Earth has come under attack by mysterious attackers, prompting Nick Fury to request Spider-Man and a group of SHIELD agents to investigate. Coming under attack by the Incredible Hulk (who has red eyes for some reason), Spidey and the agents quickly learn that the invaders are actually alternate heroes and villains from various dimensions. Worse, the alternate Hulk was merely the beginning. Realising the threat, Fury activates STRIKE, an elite division of SHIELD responsible for fighting against interdimensional invasions. Rallying heroes and villains alike to stand against the invaders, STRIKE has its work cut out for it...
Marvel Strike Force includes examples of...
- Actor Allusion: During Mission 7-7 of the Nexus Campaign, Fury (based on his MCU appearance, who was played by Samuel L. Jackson) declares that he has 'had it with all these snakes on this dimensional plane', a clear reference to Snakes on a Plane.
- Action Bomb: Hela's Undead Asgardians do this as their special attack, and Dr. Doom uses his Doombots this way when triggering his special as well. Crossbones also blows himself up in his ultimate ability, referencing his Taking You with Me attempt in the Civil War movie, although in this game he actually survives the blast outside of very specific circumstances (although it does still damage him).
- Adaptational Badass: Ultimus in the comics was "merely" a Kree Eternal and the last of his kind, eventually joining the Kree Star Force. In his game he's a Multiversal Conqueror and the Big Bad.
- As a mobile game, Power Creep is the norm, so the strength or usefulness of a character in gameplay terms is usually more correlated to how recently they've been released than to their relative power in the lore of Marvel Comics. This can lead to relatively minor characters such as Colleen Wing, Minn-Erva, Ghost, etc., outclassing much more well-known Marvel headliners such as Captain America and Spider-Man. For example, the Heroes For Hire team (a team of street-level heroes) being able to Curb Stomp teams like the Avengers, the X-Men or the Brotherhood before they can even take a single turn.
- Adaptational Wimp: As should be expected, several characters have their power levels toned down for the sake of balance.
- Magneto, as a Legendary character, is more powerful than many characters thanks to his moveset and his synergy with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. However, he is a Controller and so doesn't hit as hard or takes hits as well as one would expect of one of Marvel's premiere villains. He is also a relatively "early" character who has suffered from the game's ongoing Power Creep since his introduction, in terms of how well he stacks up against the rest of the roster.
- The Juggernaut is... well, The Juggernaut. The vast majority of playable characters wouldn't even be able to scratch him if he was as unstoppable as he is in the comics.
- The Silver Surfer is a Herald of Galactus, meaning he easily outstrips most of the playable cast by a wide margin in terms of raw power. Arguably there is a degree of Gameplay and Story Integration with him, as he is also one of the strongest and most useful characters in the game. This also applies to Dormammu, whose power is unfathomable in the lore—while he isn't an untouchable god-like being in gameplay, he is still one of the most difficult characters to unlock and correspondingly extremely powerful once he's available for you.
- Dr. Strange is a Support character and not particularly powerful even in that role, meaning that the majority of the other characters in the game can easily defeat him one-on-one. He has only a limited use as part of the largely outdated Supernatural team. The same is true of Scarlet Witch, who is a member of the same team. Although these two have received updates coinciding with the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, bringing them back into relevance with Dr. Strange even receiving his "supreme" alternate self as an entirely new character. The base Dr. Strange has also seen some increased utility as a member of the Secret Defenders team.
- As one of the earliest characters released, Thanos is a reasonably powerful Protector thanks to his passives such as becoming immune to debuffs if Taunting. However, he's also one of the premiere Big Bad character of the Marvel universe, easily capable of fighting entire teams of heroes single-handed. His Black Order are also incredibly powerful in the comics, but since they're based on the much weaker MCU versions this is to be expected.
- The biggest slap in the face is when a player manages to unlock Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet-wielding awakened form, who is easily manhandled by the Infinity Watch and in Guild War by the Heroes for Hire team (a group of street level heroes).
- In a meta example, the Avengers are considered one of the weakest teams. Part of this is because unlike teams like the X-Men, the Defenders or the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Avengers don't have many passive perks to beef up their teammates as a whole. In fact, Thor was much more useful as a member of the Asgardians (thanks to his Passive Ability that granted him a charge every time an Asgardian was attacked, unleashing a powerful counterattack upon full charge), until an update that expanded his passives to include the Avengers as well.
- Affably Evil: Several of the brainwashed heroes and villains are perfectly pleasant even as they try to destroy STRIKE under Ultimus' orders. For example, in Invisible Woman's Legendary campaign she confronts Graviton and asks what're the odds that he'd simply surrender. In response, he ruefully replies, "Quite low, I'm afraid."
- All for Nothing: The heroes spend part of the campaign slowly fighting back Ultimus' forces on Nexus Earth, successfully setting up bases and the like for the inevitable counterattack. Once Ultimus is defeated, though, Doctor Doom simply goes around destroying the bases during his own grab for power.
- In a meta-sense, this is one of the big complaints about the Legendary characters that require certain characters to be at certain levels and ranks: after all the effort put into unlocking them, they're easily destroyed by characters specifically introduced to annihilate them (e.g. Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Thanos is no match for the Infinity Watch team, especially when Adam Warlock is part of the team, or for the Darkhold team backed by Agatha Harkness, or for the Heroes For Hire team in Guild War note ).
- All Your Powers Combined: Each member of the Black Order will give Thanos one of the Infinity Stones (except for Ebony Maw, who gives him three). With all the Infinity Stones collected, Thanos will gain the Infinity Gauntlet, along with a powerful new moveset.
- Alpha Strike:
- War Machine's Ultimate involves unleashing all his firepower upon all enemy targets.
- Red Skull's Ultimate has him order all present Hydra Minions to open fire on a single target.
