Marvel Rivals: Why Chances are Low for Spider-Man Villain…

Spider-Man may have some of the most rogues’ gallery villains, much less the most instantly recognizable ones, but that doesn’t mean they’re all equally riveting design-wise. Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery being as immense as it is means it’s far more likely to have duds, if not street-level, D-tier antagonists who exist more as a goofy character for Spider-Man to humiliate than a genuine threat to New York City’s residents. If it wasn’t for how much destruction he can leave in his wake, Alexei Sytsevich’s Rhino would undoubtedly be a Spider-Man villain who falls into that category.

The only iteration of Rhino that’s arguably been marginally intimidating is the one in Treyarch’s Ultimate Spider-Man game—the giant RHINO mech suit and not Alex O’Hirn piloting it from within, to be clear. Mocking Rhino is typically a layup as he’s sometimes literally just an occasionally enormous man welded to a rhinoceros suit with enhanced strength, and such details don’t exactly make a great case for why Rhino or a RHINO mech should ever be added to Marvel Rivals. Plus, Marvel Rivals doesn’t have much room left for an uninspired vanguard.

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By Jared Stewart

How Marvel Rivals’ Thing Lowers the Chances of a Vanguard Rhino

Rhino causes ruckuses due to his strength and a tendency to rampage through New York City streets, barreling through parked cars and whatever other obstacles lie in his immediate path. All of Rhino’s allure stems from whatever eccentric exoskeleton each of his iterations wears, whether that’s a hide and horn making him look like a literal rhinoceros or a giant mech suit.

Otherwise, there’s nothing Rhino could contribute to Marvel Rivals that Thing hasn’t already. Marvel Rivals’ Thing is a classic bruiser with not a lot that’s terribly special about him aside from his familial connection to the Fantastic Four’s Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, and Human Torch. In fact, Thing is an example of a Marvel Rivals character who NetEase evidently needed to exercise a hefty amount of creativity when designing his kit due to how static his abilities are.

Marvel Rivals doesn’t have much room left for an uninspired vanguard.

As a result, Thing’s Embattled Leap ability in Marvel Rivals allows him to leap toward a teammate and apply an armor buff onto them and himself, signified by drifting orange rocks that hover around his waist. With how little his super-strength contributes to a comprehensive or entertaining kit anyway, it’s perfectly admissible as he may not have been a worthy roster addition without Marvel Rivals thankfully taking liberties with the character.

This is hopefully how Marvel Rivals handles any character it has plans for, but Rhino may now be too difficult or impractical to adapt. Ultimately, unless Marvel Rivals had a shockingly novel way of tackling Rhino’s mech suit, he’s simply a bottom-tier character, and NetEase has hardly scratched the surface of Marvel’s most dynamic and iconic heroes and villains. Marvel Rivals has countless Marvel characters to consider for future tanks before it ever has to lean on Rhino, including:

Cable
Captain Marvel
Juggernaut
Sentry
Thanos

Of course, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t at least leave the door slightly ajar for Rhino because, by this same logic, Marvel characters like Luke Cage or Colossus would be too one-dimensional as well.

It all depends on what Marvel Rivals’ plans are for the future; for example, Marvel Rivals already has fairly interesting tanks—Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Peni Parker, in particular—and would likely try to ensure that other additions to the vanguard roster are equally unique, with Thing presumably being excused so the game could have a full Fantastic Four ensemble. This was the right call, and yet there’s an incredibly low likelihood now that a strictly tanky character with no other redeeming or fascinating qualities will make the cut, let alone Rhino, at least until Marvel Rivals’ deep well of source material influences runs dry.

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