Marvel Character Picker
Who gets the splash page?
Who is on the page?
Tap heroes to add or remove their panel (up to 12).
The Avengers, the street level and the cosmic side, all laid out as a comic page. Shortlist the heroes you actually want in the running, press Make the Splash, and an action burst goes flying from panel to panel. It settles on one, the rest of the page greys out, and your hero bursts open into a full splash page.
- Drawing prompts
- Team picking
- Game roles
Sixteen heroes, one splash page
Marvel's trick was always that the powers come second. Spider-Man's problem is rent. Iron Man's problem is Iron Man. The fights are the spectacle, but the reason anyone stayed is that these characters have jobs, debts and people who are annoyed with them. This picker lays them out as a comic page, sends an action burst flying across it, and gives one of them the splash.
How the comic page works
Tap heroes on and off, or type your own. The page relays itself around whatever is left.
A THWIP travels panel to panel, slowing as it goes. Every panel it crosses jolts.
The page greys out and your hero's panel bursts open to fill it, action lines and all.
The roster, by corner of the universe
Switching off everything outside one row gives you a themed page — a straight Avengers line-up, a street-level page, or the cosmic side on its own.
| Corner | Who is on the page | What those stories are about |
|---|---|---|
| The Avengers | Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Hawkeye, Falcon | Big threats, bigger arguments about how to handle them |
| Street level | Spider-Man, Wolverine, Deadpool | Smaller stakes, sharper personal cost, much better jokes |
| Cosmic & mystic | Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Scarlet Witch | Rules of reality treated as a suggestion |
| Kings & scientists | Black Panther, Ant-Man | Heroes whose day job keeps interrupting the heroics |
A note on the artwork. Marvel characters are defined by trademarked emblems and costume designs, so every icon here is an original generic prop instead — a web, a hammer, a bullseye, a spell circle, a pair of jet wings. Nothing depicts or approximates an official emblem, costume or logo.
Ways people use it
- Drawing challenges. Draw whoever gets the splash page, in your own style.
- Team picking. Settles who plays which hero before the game starts.
- Watch order. Land on a hero, then go and watch or read their best story.
- Costume decisions. A fast answer for dress-up day.
- Story prompts. Put the hero you landed on in someone else's film and see what breaks.
Why the flaws are the point
The house style has always been to give a hero a power and then immediately make it inconvenient. Spider-Man can do anything a spider can, and is late for everything. The Hulk is unstoppable, which is precisely the problem. Doctor Strange has seen every outcome, and has to carry that on his own.
It is a useful thing to notice if you are using this for prompts: whoever you land on comes with a built-in complication, and that complication is almost always more interesting to draw or write about than the power is.
A fair pick, every time
No panel on the page is luckier than another. The winner is drawn uniformly over positions using your browser's cryptographic random generator before the burst moves, the heroes are shuffled into fresh panels on every run, and the burst is sent to each panel's exact centre with nothing clamping how far it can travel — so a corner panel comes up exactly as often as a middle one.
More hero and character pickers
After a different corner of the shelf? Try these:
- The other big publisher — spin the DC Character Picker.
- Want to invent your own hero? Try the Superhero Picker.
- Just the powers? Roll the Superpower Picker.
- Fancy the other side? Run the Villain Picker.
- Want more? Browse all random pickers.