- Alternate Universe: A key aspect of the game's premise and story. The game's setting of "Nexus Earth" is said to be a meeting point between many different realities in the multiverse, which is why Ultimus wants it so badly—and why it's so important to stop him. This leads to many of the game's campaigns and other storylines being set in a wide variety of alternate dimensions, and also provides the justification for why some version or another of nearly any Marvel character can appear on the game's roster. Some characters are even alternate versions of themselves, with the two different versions presumably coming from different alternate dimensions (Spider-Man/Symbiote Spider-Man, Venom/Anti-Venom, and two versions of Sam Wilson both as the Falcon and as Captain America).
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: The game added a feature where some characters get multiple skins that can be purchased using different in-game currencies. They don't do anything mechanically, but they do give the players the option of dressing their dollies up as their favorite version of the character, be it from a run in the comics or the MCU.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: The game features a type of damage called 'Piercing', which ignore the target's Armor stat.
- Some attacks will state that they deal "X% damage and Y% Piercing". This means that it will calculate damage normally for the 'damage' part, then calculate while ignoring Armor for the 'Piercing' part, and add the two results together to give the overall damage.
- A Taste of Power: Ebony Maw's Legendary Campaign includes a battle where the player gets to control the entire Black Order, which grants Thanos the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet.
- Likewise, the Doctor Doom mini-campaign puts the player in control of a fully leveled Doctor Doom.
- Back from the Dead: Some characters (generally those known for their healing factors like Wolverine or Deadpool) have a chance to revive after being K.O.ed. Meanwhile, Nebula is a cyborg (shown when she revives and manually twists her head back into position), Ultron presumably activates a second body, and Elektra has been killed and revived in the comics.
- Nobu uniquely grants a small revive chance to any character on his team, presumably referencing the Hand's resurrection abilities in the comics lore.
- Likewise, Scientist Supreme has a random chance to return a dead ally to life on each of her turns, presumably the result of some experimental tech or another (her passive ability is quite literally called Mad Science).
- Phoenix is an aversion: while she will return as Dark Phoenix, the results screen will still consider Phoenix to be 'dead'. This is due to Dark Phoenix being a summon rather than a revived Phoenix with a new moveset.
- Minn-Erva's special ability "Genetic Reconstruction" will revive a dead ally. This implies either flash-creating a clone or putting the downed character back together at the molecular level to revive them. It can still revive the entirely-mechanical Ultron.
- Several of the most troublesome teams to defeat will have this ability guaranteed to trigger, meaning that it's necessary to defeat them several times over to actually beat them. As part of the Infinity Watch team, Gamora, Nebula and Adam Warlock all revive automatically. Most infamously, during Guild War the Heroes For Hire team are guaranteed to revive five times.
- This is exaggerated by
Dormammu, who buffs anyone on his team with a guaranteed revive-on-death. This makes for some devastating combos with other powerful characters such as Doctor Doom, as Dormammu's ability to revive Doom nigh-guarantees that the latter will live long enough to use his own broken ultimate ability. - Hela already had the automatic resurrection of Greg, a zombie Asgardian, but the game recently added Zombie Iron Man from What If…? (2021), who also triggers her automatic revive. And Zombie Iron Man also gives her some potent buffs, especially in Guild War on offense.
- Badass Normal: Most of the characters with the "Skill" origin trait, such as Bullseye and Nick Fury. Special mention goes to the Minion characters for stepping onto the battlefield against superheroes/villains with usually little more than a gun or other conventional weapon of some kind (such as a grenade launcher), although they are generally among the weakest characters available and not very useful.
- Extra special mention goes to the Hand Blademaster and Archer minions, who don't even have guns or any other modern equipment—just a simple sword and bow + arrow. These minions fall into the "Skill" category, as opposed to some of the other Hand characters who are tagged as "Mystic," implying that their weapons and skills are mundane, although the names of their unique gear pieces ("Cursed Ninjato" and "Enchanted Bow") suggest otherwise.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Doctor Doom mini-campaign is basically this, where Doom (along with brainwashed alternate versions of Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic) basically stomps all over anyone trying to muster resistance to his takeover.
- Averted with most of the Villain-led campaigns and events, since despite starring villainous characters they're working with STRIKE against worse threats.
- Bash Brothers: Certain characters will benefit each other when part of the same team, which can sometimes include special attack animations. While often this is a general "team" benefit (e.g. if any Avengers or X-Men or Sinister Six characters are present), some of them require specific characters.
- Iron Man and War Machine both gain Deathproof, and War Machine's multi-hit bombs gain an additional hit.
- When both Iron Man and Captain America are present, Iron Man's Missile attack is changed to an animation where he fires his repulsors at Cap, who uses his shield to concentrate and deflect the beam into the enemy.
- Cable and Deadpool being on the same team grants Cable a version of his Ultimate Attack where he and Wade both blast the victim.
- Rocket Raccoon and Groot being on the same team alters Rocket's Ultimate to make him bring out an even bigger gun for him to fire on his enemies while Groot keeps it in place. Rocket's Special also lets Groot assist while giving him Taunt.
- Batman Gambit: Ultimus tricks Thanos into walking into the Conversion Engine by leaking information it's actually a power-up machine, knowing Thanos won't be able to resist the chance to gain more power for himself.
- Battle Couple: While references are made, surprisingly they mostly do not translate to actual in-game benefit. Storm and Black Panther are referred to as a royal couple (the game being made during the time the two were pushed by Marvel as a Black Power Couple) while Elektra and Daredevil make references to their romance, but putting them together does nothing in gameplay terms. Played straight in a few cases:
- When Vision and Scarlet Witch are in the same team, Vision gains Defense Up and his Ultimate move changes, doing additional Bleed damage.
- When Cyclops and Phoenix are on the same team, attacking Phoenix has a 50% chance of Cyke attacking the offender. If Wolverine is present as well, he'll attack if Cyclops doesn't. In addition, K.O.ing Phoenix results in Cyclops gaining multiple charges, increasing the power of his Ultimate Attack.
- Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman are unusual in that their benefits actually trigger for any member of the Fantastic Four, rather than them as a married couple specifically. Mr Fantastic can get a random FF member to back up an attack, while Invisible Woman will counterattack anyone who attacks an FF member with a shield (including herself).
- Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight are billed as one from the get-go (riding on the hype from Avengers: Endgame at the time).
- Black Widow and Hawkeye are either this or Bash Brothers, depending on whether you accept them as being based on their comic versions (who've been romantically linked in the past) or their MCU versions (who're Platonic Life-Partners instead).
- Moondragon and Phyla-Vell are explicitly identified as a couple in cutscenes, and get numerous bonuses with each other as part of the Infinity Watch team.
- The addition of Cloak and Dagger brings another example to the game, this time again with considerable boosts for fighting alongside each other.
- Bicep Kiss: Misty Knight kisses her robot arm after her ultimate attack.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The fate of anyone who falls victim to the Conversion Engine. The victims still have much of their personality intact, but are now completely loyal to Ultimus.
- Emma Frost's ultimate ability does this, forcing the two highest-damage characters on the field to attack her target via mind control, regardless of which side they're on.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: A common complaint following the introduction of PVP elements is that certain elements needed to strengthen characters are exceedingly rare, such as only occasionally appearing in the in-game shop and only in smallish quantities. But one can purchase a set of 10 or more for some real world cash...
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": It's subtle, but the yellow straps of the Hydra Minions' outfits form a 'H'.
- Combat Tentacles: Utilised by the symbiote characters (i.e. Carnage, Scream and Venom). Symbiote Spider-Man averts this, instead using visually stronger punches compared to the regular Spidey. Also used by Doctor Octopus (duh) and the upcoming Omega Red.
- Canon Foreigner: Kestrel is a completely new character exclusive to Strike Force, as part of a collaboration between Marvel and Scopely.
- While the name Kestrel has been used for minor characters before (e.g. one Kestrel was a member of Weapon X), this version (a Malaysian-American woman named Sybil Tan) is new.
- Introduced to celebrate Deadpool's 30th anniversary, Deathpool is the daughter of an alternate universe Deadpool and Death.
- As part of Spider-Man's 60th anniversary, Ajei Benally, AKA Spider-Weaver, a Spider-person of Navajo descent with mystical spider powers, was introduced.
- 2023 introduces Vahl the Last Asgardian, a surviving Valkyrie from an alternate universe.
- Canon Welding: The "Young Avengers" group has America Chavez, Miles Morales, Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl. Three of four of them actually belong to the "Champions", and have never been members of the YA. And Stature was, but she's not included for some reason.
- Can't Catch Up: Spider-Man is one of the game's original characters and has never received an update or re-work, making him mostly useless in the current meta. The upcoming introduction of the Web Warriors (Ghost Spider, Spider-Punk and Scarlet Spider) is expected to rectify this.
- As mentioned under Adaptational Wimp, the Avengers are considered a very weak team in a meta sense due to a lack of useful synergy.
- Composite Character: While many characters are based on their MCU versions (especially the Avengers), others are closer to their comic counterparts (notably Spider-Man) and others still a sort of mix (Baron Zemo's design, bio and moveset all point him as being his comic counterpart, but when he plays a supporting role in the Falcon and Winter Soldier event he's written like his Affably Evil MCU self).
- Drax is based on his MCU counterpart (along with the other Guardians of the Galaxy like Rocket Raccoon, Starlord, Gamora and Mantis). However, the blog write-up of Moondragon identifies her as Heather, and mentions Drax's comic history note .
- Damager, Healer, Tank: In alphabetical order, the classes are...
- Blaster: Damage dealing class. Compared to Brawlers, Blasters generally use long range attacks and their ultimate moves tend to hit multiple (if not all) enemies. Examples in-game are Iron Man, the Punisher and Ultron.
- Brawler: Damage dealing class. Compared to Blasters, Brawlers are hand-to-hand combatants and their ultimate moves tend to do heavy damage to a single target. Examples in-game are Spider-Man, Wolverine and Ghost Rider.
- Controller: The role of a Controller is to make life more difficult for their opponents. This is usually done by inflicting various status effects to debilitate enemies and make them easier to bring down. Examples include Black Widow, Taskmaster and Magneto.
- Protector: The Tank class with high health and/or armor. Most Protectors also have a taunt move to draw enemy attention, and some of them gain bonuses as their health goes down. Examples include Captain America, the Hulk and the Juggernaut.
- Support: The ones most likely to function as healers. Where Controllers try to disrupt an enemy's ability to fight, Support characters focus on, well, supporting allies by healing or granting them buffs. Examples in-game include Dr. Strange, Night Nurse and Ebony Maw.
- Decapitated Army: Averted. Despite Ultimus being successfully sealed into the M'Kraan universe, his army is still a threat. Some of his former slaves have broken free to being their own plays for power (e.g. an alternate universe Red Skull formed a multi-dimensional version of HYDRA), but Kestrel's mini-campaign has his forces rally in an attempt to free him.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Taskmaster runs a school to help hone or retrain heroes and villains. He acts this role when carrying out the training, but he also provides constructive and comprehensive feedback once training is complete.
- During one event Agent Coulson and several others infiltrate the school under the (correct) suspicion their Taskmaster has been replaced by one loyal to Ultimus. When STRIKE's Taskmaster returns, he observes that Coulson's scores were dismally low, especially for such an elite agent. Nick Fury orders Coulson to take a remedial course.
- Enemy Mine: In-story, several traditional arch-foes have allied with STRIKE against Ultimus (and later Doctor Doom). This includes the Sinister Six working with Spider-Man, Magneto fighting alongside the X-Men and Baron Zemo aiding Captain America, the Winter Soldier and the Falcon.
