Marvel is unleashing a new web comic series, the All-Winners Squad.
All Winners Squad: The “All-Winners Squad†is an ensemble of Marvel cult favorites. Together these previously overlooked characters are destined to make an impact in their own irreverent way. At long last, the All-Winners Squad will break free from comic book pages and obscure corners of the Internet, spreading their unbridled awesomeness to fans everywhere.
The All-Winners Squad is truly anything but awesome: its a collection of forgettable and forgotten second-raters and beyond, heroes and villains and others. Members include such forgettable characters as Frog-Man, the Walrus, the Unicorn and Ruby Tuesday under the direction of Mr. Fish and the Trapster.
Oh, and the Hypno-Hustler. And Squirrel Girl and Howard the Duck.
The National Entertainment Collectibles Association, Inc. (NECA), in partnership with Marvel Consumer Products, will bring their notoriously hip creative to a full line of offbeat All-Winners Squad merchandise launching this fall. Toys, apparel and collectibles will celebrate the solidarity of these newly revived characters. The line casts the spotlight on each member of the All-Winners Squad, giving each a chance to shine individually as well as with their squad comrades.
If nothing else, it means I could actually get a Hypno-Hustler collectible figure for the collection. However, the character artwork showed me something I didn’t figure before: for a lead man in his band, the Hypno-Hustler plays a bass guitar.
Now I expect some will rise to the defense of Howard the Duck and Squirrel Girl. I know Howard the Duck was one of big names at Marvel back in the days and Squirrel Girl was some of Steve Ditko’s last work at Marvel, but neither are hardly that big these days. I was never a big fan of Howard the Duck although some of early stuff was amusing. Certainly they’re out of place in this lineup, just because they both weren’t villains like the rest.