

After that there is ass loads of QA testing to make sure the character actually functions. Then a lot of that is thrown out the window as actual design beings and things need to be tweaked or changed to find a way to make the character fun but also somewhat balanced.

All the pre-production work that goes into figuring out moves, costumes, balance, and so on. There is also the multiple iterations of the design the character has to go through. You have to keep in mind that animation is incredibly important to fighting games, they have to be carefully done so they look good. It takes several people to make a single character, it takes a long ass time to do animations. You have no idea what goes into making a character in a fighting game, do you? It is very easy to believe 1+ million per character. Based on what Max said, it sounds like the Marvel people were pretty openly talking to a lot of people and seemed to be listening to what fans where suggesting and asking. Makes me wonder if they're planning to add some of them. So they're not outright saying no to those characters being in, which is interesting. Marvel's response was telling him to "hold on". In more news: Max of Maximillian_DOOD talked to some of the Marvel folks at the Capcom Cup and asked about Fox characters in the game. Might as well toss my Mega Man people in since Capcom has taken so much heat for how they've treated the franchise lately. The Capcom characters mostly make sense as well. And Kamala is one of Marvel's most popular characters right now, easily the best new character Marvel has created since Miles Morales and she could have a really fun moveset as well. Howard the Duck has been getting a lot of attention on the comics side lately and he's a fun character so he fits. If there really won't be X-men or Fantastic Four characters in then Gwenpool can take the Deadpool slot, since she is a version of Gwen Stacey with Deadpool's powers and insanity. A post on Shoryuken mentioned that Lupinko is saying that these characters will also be in the game (rumor so take it with a grain or mountain of salt):
