6 Marvel Characters that Should be on TV

In the next week DC and Marvel are both airing mid-season premieres.  DC's Legends of Tomorrow is making its debut and Marvel's Agent Carter is returning for its second season.  The former is a team show full of characters from The Flash and Arrow while the latter is heavily concentrated on the title lead.  In fairness, she is a great character on a fantastic show but it does represent a major difference between the two TV worlds.  When it comes to comic book character adaptation DC's TV has Marvel beaten by a mile (although there's always room for improvement).  That's largely because Marvel is part of a larger universe with its films and because their parent company Disney doesn't have access to the rights for The Fantastic Four and that deepest well of characters known as the X-Men.  Fortunately they still have plenty of options.

Just none from the X-Men's deep, deep well of characters.

Contessa de la Fontaine

When S.H.I.E.L.D. was created in 1965 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby it was obviously influenced by the James Bond films, with Nick Fury as its 007.  The third season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the best yet, partially because it has embraced the Bondness inherent in any spy fiction of the past half century.  Since they killed off the best love interest they've ever had in Constance Zimmer's Rosalind Price, it might be a good time to bring in a grade-A "Bond Girl" stand-in and from the early days of the agency no less.  Contessa Valentina Allegra De La Fontaine first appeared in 1967 and quickly became Nick Fury's leading love interest after deafeating him in a sparring match.  The Contessa was a European jet setter until she decided she wanted more from life and to follow in the footsteps of her late resistance fighter parents.  That's when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. where she eventually became one of the organization's leading agents.

Jim Steranko

Brother Voodoo

One of the best parts of DC's short lived Constantine series was the voodoo practicing villain Papa Midnite because voodoo is the coolest kind of magic there is.  Marvel's chief voodoo priest Jericho "Brother Voodoo" Drumm is over ten years older than Midnite and a lot more powerful.  In 2009 when Doctor Strange lost his title of "Sorcerer Supreme" it went to Drumm who beat out every other magic user.  Jericho began practicing voodoo when his brother Daniel died and sent him to his mentor Papa Jambo.  Jambo trained Jericho and performed a ritual to revive Daniel's spirit and fuse it with his brothers'.  Together they defeated the sorcerer who killed Daniel in the first place.  Although he's traditionally based far from Hell's Kitchen in New York, Brother Voodoo would be more at home with Netflix's dark "Defenders" world than the family friendly espionage of Peggy Carter and S.H.I.E.L.D. Along with Iron Fist he would make an excellent expansion of the supernatural side of Marvel that will likely center on November's Doctor Strange movie.

Jefte Palo

Cloak and Dagger

Tandy Bowen and Ty Johnson have been hovering over the line between the B-list and C-list of superheroes since 1982.  They're interesting, beloved characters who just can't seem to get a permanent place in the limelight.  In canon, they met as teen runaways in New York, one a privileged white woman with detached, callous parents and the other a black man with a stutter that prevented him from saving a friend from an oncoming automobile.  Both having pure hearts despite their upbringings.  They became fast friends, but were exploited and given an experimental strain of heroin that awakened their superpowers.  Tandy can create "light daggers" and Ty gained a connection to a dark dimension he can send people to and that he can use to teleport.  Ever since the two have shared an unbreakable bond.  Aside from their somewhat flashy powers, there's nothing stopping Cloak and Dagger from being an excellent subplot or more on a Netflix series.

Shawn McGuan

Doc Samson

In addition to Rosalind Price, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also lost its primary source of psychobabble this season when Agent May's ex-husband Andrew Garner (Blair Underwood) was slowly transformed into a murderous beast beginning shortly after their reunion.  Fortunately the Marvel Cinematic Universe already has an established psychiatrist who is more than capable of protecting himself without giving in to genocidal tendencies.  Dr. Leonard Samson was Bruce Banner's ally who was given super strength by exposure to gamma radiation.  Admittedly, the Leonard Samson played by Ty Burrell in The Incredible Hulk is pretty far removed from the muscular man with long green hair from the comics, but the Hulk himself was recast long ago and Burrell is likely too busy with Modern Family to take on another series.  If nothing else, Samson could offer an interesting change to the visual language of S.H.I.E.L.D. with his imposing figure and bright green hair.

Jack Kirby?

Jessica Drew

Before Spider-Man joined the MCU there was a rumor going around that Spider-Woman would be used in his stead, since they have similar names and no other connection whatsoever.  Fortunately that's not necessary because Jessica Drew is so much more than a Spider-Man clone, especially since she isn't really a Spider-Man clone at all.  Her origin involves radiation and spiders but the similarities end there.  Later she was brainwashed by the evil organization HYDRA and sent to kill Nick Fury, at which point she realized she had been used until HYDRA captured her again and hypnotized her.  At one time or another she joined The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the extraterrestrial focused agency S.W.O.R.D.  Jessica Drew is a good friend to Jessica Jones and there is likely a place for her on that series, especially if she changes her first name, but she would also be at home on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with her espionage background.

Alex Maleev

Runaways

Runaways is perhaps the most original idea and best source of new characters to come from Marvel or DC in decades.  The story, created by Saga scribe Brian K. Vaughan and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) artist Adrian Alphona, is about a group of teenagers who discover their parents are all part of an evil cabal dedicated to bringing about the end of days.  They leave their homes and fight off their parents in the process, developing new skills, gaining weapons, and learning about their parents and themselves.  That sounds a little cheesy but it's really a fantastic comic, and all that is just the beginning.  More than anything else on this list, Runaways has the most potential to be its own TV series or even a movie.  An adaptation has been in the works since 2008 and its unlikely that anyone has forgotten about it.  It could be only a matter of time.

Adrian Alphona & David Newbold