With it being in the first few weeks of release, Marvel Rivals is in a strange spot that every competitive online game finds itself in at the start. Players are figuring out how the game's characters work and how to counter their Ultimate abilities. During this period, certain characters come out as especially dangerous, with Iron Fist being an example of a character that doesn't seem to have an immediate counter or strategy to deal with them. Despite this, Iron Fist isn't the character that players have dubbed the biggest menace in the game; Jeff is.

Jeff, the Land Shark, is an adorable character that acts more like a lovable dog than a bloodthirsty predator. In keeping with his cute character, Jeff has been made a Strategist character (what would typically be the class in other games), and is one of the most effective healers in the game, with a kit built around keeping his allies alive. Even with all of this, the Land Shark has actually turned out to be simultaneously one of the most hated and most loved characters, and this seems to depend on whether he is a part of your team or not.

Jeff Is As Big A Menace As He Is Cute

His Association With Gwenpool Shouldn't Make This A Surprise

When Jeff was added part way through the August Playtest, it was a bit of a surprise given how obscure he was compared to Thor, the character he was being added alongside. Marvel Rivals has helped the little Land Shark's popularity explode, although not in a way that most people would initially expect. He is a cute character, with bubbly animations, and adorable noises instead of normal voice lines. Being relatively simple and easy to play helps his appeal too, but he has started to become public enemy number one in the Rivals player base.

The Playtest had 23 characters, while the launch version has 33 in total.

The spread of Jeff's infamy has been helped by how much Marvel Rivals has exploded on release, reaching 10 million players in 72 hours, which is ludicrously impressive considering the failure of other hero shooters of late. An example of how the player base is beginning to see Jeff is seen in an X (formerly Twitter) post by Venom By Daylight, which earned 1.4 million views and uses audio from the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to describe him as a war criminal yet lovable. Quite frankly, it's accurate.

The best part of this outlook on Jeff is that this is many people's introduction to the Land Shark, since he comes from a relatively obscure comic line that likely hasn't reached anywhere near the audience that Rivals currently has. People new to the character will see a cute shark, maybe look online to see guides or what people think of him, only to see the fan base describe Jeff as a bloodthirsty monster. A massive part of that comes down to his Ultimate and how panic-inducing it can be.

Jeff Can Solo An Entire Team By Using Gravity

His Ultimate Is Becoming One Of The Most Effective Team Wipes

Although his kit is practically the same since his introduction at the Playtest back in August, there wasn't much of an indication that he would become the menace he is now. His Ultimate was the same, able to eat an entire team, but his speed when submerged wasn't as impressive as it is now, meaning that he couldn't get away as quickly. Once Jeff has eaten a team, he can sprint off a cliff with them, killing everyone involved, including his own team, provided that he hasn't spit them out beforehand.

Ultimate abilities that wipe out an entire team aren't uncommon in Marvel Rivals as a hero shooter. If players don't deal with Scarlet Witch's before she blows everyone up, then an entire team can be reduced to atoms in an instant, but it's the way in which Jeff goes about his team wiping that makes him such a menace. For one, players can hear Jeff's little noises before he swallows them all and there isn't much time to react before being eaten by the Land Shark. The panic that ensues while being eaten is both hilarious and terrifying.

When there isn't a cliff to use, Jeff's Ultimate is great for repositioning enemies and helping the team capture points by buying them time.

Once eaten, it becomes a mad dash to kill the enemy Jeff before he runs off a cliff with teammates in his belly, but his small hitbox while submerged and his speed makes him tricky to stop. There is a sinking feeling of the inevitable as the Land Shark scoots his way over to a cliff's edge. He can shoot players off, but there are plenty of characters who can jump right back on (Wolverine's Marvel Rivals abilities let him do just that, for example), so the most effective method to ensuring everyone eaten dies is to leap off the cliff with them.

Jeff The Land Shark Has Exploded In Popularity Because Of Marvel Rivals

He Has Benefited From The Added Exposure Of Marvel Rivals

While most of the roster is the reason why people are checking Marvel Rivals out, like Iron Man, Spider-Man, Hulk, and Captain America, there are a few in the roster that most don't know about and are benefiting massively from the game's fame. Magik and Cloak & Dagger are good examples of this, but both have benefits from on-screen appearances from lesser-known projects, at least compared to the massive appeal of MCU products (the Cloak & Dagger series is not canon to the MCU). Jeff, however, has only appeared in Marvel Rivals and comic books.

Jeff the Land Shark is a very new character by comic book standards, being introduced in West Coast Avengers volume 3, issue 7 back in January 2019. When compared to Iron Man's first appearance all the way back in 1962, it puts into context how young Jeff is, and yet he's ended up as one of the biggest talking points of Marvel Rivals. This is due to a combination of a cute design on the surface and a now-heinous reputation among the fan base. The juxtaposition just adds to the humor of the character.

Although Jeff might prove to be a unique case with his reputation among fans, he shows that Marvel Rivals can use the massive appeal of some characters to boost the popularity of others. Iron Man and other first-class Avengers can be used to bring eyes to lesser-known comic characters. Not everyone will get the love and hate that Jeff has received, since it seems a little like lightning in a bottle, but characters like Luna Snow, who is also relatively new, could get more recognition as they are added in the future.

Source: VenomDbd/X