Howdy, folks.

Unless you’ve been living in a remote log cabin in the woods somewhere, you’ve undoubtedly heard about Warner Bros. new video fighting game Multiversus.

The game is still early, but the first character roster has been revealed, and we think that the lineup is pretty good.

However, we feel that this lineup is, shall we say, a tad incomplete. The official Multiversus website says that more characters will be revealed soon, but in the meantime, we’d like to list some of the characters that we would add to the Multiversus roster.

But before we start , there are a few conditions:

First, we’re not going to suggest any live action characters like Sheldon Cooper or Ted Lasso. The game’s designers would have to make them not resemble the actors, otherwise the actors would to be paid a royalty for the use of their likenesses, so we’re only going to suggest animated characters.

We’re only suggesting characters who are at least partially owned by Warner Brothers. I know that some folks like to go buck wild with their wish lists and make crazy suggestions like Ronald McDonald, Cookie Monster, Rainbow Dash, Homer Simpson, Beavis and Butthead or Son Goku,and that’s fine. You do you, but my feeling is that if you’re going to throw in any random ass characters, then you might as well just call it a completely new game. That’s basically M.U.G.E.N. We’re not going to be doing that. We’re kind of anal about that kind of thing.

And finally, keep in mind that these are all characters that we would add to the game, not characters that we think the studio is going to add. Got it? Good. Let’s go, man, go!

LOONEY TUNES

So far, we’ve got Bugs Bunny and Taz, which is great, but there needs to be more. There are too many awesome Looney Tunes characters for there to only be 2 in this game.

And also, Yosemite Sam.

Here’s a kooky thought: why not add Granny as a wild card?

DETECTIVE COMICS (DC)

So far, we’ve got the Trinity (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) and Harley Quinn. Nice, but there should be more.

HANNA-BARBERA

There is a rumor that Fred Flintstone may show up in Multiversus, and if that’s true, yeah, we get it. The Flintstones is iconic. But personally, if we’re going to have an H-B caveman in this game, We’d rather have Captain Caveman.

And hey, since Multiversus is technically a fighting game, why not throw in Hong Kong Phooey?

One more thing. I suspect that we’ll get more members of Mysteries Inc. somewhere down the line, but I think that it’s ridiculous that Shaggy and Velma made it to this game before Scooby Doo, so let’s rectify that.

CARTOON NETWORK

So far, on the Cartoon Network side, we’ve got Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, Garnet and Steven Universe from, well, Steven Universe. Not bad, but there needs to be more.

I don’t think that I need to explain why the Powerpuff Girls should be in Multiversus. They were originally called The Whoop-Ass Girls. ‘Nuff said.

I also think that this game should have Dexter as a playable character.

I’d also add Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show.

An obvious choice from Cartoon Network’s roster would be Ben Tennyson, aka Ben 10.

Speaking of Amblin characters, we considered suggesting Yakko, Wakko and Dot…

…but then rumors began circulating that they’re actually going to be in the game. The presence of a Yakko balloon in the 2024 poster for the game seems to confirm this.

It’s on the upper left corner, right above Wonder Woman. It helps to squint.

QUICK SIDE BAR: I hate that we’re referring to the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot as “the Animaniacs” now; originally the title Animaniacs referred to the zany, anarchic, free-for-all vaudeville style nature of the show, not any specific characters, but a few influential people and entities (such as Kids’ WB!) began calling the Warner sibs ‘the Animaniacs’ and the practice just spread like wildfire across the internet and the pop-culture spectrum the same way the word ‘dang’ (a safe way for kids to say “damn” without getting into trouble) spread like wild across the playgrounds of America. Like ‘dang’, calling the Warners ‘the Animaniacs’ has come too far and gotten too big to be stopped now, so while we don’t call them that ourselves, it’s too late to squash it. It is what it is. END SIDE BAR.

Moving on…

Say, here’s a wild card choice: Popeye the Sailor Man.

This isn’t as much of a reach as you might think; as of this writing, Warner Bros. currently holds the rights to the Popeye cartoons (Warner absorbed the Turner cartoon library after they merged with Turner Broadcasting), so Popeye is a WB character by proxy, the same way Gumby is technically a Disney character: the rights to Gumby are currently held by Fox Entertainment, and Disney owns Fox, so Gumby is technically a Disney character.

Back to Popeye, anyone who’s ever watched a Popeye cartoon in their lives knows why the one-eyed sailor man would fit perfectly in a brawler; just have him “eats ‘is spinach” for a Super and watch the sparks fly!

Speaking of Popeye and video games, did you know that the original Donkey Kong arcade game started out as a planned Popeye game, but was changed because Nintendo couldn’t secure the rights to the character? Now you do.

FINALLY….