10 Brilliant Marvel Characters You've Never Heard Of

Marvel ComicsIn 2014 the House of Ideas celebrates 75 years since the publication of Marvel Comics #1, the anthology title that gave then-publishers Timely a much snappier name and served as a proving ground for prototypical takes on characters that would later populate the superhero-strewn skylines of the Marvel Universe. That single issue introduced us to the original version of the Human Torch, and in the intervening decades he's been joined by countless characters who have become household names across generations, from the Fantastic Four to Spider-Man to the X-Men and the Avengers. At this point Marvel may be responsible for more iconic pop cultural behemoths than anyone else, but you don't create such an enduring omelette without breaking a few eggs, dropping them on the floor and then trying to conceal your mess, trying to convince those around you that there never were any eggs, they never existed, what eggs, what are you talking about? For every overnight success that sprung from the minds of the dream team of Lee and Kirby there were a dozen also-rans, good ideas that didn't go anywhere or arrived at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Culturally speaking. For such a densely populated fictional world as Marvel's, there have to be some second stringers who serve as foils or supporting cast members to the flagship characters, the lesser powered or charismatic who make them look better by comparison, the sort who may never headline their own title but at least get a chance of becoming a sleeper fan favourite. Then there are those who don't even get that far; the lost Marvel characters that even the most knowledgeable tourist to Earth-616 can claim to have heard of, the caped crusaders who fell through the cracks, the gimmicks that missed the Zeitgeist they were meant to take advantage of, the just plain forgotten. These are ten brilliant Marvel characters that we bet you've never heard of.