Demoted To Extra / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

Comic Books

Comic Books

• In the later years of the feature, Toni Turner, best friend to Millie the Model, seldom appeared, her role largely supplanted by "Millie's Redheaded Rival," the nastier and more colorful Chili Storm.
• Spider-Man:
  • Some editors have been quoted saying "Spider-Man has a supporting cast?". This is because most supporting cast members are either lost in limbo or have been killed off. On the other hand, some creators and fans like to boast that Spider-Man has the best supporting cast in comics. The cast evolved, with some characters - notably Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson, and Mary Jane Watson - emerging as very resistant to efforts to write them out. But important supporting characters being killed off or consigned to Limbo has been a hallmark of the series since Stan Lee's days. The first notable character Demoted to Extra was Betty Brant, Peter Parker's main love interest until he started college (her rival Liz Allan was Put on a Bus slightly earlier).
  • Shriek was introduced in 1993 to form an Unholy Matrimony with Carnage. She also acted as Team Mom with three younger supervillains they recruited. She was a featured player in a couple of major storylines, and made regular appearances to 1996, before falling into obscurity. It seemed like she was making a comeback when she joined Kraven in fighting Venom and even had a role as a key member of her boyfriend's cult...but then she was killed off and merged with Demogoblin, fading back into obscurity entirely when Scream's solo title was canceled.
  • Doctor Octopus died in 1995, and soon got an Affirmative-Action Legacy in Doctor Octopus II/Dr. Carolyn Trainer. From 1995 to 1997 this scientist was one of the most frequently used villains of the Spider books. Then the original got resurrected through a necromantic ceremony and she was Demoted to Dragon for him, then forgotten. She has since resurfaced a few times as an easily-defeated third-string villain.
  • Scorpia was introduced in 1995 as a Distaff Counterpart to Scorpion, with the individual quirks of having Mafia connections and a tendency to hit on anyone. She was featured prominently for a year or two, got a spotlight issue in 2002, and has since been reduced to mostly appearing in crowd scenes.
  • For about two years, 1996 to 1998, Delilah was an every-issue regular in Amazing Spider-Man. Being a Dark Action Girl and The Dragon to the Rose, a Non-Action Guy type of villain, she often got more screen time than any other villain. She was written out when she was drained by a vampire. She has since been used only in a couple of storylines as a henchwoman to nobodies.
  • In Superior Spider Man, Mary Jane, one of the most prominent characters in Spider-Man's entire mythos, is given a backseat in most of the action and is barely involved in any of the plots, to the point where she largely interacts with Peter via phone messages, and one of her biggest story arcs revolved around whether or not she listened to a message on her cell. Many other established supporting characters in Spider-Man's world have also been shuffled offstage.
• Ultimate Spider-Man:
  • Flash Thompson plays a far less prominent role here than the mainstream universe.
  • Randy Robertson and Betty Brant are not nearly as important here as they are in the mainstream comics.
• Happens with X-Men, even the main characters, as well as with other teams. It also happens with newer members (such as Marrow) who almost always turned out to be only temporarily popular or big-time.
  • The junior classes have it the worst. Out of the members who aren't Killed Off for Real, generally one out of each generation will get much of any face time if they aren't Wolverine's sidekick. New X-Men fans refer to this as 'becoming wallpaper'. Currently, Husk from Generation X and Pixie (who ironically started as wallpaper) from New X-Men are filling their respective generation's 'slot'.
  • This tends to be cyclical, particularly in the X-books. Jamie Madrox, for instance, started off as a background character with little personality, became an Ascended Extra in Peter David's first X-Factor run, then spent a couple years Not Quite Dead and about a decade as a bit player until David got the opportunity to have him lead the new X-Factor. The New Warriors (the ones who got blown up right before Civil War) started out as an attempt to ascend a bunch of nobodies and has-beens, with the whole team dropping Out of Focus several times.
  • A lot of human allies to the X-teams disappear when their creator leaves the books. Peter Corbeau got several particularly awesome scenes in Chris Claremont's early days, now, he doesn't even get an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.
  • Kitty Pryde inevitably gets reduced to a minor background character in adaptations. People often forget that, for a while, she was the closest thing that X-Men had to a central protagonist.
  • Kitty's pet dragon Lockheed was the official Team Pet of the X-Men for decades and was present for major events like Secret Wars (1984). Since then however Lockheed has had scant few appearances and doesn't do much besides eat, sit on Kitty's shoulder and fly about. Averted for the recent Marauders comic where both Lockheed and Kitty are central characters, Lockheed in particular helps Emma Frost and Storm defeat the Black King aka Sebastian Shaw.
  • Marrow. She was in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, then she fell off the radar in a big way. In universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. once rewrote her mind to let her think she was a normal teenager. She turned out to be smart enough to attend university, then her mind started resisting the process.
  • Jubilee. Like many characters born in the '90s, from time to time since the early-2000s. Occasionally the character gets a sudden boon, especially after she became a vampire and adopted a kid, but otherwise isn't nearly as prominent as she once was. Averted in Excalibur (2019) where Jubilee is a central character, although she and her baby Shogo still get less focus than Rogue, Gambit, Psylocke, the Braddocks, and Apocalypse.
  • During the 2000s, Cyclops got a heavy push to make him essentially the franchise's leading man, ala Captain America to the Avengers. After Secret Wars, however, he was killed off in a timeskip. Averted when Scott is resurrected for House of X and Powers of X storylines however and been featured more prominently than he has in years.
  • Emma Frost despite overtaking Jean, Storm, Rogue and Psylocke as the main X-Woman throughout the early to mid 2000s, gets demoted for most of House of X and Powers of X. Both Emma and the Stepford Cuckoos' only role in the building of the Mutant paradise Krakoa is overseeing international trade relations, which is as exciting as it sounds. She isn't involved in the battle against Mother Mold and spends most of her appearances sitting on her butt during the council scenes. Averted later on, as she has a active role in the Marauders comic.
• Fantastic Four were likewise pushed to the background in The New '10s as a result of Fox owning the right to their franchise. More specifically, Reed Richards has been replaced by Tony Stark as the Marvel Universe's go-to genius. When the team finally returned in 2018, there was a marketing push to add them in games such as Marvel Future Fight, Marvel: Contest of Champions, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order.

