Heads up, Marvel fans! Screaming Mimi is coming to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (DS, Wii, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)! She's more popularly known as Melissa Gold, or the powerful Songbird. Now the artists of the MUA2 team talk about making the pretty screamstress look pretty in her Ultimate Alliance debut.

"Songbird was one of the easier characters to concept since we already liked her design a lot and decided that we really didn’t want to change all that much," said concept artist David Phillips. "Additionally, we liked how Marko gave Songbird a harder look rather than being just another pretty face: her expressions are tense and serious."

"As most of you know, Songbird solidifies sound waves into objects, which she can use for a number of purposes on the battlefield. Given that information, one of our concept artists, Dave Phillips, came up with a really stunning piece of art for her “wings,” and we ended up basing the look of her powers largely on that," said Senior Animator Steven Nelson.

"Pink is a trademark color for Songbird, so you’ll be seeing a lot of different manifestations of “sonic pinkness.” She’s got these big, beautiful “wings” that sprout off her back that allow her to fly and hover," notes art director Bryan Shutt.

Apart from improving Songbird's looks, Nelson also mentioned other graphic details, such as rain and paper blowing across a level, but there aren't any vids or screens to show those just yet. They're pretty big on the realism, and they got a large effects team to work on the meticulous process.

It seems like Songbird's role in the game will be similar to Iceman and Ms. Marvel somewhat. But since development has changed hands from Raven Software to Vicarious Visions, that might not be the case anymore. Anyway, I just hope Vicarious does a good job, 'cause I loved what Raven was able to do with the original. For more on the interview, you can find it through the source link.

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Interview with Vicarious Visions:

• Vicarious Visions to handle Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion