It's been quite some time since we last talked about Marvel Universe, the upcoming MMO from Secret Identity Studios and Gazillion Entertainment. Originally in developement years ago by Cryptic in a partnership with Microsoft, that game was canned and now it's under Gazillion as part of their decade-long partnership with Marvel.

Back in April of this year, Marvel announced that this new Marvel MMO was on the way and since then, The Marvel Massively Multiplayer Society has been slowly revealing details, most importantly that the game allows players to play as their favorite characters from Marvel's vast library and that it's free-to-play. Today, we've gathered the character images released thus far.

Before we get to the pretty pics, we can recap a details which have been confirmed. Marvel man Brian Michael Bendis is the game's head writer and in late April, when MMMSociety held a little event for Marvel Universe Online, they revealed a few of the characters that will be playable.

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Dr. Doom is the primary villain of the game and it will launch with more playable characters than any other Marvel title to date. Flagship characters who are currently getting the spotlight in cinemas with their own feature films are obvious inclusions (Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, the X-Men etc.), but for the Marvel hardcore, obscure characters like Nova and Squirrel Girl will be playable as well.

Throughout the summer and leading up to now, including San Diego and New York Comic-Cons each revealed an image/character from the game and we've gathered them below. They're mainstay unsurprising reveals and the graphics are nothing to write home about but we'll take what we can get.

The logo and poster were revealed first, followed by obvious fan favorites like X-Men poster boy Wolverine, the first Avenger, Captain America, the Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool and last but not least, the time-travelling mutant with a big-ass gun, Cable.

The character designs are going for more of a cartoon/comic book feel over lifelike designs so that may bring some to question how much to the 'core MMO' market this game will appeal, especially if it's free-to-play. But until we see some gameplay and have an idea of how deep this experience really is, we can't say too much about it or how it's "massive" if the game is limited to a set amount of existing canon characters.

The other question mark is around what platforms Marvel Universe will be playable on. We know it's coming to PC but with DC Universe Online, now free to play, on PS3, will Marvel re-team with Microsoft to put this game on the Xbox 360 or its as-of-yet-unannounced successor?

What do you think of Marvel Universe Online thus far and what platforms would you like to see it on?

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Source: MMMSociety