Marvel Comics doesn’t always let its heroes win, and there are some very dark storylines where the heroes end up losing in the end. Marvel heroes have a tough life, as they have to fight some overpowered villains, and they often also have to fight each other when disagreements arise. While trying to keep innocent people safe, things don’t always go right for the heroes, and in many cases, they never had a chance to win when all was said and done. Some moments were shocking, when a hero falls to their greatest villain, but there are others where it was always meant to be a bad ending for the good guys.
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From the death of a beloved superhero to the end of everything, here are five dark Marvel storylines where the heroes lost.
5) Amazing Spider-Man #700
No one could have predicted how Amazing Spider-Man #700 would end. Spidey fought his greatest villain, Doctor Octopus, but there was a huge twist. Doc Ock was dying of cancer, and he was wasting away. Most people might have expected a sad ending with Doc Ock dying and Spider-Man feeling a sense of guilt about his enemy’s passing. That isn’t what happened, at least not in reality.
Doc Ock did die, but before this happened, he switched minds with Spider-Man, switching his mind into Peter Parker’s body and Peter’s into his, and then Peter Parker died in Doctor Octopus’s body. It was a shocking moment that led to one of Spider-Man’s greatest storylines of the 21st century, The Superior Spider-Man. Of course, a remnant of Peter remained behind to allow his eventual return, but seeing Peter die in Ock’s body was shocking.
4) The Incursion
The incursion was a net loss all the way around for Marvel Comics heroes, villains, and civilians. This event saw Earths from all over the multiverse converging on each other, and when the Earths collided in an incursion, it destroyed both worlds. The Illuminati knew this was coming and was trying to stop it, but failed every step of the way. Even when the world was coming to an end, the heroes couldn’t stop fighting each other, with Captain America and Iron Man fighting even as their world died.
The last two Earths left were Earth-616 and the Ultimates world. In the end, several heroes escaped in a life raft as Doctor Doom and Molecule Man recreated a world in Doom’s imagination called Battleworld, and he became Emperor Doom. This was a doomed storyline, and from the heroes fighting each other to the eventual big bang, never did Marvel’s elite ever face a worse defeat.
3) The Dark Phoenix Saga
The Dark Phoenix Saga saw Marvel Comics do something it had never done before, but is now commonplace in the industry. A major hero died in battle, and at the time, this was one of the most shocking things to ever happen to a main series character. Jean Grey has died more times than almost anyone in Marvel Comics and has been resurrected over and over again, but the first time was still the hardest to accept.
The Phoenix Force had corrupted Jean Grey. Thanks to the Hellfire Club breaking her down, she flew into space and consumed a star, killing millions on a planet in the galaxy. This brought the Shi’ar Empire to Earth to try her for murder. They declared her guilty and sentenced her to death, which led to a fight between the X-Men and the Imperial Guard. It all ended when Jean Grey sacrificed herself to protect the X-Men, and her death ended the storyline.
2) Onslaught
Onslaught is similar to the incursions, but instead of two worlds colliding and ending everything, it was just one massively overpowered villain killing some of the most powerful heroes Marvel Comics has ever known. Onslaught, the character, is a combination of Professor X and Magneto, created when Xavier shut down Magneto’s mind, and it caused the creation of the new being.
During the Onslaught crossover event, every Marvel hero had to team up to fight him, and he was too powerful for them all. In the end, the Avengers and Fantastic Four died fighting Onslaught. It wasn’t until Hulk had his mind shut down that he was able to stop the villain, although it also split Hulk into two distinct parts. The twist is that Franklin Richards created an alternate Earth and saved the Avengers and Fantastic Four, but that was revealed later. As is, this story ended with Earth’s greatest heroes’ deaths.
1) Civil War
Civil War was a Marvel Comics crossover event that was bound to end in tragedy. The event was polarizing, with months of heroes only fighting each other instead of other villains, with Iron Man leading a pro-government side that demanded everyone sign on and become subservient to the United States, and Captain America leading the other side, who wanted to maintain their independence.
Because Iron Man represented the government, anyone who opposed him was deemed an outlaw and either arrested and imprisoned or sent into hiding. It was a terrible moment in Marvel history, and ended with Captain America finally surrendering to stop the bloodshed, although it led to his eventual assassination. No one won in the end of the Civil War storyline, and every hero came out of this looking bad.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