- Notably, while playable neither the Red Skull nor Ultron is mentioned as being an ally in-story.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: AIM and the Hand have female Minions. The Kree Noble from the Kree Minion category is also female, and implied to be higher-ranking to boot.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Several universes the characters visit or pass through are places where villains have won, independently of Ultimus. For example, there are at least two worlds where Thanos has conquered the universe, and the heroes eventually seal Ultimus into a universe where the M'Kraan Crystal and the Phoenix Force had fused with reality itself.
- STRIKE makes more than one trip to a world ruled by the Spider Supreme (an evil version of Spider-Man who leads AIM). More often than not, they quickly get the heck out of dodge the moment they can. No one ever brings up that it might be a good idea to take Spider Supreme down for good, though that could just be pragmatism due to Ultimus being a much bigger threat who actively invades while Spider Supreme seems content to stay in his own dimension.
- Faceless Mooks: Zig-zagged. The Minion characters are meant to represent the countless legions of nameless grunts fielded by various organisations of the Marvel universe. However, some of the SHIELD and the Kree Minions go unmasked.
- Played straight by the Minions from HYDRA, AIM, the Hand and the Dark Watch (i.e. the mercenaries), who all wear masks.
- Fastball Special: Can be done when Wolverine and Colossus are in the same team. It takes the place of Wolverine's Ultimate Attack.
- Blob and Toad have a version of their own, where Toad bounces off Blob, removing buffs from enemies.
- Faux Affably Evil: Recurring villain Spider Supreme (an evil Spider-Man who has taken control of AIM in his universe).
- Flanderization: Remember that scene from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) where Star-Lord distracts Ronan by making a stupid dance in front of him? It's one of Star-Lord's attacks, even turning the scene into a Gratuitous Disco Sequence. And it does not stop there: dialogue sequences before the battle show him dancing a Pelvic Thrust while the mission is explained, and those dialogs frequently mention Starlord's insufferable dancing (especially when dealing with corrupt alternate Starlords).
- Flat Character: Unfortunately, because of the large roster of the game, several characters don't have much of a personality.
- Symbiote Spider-Man's bio describes him as a Spider-Man who completely bonded with his symbiote. Other than that, he hasn't played a role in any story events (barring a Symbiote Spidey appearing as part of a group of symbiotes trying to achieve inner peace).
- Justified in the case of the various Minions: they're meant to represent the Faceless Mooks who make up the bulk of the forces of the various organisations, rather than characters in their own right.
- Finishing Move: Some generic finishing animations can play if certain characters finish enemies with basic attacks. For example, Brawlers will deliver a series of punches finishing with an uppercut that sends their opponent flying. "Large" characters (e.g. Hulk, Juggernaut, Rhino) run up to their enemy and deliver a series of overhand blows than drive them to their knees before finishing with an two fisted blow that smashes them into the ground.
- Some characters will gain unique animations if they defeat enemies with certain moves. For example, Spider-Man will sometimes leap into the air and web his target before yanking them offscreen if he kills them with his basic.
- Finishing an enemy with Captain America's basic will have him use the generic Brawler finisher, but he'll throw in a salute after the uppercut.
- Falcon will deploy his Redwing drone to wrap an electrified cable around his target and fly them off-screen.
- Ghost Rider will summon his motorcycle and ram his target into the air, before throwing up a chain to wrap around their legs and then dragging them off behind him.
- If he finishes an enemy with his basic attack, Hulk might grab them and smash them into the ground before throwing them at the camera.
- Thanos can knock an opponent down and blast them with his eye beams before stomping on them if he finishes them with his basic attack. If his Ultimate attack is used while he is wielding the Infinity Gauntlet, he normally shatters a moon and rains the pieces down on the entire enemy team; if the attack would k.o. all enemies and result in victory, he instead snaps his fingers.
- First-Name Basis: Several characters use this to show closeness.
- Nazis Red Skull and Swarm greet each other this way during one Legendary Campaign.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Kestrel is an extremely important member of STRIKE who was missing and presumed dead. She's never mentioned or referenced until she reappears.
- For Science!: Scientist Supreme's characterisation in a nutshell.
- Spider Supreme swings between this and For the Evulz.
- Fragile Speedster: Many examples, given the game's RPG mechanics. Characters from the Blaster, Brawler and Controller roles all commonly fall into this, such as Human Torch, Black Panther, Star-Lord, etc. Other characters subvert it by being incredibly fast but not at all fragile, such as Silver Surfer and Kestrel.
- Yo-Yo in particular subverts this trope. She has a form of Super-Speed similar to The Flash, and upon release she was the fastest character in the game with a blistering speed stat of 140 (she still boasts the second highest base speed, behind only the updated Black Widow)... but her combat role is the highly defensive Protector class, making her quite resilient and hard to kill.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: The game effects of many characters' abilities and their combat roles will often tie in thematically to their powers and characterization; for example, Captain America having the Protector role, Black Widow utilizing the Stealth effect, etc. Perhaps more notable is the game's trend to explicitly group characters into teams that have a large degree of synergy together, with their abilities gaining unique features that do not function outside of their assigned "team." These teams are given specific traits to mark them, such as "Power Armor" or "Supernatural," and often feature characters who are known for working together in the comics or otherwise have something in common lore-wise. This is taken to such an extent that most characters cannot contribute much in the game's meta if they are not fighting as part of their assigned team.
- As an example, Doctor Strange is almost useless when not part of a Supernatural (i.e. alongside Elsa Bloodstone, Baron Mordo, Ghost Rider and Scarlet Witch). The individual members of the Defenders (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil, Jessica Jones) are nothing special on their own, but form a reasonably powerful team (at least in the early game) together.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- Some characters make references to their shared history or how close they are, but this is generally not reflected in-game. For example, Spider-Man and Human Torch are Vitriolic Best Buds, but no bonuses are gained by putting them in the same team.
- Thor offered no bonuses when teamed up with the Avengers, until an update granted him some similar to those granted to the Asgardians.
- Gathering Steam: Some characters gain Charge, which can then be used to unlock more powerful versions of their attacks, grant their attacks special effects, or trigger counterattacks.
- Juggernaut and Cyclops are examples of characters whose attacks become more potent with more Charge. Juggernaut can gain up to 4 Charge, with then boosts his Ultimate attack with an additional 80% damage per Charge. Cyclops can gain a whopping 20 Charge, which increases the damage of his Ultimate by 25% per Charge.
- Storm can also gain up to 20 Charge. While Charge does bolster her Ultimate attack (90% per Charge), it also modifies her basic attack (it now strikes adjacent enemies) and her Ice Storm ability (Chance to apply the Slow debuff increases by 20% per Charge and a chance to apply the Stun debuff increases by 10% per charge).
- Thor gains Charge whenever an Asgardian (and after a patch, any Wave 1 Avenger) is attacked. When he gains full Charge, he unleashes a powerful counterattack that hits all enemies. Similarly, She-Hulk gains Charge whenever she or a member of the Fantastic Four is attacked. At full Charge, she transfers all negative effects from herself and the FF to the enemy with the most damage before attacking said enemy and adjacent ones.
- Deathpool can build up to five charges, which carry over between battles in the Raid game mode that she is specialized for. Upon reaching the max of five charges, her ultimate attack turns into a One-Hit Kill that no character can survive without special buffs. This is also overkill in some game modes, but very useful in high-level Raids where enemies can have hugely inflated health and armor to overcome.
- Giving Up on Logic: Punisher needs more ammo, and Rocket Racoon says he has many spare bullets in his ass. As Punisher falls into Stunned Silence, he clarifies that it was a joke. Did he really thought he has bullets in his ass? Punisher replies that he's talking to a talking raccoon with weapons, nothings make sense anymore.
- Groin Attack: Using the melee-based female characters' primary attack regularly reveals that they have a special kick animation reserved for male enemies...
- Guest-Star Party Member: Several missions give you an extra character or two alongside the five you bring.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: While the SHIELD Security, SHIELD Medic and SHIELD Assault Minions all wear helmets, the SHIELD Operative and SHIELD Rifleman do not.
- Hero Killer: Ultimus and his forces have killed countless alternate versions of both heroes and villains over the course of their multiversal conquest. Miles Morales specifically mentions his Peter Parker and Spider-Ham both dying at the hands of Ultimus himself.
- The Three Dooms are this as well, with the Mystic Doom assuring Iron Man he'll leave his rotting corpse in his rusting armour the way he did his Iron Man.
- In Love with Your Carnage: When the Sinister Six encounter the Spider Supreme, the latter claims to be happy to see them... since he felt he killed his versions of the Sinister Six too quickly. The Green Goblin observes he likes the Spider Supreme a lot more than regular Spider-Man.
- Insufferable Genius: Doctor Doom, naturally. Doctor Octopus is also a particularly bad case, as every line of dialogue he has either demeans someone else or puffs himself up. Iron Man also has a few shades of this.
- Keystone Army: Some story battles require the defeat of a particular enemy. Doing so will instantly win the battle, even if more enemies are left.
- Some teams have this as their Achilles' Heel: take out a particular key member and the rest of the team becomes much easier to handle. An example of this would be the Asgardians, where taking even one of them out of the fight early means their passive heals (5% per Asgardian ally) now heal them less in addition to robbing them of any provided passive buffs (e.g. defeating Thor quickly means counterattacks are no longer a concern, defeating Loki means he'll no longer automatically grant Stealth to badly wounded allies, defeating Hela puts an end to Undead Asgardian reinforcements).
- The Web Warriors (Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Punk) have no dedicated healer except for Scarlet Spider's passive (if any Web Warrior does damage, all of them are healed for 1% of Scarlet Spider's health). Coupled with Ghost Spider's passive (when any enemy attacks a Web Warrior, attack the enemy), this actually gives the team a bit of longevity when coupled with their Spider-Sense. Take out Scarlet, and the Web Warriors crumble.
- Several teams are greatly bolstered when key characters are included. The Darkhold team (Heartless Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Morgan Le Fay, Wong, Agatha Harkness) is reasonably powerful, but if Agatha is part of the team their lethality dramatically increases. The Infinity Watch (Gamora, Nebula, Phylla-Vell, Moondragon, Adam Warlock) are already nigh-invincible, but the presence of Adam effectively makes them unbeatable. Generally this is caused by the passives of these key characters giving the team powerful bonuses (e.g. Agatha's level 4 passive causes her to attack any enemy who drops below 30% health for 100% piercing damage and flip 3 positive effects into negative ones and applies Disrupted (meaning they cannot receive any buffs and applies 1 deflect to all Darkhold allies).
- In-universe, STRIKE recognises that both Ultimus and his Conversion Engine have to be taken out if they're to have any chance of victory.
- King Mook: Several characters are able to summon subordinates into battle. Generally these are Minion characters, though some characters put a spin on things.
- Nick Fury, a Legendary character, can summon a SHIELD Operative and a SHIELD Security Minion.
- Nobu can call upon a Hand Archer, a Hand Assassin and/or a Hand Sentry.
- Ronan the Accuser can summon a Kree Noble and a Kree Royal Guard.
- Red Skull can summon either Hydra Rifle Troopers or Hydra Scientists.
- Kingpin can summon unique Bodyguard Minions that play like a combination of a Mercenary Guard Minion and a Mercenary Soldier Minion.
- Loki can call upon copies of himself.
- Hela will raise an Undead Asgardian at the beginning of a battle. If the Asgardian is taken out, she will raise another to take its place. In War, she will raise an Undead Asgardian to take the place of any Asgardian (i.e. Heimdall, Thor, Loki or Sif) who is K.O.ed during the match.
- Mysterio will summon duplicates of himself upon death. If the copies last long enough, they can bring him back to life.
- Doctor Octopus will summon one of the Sinister Six. If the player has a full party of Sinister Six members (Doctor Octopus plus any four out of Rhino, Shocker, Green Goblin, Vulture, Mysterio, Swarm and Electro), he'll summon a missing member to complete the roster.
- Mister Sinister can summon a Clone of whichever enemy character he's currently targeting.
- Multiple Man can summon copies of himself, known as 'Dupes'.
- Ultron will summon one of each of his three Ultron Drone templates.
- Doctor Doom unsurprisingly can summon Doombots.
- Yondu can summon up to 3 Ravagers minions (there's only 3 different ones but the process is random).
- Lightning Bruiser: The game's strongest characters often fall into this, such as Gamora, Silver Surfer, Kestrel, etc.
- Limit Break: At full Charge, Cyclops' Ultimate changes. Normally, he will fire a beam and drag it across the enemy team, striking all enemies. At full Charge, he will pull off his visor and unleash a massive blast that completely engulfs the opposing team instead. Fully levelled, the attack also gains 25% per Charge, meaning it becomes 5 times more powerful than the 'basic' Ultimate (Cyclops can gain a maximum of 20 Charge).
- Loophole Abuse: After the introduction of Iso-8 subclasses, players quickly found a unique interaction between the Striker and Skirmisher subclasses that guarantees the Striker gets a bonus attack nearly every turn: Strikers require the enemy to have a stack of Vulnerable (applied by Skirmishers and Raiders) to be able to get a bonus attack, but since the game checks for Vulnerable after the initial attack instead of before, it is possible to have a Skirmisher assist on the Striker's turn, thus applying a Vulnerable and setting up for an immediate bonus attack.
- The developers even admitted that this interaction was not intentional, but since it affected the level of creativity of the Iso-8 combinations for each team, they decided to leave it as is.
- Magitek: Utilised by Doctor Doom. This translates in gameplay by giving him the Mystic and Tech traits, making him the one of the only characters in the game to have two traits.
- Megaton Punch: Sometimes delivered in "finishing blow" animations; also more-or-less explicitly used in some characters' abilities, such as Iron Fist and Winter Soldier, both of whose ultimate abilities deliver one of these. Agent Coulson's special ability is a variation, in which he delivers a punch with his cybernetic arm that releases an EMP blast onto the enemy team.
- Mighty Glacier: Characters with the Protector role most commonly fall into this, although a few examples exist in other roles (The Thing, Venom).
- Mythology Gag: With this being a Marvel game, expect there to be references to the Marvel comics mythos aplenty.
- During one of the Villains United missions, Scientist Supreme will suggest alternate names for A.I.M. after integrating with S.T.R.I.K.E., suggesting S.W.O.R.D., H.A.M.M.E.R. and U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. as alternatives. Fury replies that they're all taken, much to Scientist Supreme's frustration as she wonders what the latter even stands for.note
- During Mission 3-9 of the Nexus Campaign, the heroes fight off against a corrupted Captain America backed by a group of HYDRA mooks, shouting 'Hail Ultimus' as he appears. Plus, after the battle, Spider-Man will express relief that their version of Captain America doesn't go around saying 'Hail HYDRA'. Both of these reference the Secret Empire comics.
- The Kree have appeared in several MCU works, but the Lunar Legion is an obscure team exclusive to the comics.
- "Nighthawks" Shot: One of the stages is a city junction at night, with a diner in the back reminiscent of this trope (except it appears empty).
- Ninja: Elektra and the Hand are in the game. This is a given.
- No-Sell: Heimdall, Cyclops, and Daredevil are completely immune to the Blind debuff, though for different reasons. Heimdall's senses are so sharp that he can't be blinded, Cyclops uses a visor that presumably protects his eyes, while Daredevil is already blind.note
- When a "large" character (e.g. the Hulk, the Juggernaut) has the Deflect buff, the animation that plays when an enemy initiates an attack has them deliver a flurry of punches that seems to push the character back... until the attacker winces and waves their hands in pain while the large character goes back into ready position.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Yondu proposes Korath to share part of the bounty if they fight together. He will, but not because of any reward: he only fights for the glory of the Kree empire.
- One-Hit Kill: Can often happen depending on status effects, character match-ups, etc., but particular mention goes to Deathpool, whose fully-charged ultimate attack is explicitly this. It can deal multiple millions of piercing damage, impossible for any character to survive normally (for reference, no character in the game can even reach one million health normally).
- Opportunistic Bastard: As expected, Doctor Doom takes advantage of the fact STRIKE was making a big push against Ultimus to make his move. Furthermore, after Ultimus is sealed away Doom learns that the Conversion Engine left most of its victims extremely susceptible to being dominated by a powerful enough mind, allowing him to take a big chunk of Ultimus' army for himself.
- Permadeath: Usually, certain characters can Revive an ally that has been K.O.ed (e.g. Minn-Erva, Scientist Supreme, Doctor Strange, etc). However, there are some characters that can inflict this on their enemies.
- Black Bolt, the first example of a character with this ability, has a Passive skill that makes it so that any enemy that he defeats cannot be Revived.
- Baron Zemo has this tied to his Special and Passive (specifically where he damages all enemies if he's Charged), but only against Minion enemies specifically, against which these attacks do more damage.
- Kestrel's Ultimate inflicts this on any enemy she defeats with it. Given that it inflicts Defense Down before attacking and does Piercing damage, this is very likely to happen.
- Phoenix can't be revived, instead summoning Dark Phoenix when she dies.
