived at and displayed Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was staggered, so that they were added to the game every two or three weeks between 2011 and 2012. This served several purposes, since they were put on sale in themed batches, although they could also be purchased individually, thus giving them the special value that each outfit brought to their respective fighter that fans loved so much.
As we mentioned, all the alternate and free colors of the characters have a meaning, so with a change and some extra texture Spider-Man seemed to be wearing his black suit, the Iron Spider armor from the comics or the Future Foundation uniform; but his “paid” outfit was something exceptional that gave it a new dimension, since it was the Scarlet Spider suit worn by Ben Reilly. So Capcom gave Magneto the appearance of The Dynasty of M…and he came across the Zarzuela again six years later and for the same reasons.
According to it was reported, The Spanish Royal Family contacted Koch Media, the game’s distributor in Europe and current Plaion, to ask them to remove the aspect to be done an improper use of both the figure of the king and a Spanish Army uniformCapcom’s solution: locking the suit in-game. Which didn’t stop it from being accessed through mods, mind you. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Capcom over the years, it’s that Osaka has a unique talent for dodging legal and copyright issues using the simplest and most ingenious solutions. And we won’t deny it, we suspect that this will continue to happen in the future.
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