EA Vs. Marvel Fighting Games Announced
ADD Boy writes "Reuters reports that Electronic Arts and Marvel have come together to 'develop a series of fighting games pitting newly developed EA characters against Marvel superheroes like Spider-Man.'" This cross-media deal also sees Marvel "acting as licensing agent for the new [EA-created] characters and publishing comic books based on them", and "the deal includes more than 100 of Marvel's superhero characters, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men." However, the deal does not include the Hulk or Punisher characters, who are licensed to Vivendi and THQ respectively.
I'm not sure the article makes this clear, but I don't believe they'll be using existing EA characters - I think the plan is to create all-new superhero-style characters which 'belong' to Electronic Arts. Whether this is a brilliant creative move or a cynical IP-building cash-in is, of course, open to interpretation. :)