- Power Creep: As is standard for mobile/freemium games. While the devs occasionally re-work older characters to bring them back up to "current" power levels, often as members of a new "team" formed alongside newly-released characters, it is still generally the case that the longer a character has been available in the game, the less useful they are. There are exceptions, of course; Legendary characters in particular tend to have a longer shelf life, as one would expect given their special traits, but even among Legendary characters the oldest ones can fall into irrelevance (Iron Man, Star-Lord).
- Pragmatic Villainy: Why several villains freely assist STRIKE without being compelled. The Kingpin, for example, recognises that Ultimus has no intention of allying with him or even accepting him as a subordinate without first brainwashing him.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: How you can tell whether someone is under Ultimus' thrall or not. Notably, this is true in-universe: when Falcon and Winter Soldier attempted to infiltrate a pan-dimensional version of Hydra by pretending to be members, the annoyed Baron Zemo they were trying to fool points out that their eyes aren't even glowing.
- When Doctor Doom takes over as Big Bad, those under his control have glowing green eyes.
- The Reveal: Professor X was never added to the game despite all of the classic X-Men being added, until the start of 2024 where a new LTM reveals that he's been Un-person-ed (but still alive) in favor of Magneto becoming the head of Xavier's Institute.
- Shout-Out:
- The Doctor Voodoo campaign involves roping in the Heroes for Hire to investigate the paranormal, and the first mission is titled "Who You Gonna Call?"
- The Thor: Love and Thunder event involves a mini-campaign where all of the mission titles are the lyrics of Immigrant Song.
- Sixth Ranger: Reflecting how closely linked they are in the comics, both She-Hulk and Namor gain bonuses when fighting alongside the Fantastic Four. Used very literally with Doctor Octopus, who summons a missing member of the Sinister Six to the field; given that he is meant to lead a team of Sinister Six characters, this means he is often literally summoning a sixth member of the Sinister Six to round out his team.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: Misty Knight does this in the victory screen
- Smug Snake: Doctor Octopus is brilliant, sure, but he's such an insufferable ass that no one likes or trusts him. Plus, being highly intelligent does not make him capable of, say, leading a stealth mission as in his Legendary campaign. Cable has to step in on several occasions to get the job done, much to Octavius' annoyance.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat:
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Once Ultimus is defeated, Doctor Doom becomes the main antagonist.
- Spiritual Successor: The game is similar in many ways to Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Plotwise, there is an ever-growing cast of characters from everywhere around the Marvel universe, with Nick Fury sending them to several missions and to deal with several ongoing crises. Gamewise, there are two teams with a small selection of characters, who attack each other in turns, using a predefined moveset. The main campaign, temporary campaign, PVP, they are there as well. It even has a section for "Incursions", a staple of that game but which is not relevant in comics since many years in the past (The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman) ended in 2015; this game was released in 2018)
- Status Effects: These are an essential part of the gameplay, with virtually every character applying status buffs or debuffs somewhere in their abilities, and many of the most powerful characters able to manipulate many status effects at once. At high levels it is not uncommon for characters to have 5+ status effects active on them at any given time. The game's set of green-colored positive status buffs is matched by a similar-but-opposite set of red negative debuffs; keeping your team covered in green and/or the enemy team smothered in red is usually vital to winning a battle. Many effects that make an appearance:
- Poison: There is no "poisoned" status effect, but the typical effect of passive HP loss over time is instead represented by an effect called "Bleed." Its positive twin which restores HP over time is called "Regeneration."
- Attack/Defense reduction: Both present as "Offense Up" and "Defense Up," which have their mirror debuffs of "Offense Down" and "Defense Down." Each status either increases or reduces the character's corresponding capabilities by 50%, and includes both damage dealt/taken as well as the chance to apply or resist debuffs. This means that damage output and buff/debuff application can vary massively depending on which characters have these effects on them.
- Paralysis: Inflicted by the "Stun" condition, which causes a character to completely skip their turn and usually disables any of their passive abilities as well (such as dodging, counterattacking, or assisting).
- Healing reduction: The "Heal Block" debuff completely prevents all healing on an affected character and is vital in combating teams that heavily feature such abilities.
- Silence: "Ability Block" prevents characters from using their special or ultimate abilities, instead forcing them to only use their basic attack. This is possibly the second most powerful debuff after Stun, as while the character can still act, many characters are reduced from huge threats to relatively inconsequential by this.
- Accuracy reduction: Appears in the "Blind" ability which, barring any other factors, will cause any attacks the character performs to miss and do nothing. Affected characters can still take actions that affect themselves or their teammates without issue (such as using an ability that heals their team). Some characters (those with higher than 100% base accuracy) and abilities (usually marked as "unavoidable") can get around this.
- Slow: Appears in the Speed Up/Speed Down effects, which either increase or reduce the rate at which a character gains turn meter. There is a second form of this, different from other status effects, which directly reduces the amount of turn meter another character has. Characters must build up 1000 turn meter in order to get an action, so a turn meter reduction ability may deduct 200 points from that 1000 point gauge, for instance (the specific amount varies). This is one of the more potent forms of control along with Stun and Ability Block, as if enough of these turn meter reduction effects are stacked, a character can be effectively locked out of ever being able to act. There are likewise abilities that directly add turn meter to your own side, and these are frequently among the more powerful abilities in the game as well.
- Anti-Debuff: The "Immunity" effect gives you this, making it impossible to place debuffs on the character so long as they have Immunity active. Its inverse, "Disrupted," prevents any buffs from being applied to the character, and the recently introduced "Safeguard" effect prevents any buffs the character has from being removed. The upcoming character Omega Red will introduce Safeguard's inverse, "Trauma," which prevents debuffs from being removed.
- Revive-on-Death: A variation called "Deathproof" which prevents a character from dying when hit with a fatal amount of damage. Instead, they are reduced to 1 HP and one instance of Deathproof is consumed. The played-straight version (in which the character does die, but immediately returns to life with some HP restored) has now been officially introduced as a status effect with its own indicator, as the number of characters in the game who had this ability in their kit kept growing and growing.