Films

Films

• In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Ganke Lee, Miles's roommate and Secret-Keeper in the comics is still his roommate, but spends most of the film ignoring Miles via Headphones Equal Isolation, and doesn't have a voice actor even when he does react to the plot.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • A number of important supporting characters from the previous films receive much less screentime in The Avengers.
    • Gwyneth Paltrow reprises her role from Iron Man, but in a minor capacity. Robert Downey Jr. asked for her to be included as a way of exploring the Potts/Stark relationship that was established at the end of Iron Man 2. Whedon agreed, because "you should always, given the opportunity, put a Gwyneth on-screen."
    • Dr. Selvig also returns from Thor, in a role that's more plot-important but doesn't necessarily get any more screentime.
    • Originally Maria Hill was supposed to be narrating the film. However, the scenes of her doing so got cut out.
  • Hogun the Grim makes a brief appearance early in Thor: The Dark World, having remained in his home realm to help rebuild it after the Marauders' attack; has another appearance, no more than a reaction shot, during the portal-hopping battle of the finale.
  • Hogun and the rest of the Warriors Three (Fandral and Volstagg) fare even worse in Thor: Ragnarok, getting killed in the first act, and with Fandral not even having any lines.
  • Nick Fury's role in Avengers: Age of Ultron is smaller than his role in the first Avengers, having gone underground at the end of The Winter Soldier. That said, he shows up in full force for the finale.
  • Happens to a lot of characters in Avengers: Infinity War. Both Heimdall and Loki only show up for a single scene before being killed off, while Nick Fury and Maria Hill only appear in The Stinger.
  • Peter's late Uncle Ben is never shown or even mentioned by name in the movies, with his role as Peter's father figure usurped by Tony Stark and the With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility speech delivered by Aunt May shortly before her death. The only evidence of his existence in the MCU is his initials on Peter's suitcase in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which gets destroyed with it being Played for Laughs despite it being apparently all he has to remember him by. In Spider-Man: No Way Home Ben and May aren't even buried together like they were in other media such as Spider-Man (PS4). However, Peter does acknowledge his loss in the Alternate Universe series What If…? (2021).
  • Betty Brant and Flash Thompson in No Way Home after playing prominent roles in Far from Home. Betty only appears in a single scene and Flash only shows up in a few.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • None of Betty Brant's characterizations from the comics made it into the trilogy with the exception of being Peter's potential love interest, and even that isn't as prominent compared to the source material.
  • Gwen Stacy, from Spider-Man 3, is nowhere near as prominent as her comic counterpart. Her role was originally written to just be a random woman before Meddling Executives demanded Gwen be included in the movie.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men: The Last Stand:
    • Rogue; she had fairly large parts in the first and second movies, but her storyline here boils down to her being jealous of Bobby and Kitty and taking an apparent cure. Part of it was also because Halle Berry didn't like Storm's comparatively smaller role and demanded a larger part.
    • Dr. Kavita Rao. Gets about thirty seconds of screen time, three lines in total, and then is Killed Off for Real. Most of her role from the comics (like holding the press conference) is taken over by Angel's dad. She was never a major character to begin with, and was a very recent creation when the movie was made, but still.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
    • Rogue only appears in a non-speaking cameo and doesn't even get a close-up. This is because all her other scenes were cut out and then restored on The Rogue Cut.
    • Compared to the prominence of her role in the comic version of "Days of Future Past," Kitty Pryde's part is mostly being the means by which Wolverine gets into the past.

