It’s nearly here, folks, just a month and a bit away. After we finally get to see Batman and Superman throw down this weekend in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s just a short wait until we get to see Team Captain America tussle with Team Iron Man on the big screen in Captain America: Civil War. Throughout the month of April leading up to the film, I’ll be taking a look at three separate versions of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which based a bulk of its campaign on the comic event of the same name that’s being adapted for the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Finishing off the month will be a feature about a look at games that allowed the two leaders of the side of the argument to square off, but with a twist that I’ll explain in a moment. The month will look as follows:

APRIL 8TH: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 (NINTENDO DS): The first time a game in either the X-Men Legends or Marvel Ultimate Alliance series would land on a Nintendo handheld in its traditional form.

APRIL 15TH: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 (PSP): The third Marvel dungeon crawler released for Sony’s first handheld that is the last time an Activision published Marvel game would grace the device.

APRIL 22ND: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 (XBOX 360): The lead developed game of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 project and the true sequel to the original game. This is where the story for both the handheld versions derive their campaign from.

APRIL 29TH: CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR IN VIDEO GAMES: WHO REALLY WON?: For the last part of Prelude to Civil War Month, I’m going to look at the fighting games where players were able to pit Captain America against Iron Man. For each of the games that allow that, I’m going to award them a win, loss, or tie depending on how many of those games also let you play as other members from the respective teams. As Spider-Man was just revealed in the latest Captain America: Civil War trailer and his loyalty is yet to be determined, I’m sticking to each team’s roster as they are in the promotional material, which looks like this:

TEAM CAP: Captain America, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Ant-Man.

TEAM IRON MAN: Iron Man, Black Widow, Black Panther, War Machine, Vision.

If a game features just Iron Man and Captain America, it is awarded a tie and each side wins a point. If for example a game will allow you to play as Iron Man, Captain America and War Machine, that game scores a win for Team Iron Man. If a game only features Captain America or Iron Man, like the original Marvel Vs. Capcom, it doesn’t count. Also if a game allows a costume variant of an iteration of a character, it also doesn’t count. An example of this is Marvel’s Avengers: Battle for Earth which allows you to play as Captain America when Bucky took over the role; This does not count as Winter Soldier being in the game. This also is the same for game’s where a character is a summon, they don’t count as they have to be playable.