On the Marvel side we have the booming success of Deadpool and Wolverine and the shocking reveal that Robert Downey Jr. will return to the MCU to play Dr. Doom, on the Capcom front we’ve got the recent announcement for the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, and now the two have met in the somewhat unlikely setting of Fortnite.
Epic Games’ massively popular battle royale was recently went through the Absolute Doom update to include the aforementioned Deadpool, Wolverine, and Dr. Doom. You can encounter the latter as a non-player character while exploring the Fortnite map and if you do, you might see him pull off an Easter egg Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 reference… right before he sends you back to the lobby.
Dr. Doom was easily one of the most popular characters in competitive Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, both for his abilities as the main fighter as well as for his assists. Doom would pop up so much amid the exceptionally hype final brackets for UMvC3 that audiences would routinely shout out his voice lines as players repeatedly spammed certain overpowered maneuvers.
Though finger lasers and hidden missiles were popular Doom catch phrases, it was his double-heel dive kick that you’d hear most often. Every single time players used dive kick Doom would yell out “FOOT DIVE,” and so would audiences.
When you encounter Doom as an NPC, he crosses his arms to assume the familiar, dominant pose and flies at you with both feet. Here’s what that looks like in slow motion:
Here is the video of Doom doing foot dive in action pic.twitter.com/qs9gH82nkN
— Cap☆ (@CaptainGalxy) August 16, 2024
Now if this were a character trademark outside of his MvC appearance, that would be one thing, but it really isn’t.
This particular maneuver is part of Doom’s MvC3 identity, and the fact that it made it into Fortnite shows just how powerful Marvel vs. Capcom can be when it comes to influencing the culture around the already otherwise established characters it features.
Nick “Dreckerr” Shapiro is a Senior Balance Designer for Fortnite, and commented on the intentional inclusion of the reference, tying it off with “FGC for life.”
As someone who has been focusing most of my efforts on helping develop this incredible new season, this is probably the thing I’m most excited about, and we have SO MUCH cool stuff to be excited about.
FGC for life, so glad we got to do this.#FortniteAbsoluteDoom https://t.co/Zib0rUCmAg
— Nick Shapiro @ 2XHIBITION AUG 15TH! (@Dreckerr) August 16, 2024