- Stone Wall: Protector class characters naturally aspire to be this, but some characters from other classes can also fall into it, usually due to having incredible healing abilities. Notable examples include Emma Frost and Doctor Octopus (the latter especially so in Alliance War, the game mode he is most powerful in). While rare, it is possible to end up with two of these characters unable to kill each other in a Blitz Sim, which crashes the game.
- Several teams are designed to function as this in the Alliance War mode, getting a slew of extra bonus abilities that only apply when they are on War Defense. By far the most successful in this respect is the Heroes For Hire team, who get a War Defense-exclusive charge mechanic that basically requires the attackers to kill them several times over before they finally go down.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Sinister Six are united only in their hatred of Spider-Man. Otherwise, they spit nothing but bile at each other.
- This is sometimes the case when heroes and villains have to work together, such as when Invisible Woman had to join forces with the Sinister Six (led by Norman Osborn).
- Cable has little to no respect for Doctor Octopus when they team up in Octopus' Legendary Event Mission, and it's painfully clear he's only humouring Octavius when he insists he's in charge.
- This Is Gonna Suck: A typical response when heroes and villains realise they have to work together.
- When Spider-Man learns that Ultimus is attempting to weaponise the Carnage symbiote as a sort of pseudo-Super Soldier serum and that he and the others will be facing Carnage-empowered Ultimus goons, he groans.
- Those Wacky Nazis: There are two of them in the game: the Red Skull and Sinister Six member Swarm. They're on first name basis with each other.
- True Companions: Several team bonuses are meant to reflect how close-knit they are.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: When the Human Torch is introduced, he and Spider-Man show they're this. At one point, Spidey muses webbing Johnny up under a bridge, noting "no one knows he's back yet..."
- Weak, but Skilled: Several Controller characters (especially the ones portrayed as martial artists) are portrayed as this, as they rely on their ability to inflict debuffs on their enemies in order to survive. Examples of this include Black Widow, Karnak the Shatterer of the Inhumans, and Taskmaster.
- Most of the characters with the "Skill" origin trait qualify for this, as this category tends to include any character without any superhuman abilities or overly fantastical technology, such as Hawkeye, Killmonger, the Punisher, etc. These characters are able to compete and contribute on an even playing field alongside cosmic and even multi-dimensional power players such as Thanos, Doctor Strange, etc.
- Moondragon subverts this trend; despite being tagged as a "Skill" character, her "skill" is in psychic powers, which she has developed to such an extent that she can fire telepathic energy blasts, levitate, etc., thus emulating the more fantastical abilities of other origin traits.
- We Have Reserves: Used as a gameplay mechanic for Red Skull. At the start of a match, if he spawns alongside a Hydra Minion, is at full Health and doesn't already have any stacks of Charged (the latter two are only relevant in Raids and War Defense), he gains 8 stacks of Charged. After this, if any Hydra Minion falls in battle, he will immediately expend 1 Charged to Revive them (with the in-universe implication being that he's simply summoning another one to the field), and give them 2 stacks of Deathproof on top of that.
- Similarly, Ultron is explicitly summoning his drones into battle. It's entirely possible for Ultron to keep summoning drones to replace teammates (and drones) that fall in battle, thus overwhelming an enemy.
- Nobu presumably also summons Hand ninja from the numerous hordes under his command.
- Hela will keep resurrecting her Undead Asgardians as long as she's still on the field (and since these are treated as summons instead of revives, it bypasses any revival-negation abilities like Black Bolt's passive). As long as Hela remains, the Undead Asgardians will not stay dead. Plus, in War Defense, she can summon another Undead Asgardian to replace any fallen Asgardian allies.
- Multiple Man's power and moveset is also entirely based around this. His ultimate ability takes it up to eleven, filling his entire side of the field with his "dupes" up to the maximum possible number of characters (ten including himself, if every other position is empty when he uses it).
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: The Supreme Scientist manages to hack several Ultron drones, and then Ultron himself, turning them all into servile robots who do as ordered. Later in the mission they retrieve a code that allows to take control of any devise in the planet, and she stored it in Ultron's brain while they escaped. After the escape, Elektra asked to get this straight. A code that allows to take control of any devise on the planet? Yes. And it is stored. In. Ultron. Yes, but he's hacked now, nothing can go wrong! Needless to say, saying that in the next mission things go wrong would be an understatement.
- Wolverine Publicity: Fittingly enough, Wolverine managed to avert Cant Keep Up by gaining abilities or passives thanks to updates (e.g. when Colossus was introduced, they gained the Fastball Special Combination Attack; when Psylocke was introduced she enabled Wolverine's multi-enemy attack move to become immune to counterattack). The Weapon X update also modified the attack so it would rebound i.e. where the original version attacked once before moving on to the next target, the new version would attack an enemy before moving on to the next but if no third enemy is present he would go back and attack his original target again.
- The Worf Effect: How do you know that Doctor Doom, empowered by the Nexus of Realities, is a big, big problem? By having the player pull a You Shall Not Pass! with an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Thanos... and it's made very clear that Thanos is completely outmatched.
- Worf Had the Flu: The Ebony Maw event outright states that since the Infinity Stones STRIKE gathered come from different universes, the version of the Infinity Gauntlet worn by STRIKE's Thanos is nowhere near as powerful as it would be if the gauntlet were equipped with the Stones native to STRIKE or Nexus Earth's reality.
- Unwinnable: This can happen if both sides are reduced to characters with powerful defense/healing but little offensive power, to such an extent that neither one can actually damage the other faster than they recover health. Some game modes have a timer which will eventually count down and end the match, but others don't (most notably Blitz, where a player who finds himself in this situation has no choice but to retreat from the match).
