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I vaguely recall that at some point in the 1990s, there were ads published in various Marvel comic titles, for a contest with some sort of promise to make the winner into a Marvel superhero -- specifically, the fan would be the temporary embodiment of Captain Universe, as host of the Enigma Force's Uni-Power. I believe the ads featured full mask versions of the costume, like the art shown on the Captain Universe TV tropes page, in male and female versions.

I don't recall for sure if Marvel actually promised to include the fan-based character in some role in an actual canon comic or not, Earth-616 or otherwise.

What became of that? Was a winner formally announced? I see no mention of this on the official Marvel site's character capsule, nor in the Wikipedia page.

Something that I thought that might possibly be connected, is something mentioned on the Wikipedia article in the table for Other Realities, where a couple of enigmatic entries appear:

Captain Universe: Other Realities table

So I thought perhaps it could be related to the 2000 Universe X, but I see no further evidence for such a connection on the Wikipedia page for Earth X and Universe X.

Or am I remembering wrong, and it wasn't a contest, but perhaps some sort of gimmick where they'd send anyone who mailed a check some marginally personalized comic?

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    My knowledge of Marvel's contests isn't complete, but there's a chance you're thinking of a mutant-centered 'create a character' contest, which resulted in the (rarely used after their first appearance, but brought back somewhat recently for another storyarc) fan-created character Alchemy.
    – starpilotsix
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 18:42

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It was less a matter of "win an appearance in the comic" and more a "send us your details and we'll mail you a custom comic book where you are Captain Universe", but they did pick one lucky guy. As per Wikipedia:

In 1994 Captain Universe appeared in a one-shot, coinciding with a promotion, with the claim that readers could have a comic about themselves made for a fee. The comics were generally stock stories, with minor details (such as skin or hair color, key names or phrases, etc.) altered based on information provided by the purchaser. Veterinary student Jeff Christiansen, who would later become the force behind the resurgence of the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe in the mid-2000s was made the official Captain Universe of the comic so that it could be considered an in-continuity comic. The one-shot was titled X-Men/Captain Universe: Sleeping Giants.

His Marvel bio mixes fact and fiction.

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  • Ack, I don't know how I missed that when scanning over the wikipedia page that I linked myself. Sorry, and thanks.
    – Jacob C.
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 20:28
  • No worries. It's one paragraph among many, and you were looking for a contest, not a promotion.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 21:17

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