Marvel Snap Accused of Plagiarizing Fan Art

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Posted 5 hours ago by inuno.ai

Category: Gaming

Summary

Marvel Snap is accused of plagiarizing fan art for its card designs, leading to demands for answers and possible compensation.
The similarities between a piece of fan art and the in-game M’Baku card have sparked controversy among fans and raised questions about other card designs.
These plagiarism allegations come after the game was temporarily banned in the US earlier in 2025, leading to a change in publisher.

A Marvel fan artist is accusing Marvel Snap of plagiarizing a piece of artwork they created about seven years ago and using the altered image in the mobile and PC-based card battler. The similarities between the piece of M’Baku fan art and one of the character’s corresponding Marvel Snap cards have some fans asking for answers and, possibly, financial compensation.

There are currently more than 270 different cards in Marvel Snap, a game that has players trying to build the highest point totals across two out of three game areas by combining the powers of hero cards and the special effects of the zones they’re placed in. The cards players can collect are all based on Marvel superheroes and villains, and there are multiple art variants for each hero.

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One of the characters featured in the game is Black Panther‘s M’Baku, a hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe despite his decades-long and storied history as one of Black Panther’s most frequently appearing villains. Artist Jason Kiantoro has shared an image of a piece of fan art he created of M’Baku in 2018, the year that the first film in the series was released, alongside a pixel art version of an in-game M’Baku card that, despite the medium change, bears a striking resemblance to his own artwork. While this card was added to Marvel Snap in 2022, Kiantoro said he made no money from his image, and he is now speaking up against the game as an example of artists profiting from others’ work.

Fan Artist Takes Aim at Marvel Snap with Plagiarism Claim

Despite shifting to a pixel art style, there are several similarities between the two images. Both depict M’Baku with similar outfits and facial expressions, but the most obvious example is the character’s stance: charging forward, torso bent towards the viewer, right leg in front, left hand reaching out with fingers in a grasping motion, and his staff held behind him in the other hand. The comparison of images has also called the originality of some other cards’ artwork into question, as others have brought up cards based on Young Avengers member Wiccan and Sentry that they say closely resemble other artists’ works.

The accusations of stolen art may not even be the biggest piece of drama to hit the game so far in 2025. In mid-January, Marvel Snap was seemingly banned in the United States on a very temporary basis under the same congressional order that took TikTok offline nationwide, as the game’s then-publisher, Nuverse, is a subsidiary of TikTok owner Bytedance. Though the game was unavailable in the United States for less than two full days, publishing duties have been moved to in-house publisher Skystone Games, and Marvel Snap has compensated affected players with a number of compensatory rewards.