Comic-book nerds are still reeling from yesterday’s devastating news that legal issues will prevent Rom, a beloved (by nerds) character from the late 1970s and early 1980s, from ever making an appearance in a Marvel movie. The badass alien-fighting “Spaceknight,” based on a badass Parker Brothers toy, could make an ideal protagonist for an intense sci-fi film—but it will never happen. Desperate to distract ourselves from this pain, we’ve spent the morning tossing around the names of some other lesser-known Marvel Comics characters that deserve movies that they’ll almost certainly never get to make. But then thinking about all these cool hypothetical-but-impossible films just made us sadder. Let’s hope Guardians Of The Galaxy is fun or we’re never going to get out of this funk.

Here are our picks for some potential-laden (but highly unlikely) Marvel movies:

The Micronauts

The lack of forward motion on any of the planned Micronauts movies or cartoons that have been announced over the past decade or so—along with the lack of reprints of Marvel’s classic late-1970s/early-1980s Micronauts comics—would seem to indicate that Marvel is out of the Micronauts business, having grown weary of dealing with all the legal complications over who really owns the rights to the characters and their stories. It’s entirely possible that someone will make a Micronauts movie someday. (Back in 2009, J.J. Abrams was reportedly attached to develop a movie for Hasbro, which owns the rights to the toys.) But ideally, Marvel would be involved in any Micronauts film, and would adapt the original dimension-hopping adventures of the tiny heroes, as created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Michael Golden. During the era when Star Wars was king and Star Trek was being revived, The Micronauts comic held its own as epic science-fiction. It’s time to bring them back from inner space.

Omega The Unknown

For the longest time, Omega The Unknown was a minor footnote in Marvel history, until novelist Jonathan Lethem and artist Farel Dalrymple revived the title for a 10-issue maxi-series in 2007 and 2008, bringing some attention back to a hero that had flopped in the 1970s. Fans of the socially conscious “Bronze Age” Marvel though—and of Omega’s co-creator Steve Gerber—have always had a lot of affection for this weird, passionate comic about an articulate orphan and the super-powered alien to whom he’s psychically connected. The stories are set mostly in Hell’s Kitchen, which means there’s always a possibility that Marvel will work Omega and/or the child he protects into the Netflix Defenders series that are in the works. (The original Omega storyline actually wrapped up in The Defenders after Omega The Unknown was cancelled, though without the involvement of Gerber, his co-writer Mary Skrenes, or artist Jim Mooney.) But really it’s unlikely that anyone in Hollywood wants anything to with the Omega character, because his stories are about urban blight, prejudice, alienation, and the kind of cosmic juju that made more sense in the hippie/New Age era.

She-Hulk

Given how much trouble Marvel has had turning a he-Hulk movie into a big hit—and given how much resistance all the superhero movie-makers have shown to spotlighting female characters—She-Hulk is probably way down the list of projects on the Marvel docket. (There were plans in the works in the early 1990s for a She-Hulk film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Brigitte Nielsen, but that was in the days before anyone cared about Marvel movies.) That’s a shame, too, because in a lot of ways, She-Hulk is a more interesting character than her cousin. Unlike Bruce Banner and his raging alter ego, his cousin Jessica Walters usually has some control over her transformations into She-Hulk. For long stretches of Marvel continuity, Walters has chosen to stay full-time in her She-Hulk guise, a bombshell giantess with a brilliant legal mind. Think Xena meets Ally McBeal. How is that not a movie?

Thunderbolts

It would be a logistical nightmare to get a Thunderbolts movie off the ground. The brilliant concept by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley—supervillains masquerading as superheroes as part of a plan to take over the world—would only really work the way it did in the comics, with years of stories establishing each of the members of the team, followed by a major disaster that seemingly killed all of the Marvel Universe’s established heroes and left a void for the T-Bolts to fill. But Marvel supposedly has the next 15 years of movies mapped out; if that’s true, it could eventually layer in enough storyline continuity to make Thunderbolts feasible. we’re crossing our fingers, because it would be great to see a movie that tackles this comic’s themes about the murky nature of heroism, and the thin line between good and evil.

Wonder Man

Industrialist Simon Williams gained his superpowers in a Faustian bargain with the sinister Baron Zemo, then “died” shortly after redeeming himself by saving the Avengers. After the first of several resurrections, he joined the team and began a long but not particularly illustrious superhero career. Williams’ generic personality and skill set (strength, flight, speed, invulnerability) make him an unlikely candidate for film adaptation—but a brief series he headlined in the early 1990s seems tailor-made for an atypical comic-book movie. During that period, Wonder Man actually became a Hollywood stuntman and actor, a vocation that could give his Marvel movie its own distinct flavor and setting, along with an opportunity to satirize the fairly ridiculous apparatus of superhero cinema. Think The Stunt Man starring a guy who can’t be killed. It could be really interesting.