Video Games

Video Games

• Interestingly, with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 the Green Goblin's role is demoted to only his fight scene and the Max Dillon/Electro subplot is given only slightly more attention than the Goblin.
• The Punisher (Capcom) treats Jigsaw, Frank's archenemy, as a Boss in Mook's Clothing for the penultimate level before the dealing with Final Boss The Kingpin.
• X-Men Legends:
  • Emma Frost. Playable character in the first game, NPC in the second. Still, that's better than some other characters who were playable in the first game (such as Jubilee) who don't appear at all in the second game. Probably to make room for the Brotherhood characters.
  • Poor Magma only ever gets mentioned in a trivia question in the second game, despite being the main character from the first.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Hank Pym went from one of the core team members in the first season to a minor character that only appeared in about three or four episodes of the second (to be fair, Hank had to deal with personal problems).
• In The Fantastic Four (1978), Medusa is the leader of The Inhumans instead of Black Bolt. Black Bolt only gets a brief cameo where he's seen flying over Attilan, and doesn't have any real role in the episode.
• Spencer Smythe plays a far more prominent role in the comics than in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
• Wolverine and the X-Men (2009):
  • This happens to Storm, of all people. She is a major character in the comics, one of the most recognizable members of the X-Men, and featured as one of the main cast members of nearly all the previous animated adaptations. In this adaptation, she's portrayed as a background character to give Wolvie a bigger role. In fact, there's no real reason for Storm's presence in this adaptation at all since she doesn't factor into any of the story lines and the episode where she rejoins the team has nothing to do with the overall plot. It's possible that the writers only threw her in because viewers are used to seeing her in the comics and other adaptations.
  • To say nothing of Jean, who was reduced to nothing more than a plot device.
• Due to the original comic having a large cast, it was inevitable this would happen in X-Men: The Animated Series. Two notable X-Men, Colossus and Nightcrawler, were relegated to cameos and guest appearances. This was because they were a part of Excalibur in the comics at the time, as well as Marvel's desire to focus on the more current 1990s members of the team. They at least fared better than poor Kitty Pryde, who didn't appear at all.
• X-Men: Evolution has Spyke, a major character in seasons one and two; in season three, he up and joins the Morlocks. Gets an episode here or there, but he's mostly gone. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap when he returned. Storm, who happens to be his aunt, also gets this very badly. Despite always having been a major player in the X-Men franchise, she receives very little focus in this series and only has one episode centered around her during the entire run of the show.

---