Marvel.com: Colossus is an undeniably cool character, but that can’t be the only reason why you’ve decided to add him to “Marvel Puzzle Quest” right?

Joe Fletcher: Colossus widens the roster of X-Men, and it also widens the availability of tank-style characters in the game. You know Thor, who can take a lot of punishment, is not so much in the bulwark kind of deal that you get out of Colossus. In the comics and the games that you see him in, thats how he is, and no exception here.

Marvel.com: How many other tank characters are currently in the game?

Joe Fletcher: Juggernaut’s also a tank as in he’s a damage sponge, but none of the other characters really, actually outright take damage for other characters, other than Deadpool, but Deadpool does things a little bit differently. He just wants to get out in front of everything, so he’s not really tanking things so much as being kind of stupid and taking a little bit too much damage. But he has his style, so it works out.

Marvel.com: Let’s talk about that for a quick second then. So Colossus’s role is specifically to take damage for his team instead of maybe dishing out a ton of damage? Is he just there to protect his teammates?

Joe Fletcher: Well, it’s both. Colossus is a bruiser when it gets down to it. He gets in front of things and he can beat people down with the best of them. He might not be able to destroy things as quickly as Wolverine or Cyclops, but he can destroy stuff pretty well, and in “Marvel Puzzle Quest” he’s definitely no slouch.

Marvel.com: Awesome, let’s jump right in then. What are Mr. Rasputin’s abilities?

Joe Fletcher: He’s got three abilities. He’s a Yellow-Red-Black character, so a little bit of interesting color strengths there. He’s sharing that with X-Force Wolverine, actually, which is a four star character, so not really super available to a lot of players, so pretty unique color strands. He’s gonna be fairly useful on a lot of different teams.

The first ability is the one that really makes him a tank, and that’s Immovable Object. Colossus, once you use this ability, will place a countdown tile onto a yellow tile that’s on the board, and then as long as that countdown tile is out there, at the end of every turn that player makes, he’ll pop to the front and take any damage that’s incoming from the enemy. Along with that, he also takes less damage as long as that countdown tile is out. So if he’s out in front, then he’s gonna be taking less damage and he’s gonna be taking damage for your friends.

Marvel.com: Oh that’s great, I love that. Fits perfectly into this niche you’ve carved for him.

Joe Fletcher: Right. After that, he’s got the ability to dish out the damage, especially when he’s out in front. He’s got his red ability, Colossal Punch. So what that does is normally it deals a decent amount of damage, just if you’re using it outright. But if he’s actually in front, then he not only deals damage to the opponent, but he also deals damage to all the other enemies on the team. So yeah, he kind of takes that tank role and makes it his own, and makes sure that he’s out there on the front and gets the first strike in on enemies.

Marvel.com: So you’ve built him specifically around getting to the front, tanking those hits, and clobbering the other team. Will his own teammates get a shot at the spotlight, or is Colossus just plain better as a leading man?

Joe Fletcher: You generally want him in the front. He purposefully has a lot of good points. His damage reduction every time you get that Yellow Countdown Tile out will be taking hits even less, which means that the rest of your team lives a little bit longer. You want him actually soaking up the damage—it also increases his red abilities. So having him in the front of the team is definitely the way that we want him to be played and the way that it makes sense for him to be played most.

His third ability doesn’t actually do anything special if he’s out in the front, but it takes a definite advantage of something that Colossus is definitely known for. So his third ability is the Fastball Special.

Marvel.com: You gotta have the Fastball Special!

Joe Fletcher: And the Fastball Special is not just Wolverine in this case. The idea is that you can select one of the other teammates in your group and throw them at the opponent. So they’re going to be out of play for a couple turns, airborne, and then they’re going to land and randomly use one of their abilities on the enemy team.

Marvel.com: So does the thrown ally do any direct damage to enemies, or just use one of their abilities?

Joe Fletcher: The way it works is that you throw your friendly character; you choose which one you’re going to throw assuming you have multiple available. Only characters that have abilities that make sense to be thrown can be thrown, like if it’s a character with all passive abilities, obviously that doesn’t make sense. So you throw the character and then it triggers one of their random abilities, but they take a little bit of damage on landing, because, well, they just got thrown 40 feet in the air at the opponent; it doesn’t feel too good when you land. Which makes sense for someone like Wolverine or Deadpool who will just heal right back up, but if you’re throwing Storm, not so much. She’ll take it for the team and deal some damage, but it hurts her too.

Marvel.com: Let me see if I’ve got this right—Colossus is a tanky character, protects his allies, deals a bunch of damage, can toss his teammates, I mean what else do we need to know about this guy?

Joe Fletcher: Well, like Beast, he’s not introduced as a particular part of a particular storyline, but he is introduced as a part of the ongoing story, so we’ll use him in upcoming story pieces. He’s also being introduced as another three star character, so he’s gonna be a little bit higher up on the chain. And like I said before, he’s an interesting color combination so he’ll be useful in some other team compositions that you don’t normally see.

Marvel.com: Now is his release going to play out a bit like Beast’s in that he’ll be available in a Heroic event? When can players get their mitts on the metal mutant?

Joe Fletcher: He’s going to be released in a similar format where you’ll get him as a reward for a PVP event, The Hunt, and then once that PVP event has ended, there’ll be another PVP event on September 19 just after that where he’ll pop up as one of the team-up characters as a part of your group.

Marvel.com: So, Colossus, he’ll be rolled out of The Hunt event?

Joe Fletcher: Yep, The Hunt starts on September 12.