Activision kicked off the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 panel at Comic-Con today with the announcement that Speedball's alter-emo Penance will be joining the cast as a playable character.
Penance, formerly the teenage superhero Speedball, transformed himself after taking on the full responsibility for the nuclear incident that kicked off the whole Civil War series and left most of his New Warriors team dead. His transformation is a key point in the series, both punctuating the event and reflecting the change in the Marvel Universe as a whole, from something bright and innocent to something dark and more mature, so his addition to the Civil War-themed game just makes sense.
Of course, there are other reasons as well, as explained by game director Dan Tanguay.
Gameplay-wise he's going to make for very good fusions. Beyond that, we wanted to have some new characters to be excited by, and finally...he just looks kinda cool.
The most tragic thing about Penance? There never was a full 3D, free-roaming Speedball game.
Aside from Penance, it was stated during the Q&A session following the panel that two more characters are left to be revealed, with one more that will "never be revealed", meaning they're going to be quiet until the game hits store shelves. After that, we can expect more characters via DLC in the near future.