Marvel Rivals’ First Merchandise Is Both Expected and Unexpected

In a tale that is practically as old as time in internet standards at this point, there is a sense of inevitability that any big new thing—movie, TV show, game, or otherwise—is in want of its own little plastic army of big-headed, occasionally bobble-headed Funko Pop! Vinyls. Marvel Rivals, and its roster of hero designs that have taken Marvel fans by storm, is no exception, so on the one hand, there’s no surprise that some of the first collectibles out of the gate are going to be from Funko. On the other, they’re still perhaps not what everyone clamoring for more of these designs really wanted when they said that.

Today Funko announced that it would be kicking off a line of Rivals Funkos with a quartet of character designs from the hero shooter—a motley mix of two playable characters in the form of Iron Man and Magneto, and two NPCs, Rivals‘ spin on the villainous Doctor Doom, and match commentator/daughter of the devourer himself, Galacta. In a cute nod to her cosmically sized origins, Galacta is even a double-sized “super” Pop, so she can tower over the rest of the inevitably arriving roster on your shelf.

They’re pretty fun, and what works about Rivals‘ broad approach to Marvel design translates well enough to Funko form. But Pops themselves obviously have their own design language to adhere to, flattening out more unique elements of the source material to make sure people can display characters from a bevy of brands in a somewhat coherent manner. That’s part of the appeal! But here it also just means that not everything that has had fans going gaga for Rivals‘ vision of the Marvel universe the past few months is going to come over, and that is a bit of a bummer.

What has made Rivals‘ character design so immediately captivating is ability to meld references to costumes from across decades of Marvel’s work and new ideas into a highly stylized, “comic-booky” style. There’s exaggeration, big bold colors and blocky highlight lines that feel like inks from a comic book, there’s a ton of detail without going the MCU route of pared down techwear. There’s enough familiar that anyone who loves the comics or just follows the films can recognize these characters, while also pushing them in new directions and celebrating the aesthetic variety and boldness of that source material. Those are the kind of stylistic choices that don’t really work with Funko’s minimalistic house style.

Fingers crossed, then, that this just means that these will be the first in a long line of Rivals collectibles, from Funko or otherwise. I’d kill for Hasbro to do a subseries for Marvel Legends that gives us more faithful, posable takes on Rivals‘ roster, or hell, Lego may face the same minimalization issues Funko does, but little sets in the Marvel Superheroes line built around a bunch of minifigures and the payload vehicles you fight over in-game could be great! Hell, maybe we could get some international companies like Goodsmile or Kaiyodo to do some buck wild, super-stylized figures to boot.

For now though, all we’ve got are the Pops—Iron Man, Magneto, Doom, and Galacta are all set to start hitting shelves soon.

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