5 Underrated Commanders from Marvel Super Heroes

Marvel Super Heroes is packed full of legendary creatures. Between the main set, the Commander decks, Jumpstart, and the Scene Boxes, there are a mind-boggling 392 new legendary creatures. Some of these have immediately become highly sought after as Commanders – with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Bruce Banner among the most popular.

However, with so many new legendary creatures, I think there are some that got lost in the shuffle. In this article I’m going to discuss 5 potential Commanders in the set that are currently being overlooked.

SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU

Shang-Chi is a great Commander for any deck looking to leverage creature activated abilities. Giving all of your creatures the ability to tap for activated abilities the turn they come down is a huge deal, and Shang-Chi actually counts himself. In other words, he can immediately tap for two mana to be used on an activated ability. This kind of means you get a rebate on him every time you cast him, even when you’re spending extra mana to do it.

He makes for a really good ramp Commander, since he suddenly allows all of your creatures who produce mana by tapping to make it right away. Immediately getting mana back from Selvala or Circle of Dreams Druid is pretty absurd.

SILVER SURFER, GALACTUS’S HERALD

I’ve always got a soft spot for colorless commanders, and Silver Surfer is a really interesting one. The fact that he lets you grab an incredibly powerful creature when he enters is a huge deal. Galactus’s power level isn’t really far off from an Eldrazi Titan, since he removes something up, is difficult to remove, and very hard to block. He does only attack whatever opponent has the most life, but that’s fine – especially because Silver Surfer can negate that downside.

In short, tutoring up the strongest creature in your deck with your Commander is pretty amazing. Imagine a 5-mana Commander that could tutor up something like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. That’s pretty much what we have here.

 As such, the Surfer makes for a really good colorless ramp Commander, and you can play actual Eldrazi alongside him and Galactus since those decks normally have lots of colorless payoffs anyway. For example, Forsaken Monument and Ugin, the Ineffable work just as well with these Aliens as they do with Eldrazi.

The Surfer also gives you some control over combat since you can make sure whatever the best creature on the board is, it won’t be attacking you – but someone of your choice. This makes him a unique colorless commander with political aspects to the gameplay.

ABSORBING MAN AND TITANIA

There might only be one sentence on this card, but it’s a strong one. The turn this pair comes down, your board automatically gets a massive buff and it’s likely you can attack in all sorts of ways you couldn’t before. And it’s great that they are effectively an 8/5 themselves.

However, Absorbing Man and Titania don’t only double damage in combat by your creatures – they double the damage done by creatures in any way, shape, or form. That’s where things can get especially interesting. Absorbing Man and Titania make already amazing creatures like Terror of the Peaks and Brash Taunter into absolutely terrifying cards.

Things get even sillier if you play some other creatures that multiply damage, and luckily there’s no shortage of those. If you have your Commander in play alongside Twinflame Tyrant, Fiendish Duo, or Torbran, you’re going to be able to do so much damage you won’t know what to do with it. 

ULTRON THE ANNIHILATOR

The colorless Ultron from the main set is getting a lot of attention – including from me, since I wrote an article about him a couple weeks back. However, don’t sleep on Ultron the Annihilator. He bears a striking resemblance to a popular Commander – Syr Konrad the Grim.

Konrad decks are all about trying to put creature cards into your graveyard rapidly to lower opposing life totals. Ultron does almost the same thing, but with artifacts instead of creatures. Ultron doesn’t have a built-in way to mill cards, nor does he trigger off your opponent’s artifacts. But he traded that in for the ability to generate Robot tokens that give you a very good board presence.

In addition to going the self-mill route, there are several ways to combo off with Ultron and kill all of your opponents. This is because he also makes your opponent’s lose life when your creatures on the battlefield die. So, you just need a couple of recursive artifacts – like Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever – paired with a cost reduction effect and Krark-Clain Ironworks. That way, you can sacrifice the Trawler/Retriever to make 2 generic mana and get the other back from your graveyard, recast the one you got back with KCI mana, and go from there.

Ultron’s ability to attack with both self-mill and sacrifice combos make him quite the formidable Commander and he deserves a following at least as large as Konrad’s.

HIT-MONKEY

Hit-Monkey is one of the best Voltron Commanders we’ve ever seen. That’s not the most popular of archetypes these days, but I think he has a chance to change that. The fact he can’t be countered or targeted by opponents means there simply aren’t a whole lot of ways to deal with him short of board sweepers and edicts. Throw in his other keyword abilities, and you have a creature that is absolutely terrifying even with just a couple of Auras and/or Equipment on him.

If you use an Umbra Armor enchantment like Bear Umbra, or an indestructibility-granting Equipment like Mithril Coat, and it becomes even more difficult to deal with this Monkey Assassin. There are simply many games where he’s just going to keep getting augmented and no one will ever be able to deal with him.

The fact he has death touch also means equipping him with something like Viridian Longbow or Heart-Piercer Bow can make it very easy for you to dismantle your opponents’ boards.

If you’re tired of your opponent killing your creature you worked really hard to make into a massive threat – or countering your creature before you ever have a chance to get that far – Hit-Monkey is the Commander for you.

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I hope I’ve encouraged you to check out some of these legendary creatures that have flown under the radar. What legendary creatures in the format do you think are being overlooked? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.