Have you ever languished in obscurity? Do you possess a hidden talent that you will someday unleash upon an unsuspecting world? If you answered yes, then I have a few Vs. System characters I would like you to meet. They may be just your type.

Heroic rodents and villainous bruins tend to fall by the wayside. With a fairly non-competitive ability helping to pull them to the back of the binder, Space Bears are forgotten quite often. Let’s drag their little legend into the light.

Once upon a time, Dr. Ub’X was determined to steal Ch’p’s Green Lantern ring. During Ch’p’s career, he defeated many other villains from off the beaten path: Battle Beaver and his Boys, the Mole Patrol, Chick Fury and the Eagle Scouts, and of course the Terrible B’Gul Space Bears. The evil Dr. Ub’X discovered Ch’p’s real identity, kidnapped his girlfriend, and threatened to feed her to the terrible teddies. Ch’p wasn’t having it, but he played along for a while. He gave Dr. Ub’X the jeweled ransom in order to free his love. Then the secret instructions he coded into the ring captured Dr. Ub’X once and for all . . . in a giant nutcracker.

A story like that explains the obscurity of the characters completely. But if you think the forgotten funkiness of the Space Bears and their mythos excludes them from Vs. System competition at the highest level, you are sorely mistaken. Adam Horvath actually reeled in $1,500 while playing with the giant immaterial stuffed animals at $10K New York 2005. If it weren’t for Doug Tice and Hal Jordan ◊ Spectre, our seldom seen Space Bears would have won a shiny trophy and become a household word.

There will always be a measure of Hope for out-of-the-way characters in Vs. System. Especially when they have abilities as strong as Hope does. Hope’s sacrificial flipping tricks must always be considered when building a deck that includes ongoing plot twists. Just don’t try to find her in many major myths. Lex Luthor occasionally employs the Amazon beauty as a bodyguard and sparring partner. That’s about it. She had always lived in the shadow of her colleague Mercy until Pro Circuit San Francisco. Then she made it to the Ivy League, and soon everyone knew her name. Hope has not returned since the banning of Justice League of Arkham, but she will always be an unexpected threat.

Dead Girl’s superpowers were first triggered when she was killed by her former lover. He sealed her in a tomb, much like the burial her card has received in the hidden recesses of our collections. Was that the end of the story? Not a chance. Dead Girl can reconnect and recombine any lifeless material. She can speak to all beings that have passed away. She can always come back from the dead.

Dead Girl is not the only one that returns from beyond the grave in the world of X-Statix. Henrietta Hunter also traverses the boundaries of the dearly departed. In fact, she was originally scheduled to be a zombie version of Princess Diana.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. Diana Spencer, perhaps the single most popular person of our time, was almost a full-fledged member of the X-Statix team affiliation. The decision was made to revive her in pulp after her untimely death, but the public outrage in the British tabloids reached a fever pitch and nixed the idea. Whether it was a well-executed publicity stunt or just one of the most bizarre and obscure near misses in comic myth history, it makes for a seriously cool true story. Henrietta Hunter took over the plot twists that the princess of Wales was set to fill, just before the book itself was cancelled in early 2004.

Then, near the end of 2005, Marvel Comics published X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl. This was a five-issue miniseries that resurrected Dead Girl’s myth, uncovered her identity, and put her back on the map. The girl may be long gone, but she is still red hot. Dead Girl rose again from the ranks of the unknown to join forces with Dr. Strange, even getting a little romantic on the side.

Doctor Strange discovered that the Pitiful One had gained control of the Eau du Profundis. The Pitiful One, with his hilarious name intact, used the potion to resurrect himself. He also brought back almost every Marvel Comics super-villain that ever lived to fight for him. Dead Girl got a telepathic call from Dr. Strange, since she was well versed in the world of the dead. She located the Eau du Profundis and recruited a team of long-gone heroes including her former X-Statix teammates Orphan and U-Go-Girl. The bad guys were defeated and sent back into obscurity. Then Dead Girl and Dr. Strange started to recognize their feelings for each other. She used the Eau du Profundis one last time to spend a glorious day with the Sorcerer Supreme back on Earth. It was a beautiful thing.

The X-Statix were not merely obscure when Vs. System honored them with their own team affiliation, they were completely erased from continuity. Every one of them had been killed in the climactic conclusion of their namesake series. When I began researching these wacky weirdoes for a preview of the Marvel Knights booster set in the swan song final issue of Undefeated magazine during last days of 2004, I had to dig really deep to find anything at all. Two years later, thanks in large part to their appearance in our game, X-Statix is more accessible than ever before. Vs. System shines a very bright light into the hidden recesses of comic book myth. Obscurity gets removed from play, and some of the craziest characters in history are better for it.

Winning equals popularity in the realm of trading card game heroes. If a seldom-seen character is blessed with a strong enough Vs. System ability, its days of flying under the radar are numbered. Let me flip the script and sign off today with another reader-submitted list of favorite classics from each expansion. There is nothing secret or strange about these choices. They are some of the most powerful pieces of cardboard in the world, and the recognition they are receiving may never fade away.

Michael Gilmore’s Favorite Cards from Each Set:

Marvel Origins: Surprise Attack. I love the fact that you can play this during the off initiative before your opponent even sets a resource. It has made for a lot of laughs in casual play and is a strong card for competition.

DC Origins: Dual Nature. Getting around uniqueness can be pretty cool. This was the only way to create the double Doom lock before Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Web of Spider-Man: Mattie Franklin ◊ Spider-Woman. I had to create a very specific deck around her to abuse her ability fully. One version I made had fifty-six characters, Avalon Space Station, Slaughter Swamp, and two Extended Art versions of In Evil Star’s Evil Clutches. Good fun.

Superman, Man of Steel: The Source. This card could single-handedly wreck any number of plans. It is even more effective than Latverian Embassy. It’s too bad that New Gods always need a good Team-Up, or The Source would be the best card in the game.

Marvel Knights: Midnight Sons. There is no limit to the directions you can go with this card. It takes mediocre team-stamped abilities and turns them to gold.

Green Lantern Corps: Rain of Acorns. This card and I have a symbiotic nature. I have always been able to count on nabbing it, even in a deck that ran just one copy with no search. It just likes to come up when I need it.

The Avengers: Ultron ◊ Crimson Cowl. Blind-siding all around. He makes me want to build decks. Period.

Justice League of America: Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose. Such a lovely card, and so useful in setting up shenanigans.

The X-Men: Enemy of My Enemy. For a guy who almost never runs a solo team, this card is a godsend. It’s too bad everyone else thinks so too. My runner-up is Emma Frost as the centerpiece for my most reliable X-Mental deck.

Heralds of Galactus: Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth. Franklin sets up so much mayhem. Hiding those cosmic—surge guys to make sure they get or keep their cosmic abilities, or just staying out of an attack to counterstrike later, is just too sweet. Even decks that won’t run any Inhumans other than Lockjaw will appreciate the beautiful tricks Franklin can do.

Rian Fike is also known as stubarnes and the memory of him will fade into obscurity eventually. While he is still here writing articles, you can send comments, critiques, or crazy unknown character studies to rianfike@hattch.com.