7 Exact Comic Moments that Ruined Great Characters (& One that Ruined an MCU Debut)

A lot of comic book characters have a long, long history. Some DC and Marvel have been around for upwards of ninety years, and naturally, the writers behind them have changed hands innumerable times during their long lives. Every new writer portrays a character differently, but overall, these characters have a defined self that is at least somewhat consistent across the various teams that work on them. Superman has a defined personality, and you wouldn’t see him and the Punisher acting the same, for example. Some small changes and differences are expected and accepted. However, there are some moments that are so impactful that they stick to a character forever, molding into the very perception of them.

Today, we’re going to be looking at the absolute worst examples of that. Actions and storylines that fundamentally changed how the readers and writers look at a character for the worse. These instances are some of their best-known moments, but have irrevocably left a stain on their character, making either everything about them worse or muddying every interaction some have with them. Some of these characters still haven’t recovered from the damage. So without further ado, let’s look at the seven moments that ruined great characters.

7) Why Batman Doesn’t Kill

This occurred in Batman #650. It is simultaneously one of the most cited and misunderstood Batman quotes of all time. Red Hood confronted Batman over why he refused to kill the Joker, and Batman replied that it would be too easy and that he’d never come back from it. There are several ways to interpret this, from Batman saying that killing goes against the moral foundations that his identity is built upon to him saying that killing once would make him a worse hero because it would become an option he would use again. What this quote does not and is not meant to imply is that Batman is a psychopath who is one neck snap away from becoming a serial killer.

Yet, the most popular reading of this interaction is its use as proof that Batman is a worse monster than his villains in bad-faith arguments. “Under the Red Hood” is a good story that explores the nuances of Batman and Jason’s relationship, but this single moment has convinced thousands that Batman is a rapid dog on a very short leash.

6) Wonder Woman Kills Maxwell Lord

During the events leading up to Infinite Crisis, Maxwell Lord mind-controlled Superman and forced him to go on a rampage. Under the Lasso of Truth, Lord revealed that they could only save Superman by killing him, so Wonder Woman snapped his neck in Wonder Woman (1987) #219. Now, Diana is willing to kill if it is absolutely necessary, but this single page has convinced people that Wonder Woman is a lot more Amazon Warrior than she is Ambassador of Peace. Though the Amazons are trained for war and ready to fight, they infinitely prefer peace and non-violent options. They will take every measure possible to de-escalate before ever raising their blade, and when they do, they try to be non-lethal unless there is literally no other way.

This set the stage for far more violent readings and retellings of Wonder Woman and her Amazonian sisters. Even though Wonder Woman hates killing. Ignoring how hard Diana pushes for peace and alternatives to violence and writing her off as a typical gladiator is a massive disservice to her character. This one page is always brought up when people attempt to defend the warrior-focused view of Diana. The worst part is that this situation is an utterly contrived plot device to break the Trinity up before Infinite Crisis.

5) Professor X’s First Krakoan Rescue Attempt

X-Men: Deadly Genesis revealed that after the original X-Men were captured in Giant-Size X-Men #1, Xavier sent a team before he recruited the people that would become the new X-Men. These young mutants, including Cyclops’s long-lost brother, were seemingly all killed. Xavier wiped the knowledge from Cyclops’s mind, and even manipulated everyone to think Krakoa was sentient when it actually wasn’t (this was later retconned so the island was sentient) to sell the illusion. This single comic has Charles mentally manipulate his students and lie to everyone, all while foolishly sending children to their deaths and covering it all, and it opened the floodgates.

Up till this point, Charles was the flawed but good-hearted leader of the X-Men. He was a control freak and could be a jerk, but he was their heart and indisputably the moral center of the team. This story, however, made it cool to retcon everything so that Charles was actually a monster who telepathically manipulated or controlled all of his loved ones like a low-tier villain. This era of Marvel was gungho about making all of its heroes monsters for reasons I can’t pretend to understand, but nobody suffered this more than Professor X. Today, it’s actually more common to see people call him a villain than a hero.

4) “No More Mutants.”

House of M is the infamous story where the Scarlet Witch went crazy and altered reality to a near-utopia where mutants were in charge, and her children still existed. Issue #7 revealed that her brother Quicksilver had manipulated her to do all of this, so Magneto killed him, which led to Wanda saying “No more mutants” and transforming the vast majority of mutants into humans. This is an action she has never lived down. Even though every mutant has long since had their powers restored, and Wanda seems to make up for it in every other run she has, the damage to her reputation has stuck.

What makes this moment even worse is that the reasoning is that Wanda was driven insane by grief over the loss of her children, but she had come to terms with that decades prior. But no, Wanda is all but branded a villain in this scenario, and that characterization has carried over even into her Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart, who developed into a villain in her own right. Wanda is a deeply complex character, but this one act has stained her almost beyond reproach.

3) Doctor Light’s Horrible Personality Change

When Doctor Light was first introduced, he was a legitimate threat, taking on the entire Justice League by himself. Over time, however, he turned into more of a joke character that showed up whenever the Teen Titans needed someone to beat up. This was common for characters who never shook their Silver Age roots, but one day, DC decided to make Doctor Light a threat again, and they did it in the worst way imaginable. Identity Crisis was rife with character assassination, but issue #2 revealed that Doctor Light’s sudden personality shift from hardcore villain to gag character was the direct result of some members of the Justice League.

One day, Doctor Light broke into the Watchtower, where he sexually assaulted Elongated Man’s wife, Sue. The Leaguers present decided to magically lobotomize Light to make him less of a threat, but this story permanently changed how everyone looks at him. After a revelation like this, it’s impossible for Light to go back to being the silly villain he was, and absolutely nobody wanted to deal with the monster he became. This story killed any potential for Doctor Light to do anything of note because every time he comes up, this is in the back of people’s minds, and most people don’t want this type of thing in superhero comics. 

2) Batman’s Unstoppable Prep Time

That’s right, there are two Batman entries on this list. Being one of the most popular comic book characters ever, it makes sense that he’s had a lot more chances for people to wreck his character than others. JLA: Tower of Babel is the story that revealed Batman kept secret contingency plans to take down the Justice League, which has since become a core part of his character. Nowadays, it is common for people to say that Batman can stop anyone with enough time to prepare. This splits Batman fans into three camps: one that shouts that Bruce is an unbeatable Bat-God, one that shouts that he’s just a man, and one that is incredibly annoyed that this is still a discourse we’re having.

Batman was already taking the steps to being the prepared-for-everything mastermind that he is when this story was released, but what many don’t realize is that this was meant to be a critique of that characterization of him. The paranoia and secret-keeping were character flaws that Bruce grew out of, apologizing for everything that happened, even revealing his secret identity to the League as a show of faith. This is a fantastic story, but so many people miss the point of it, turning it into an argument of who Batman should or shouldn’t be able to beat, instead of the first step towards him growing into a better man.

1) Captain Marvel in Civil War II

The entirety of Civil War II is a burning train crashing into a fireworks factory, especially with the characterization of Captain Marvel. The Inhuman Ulysses Cain developed an ability to predict the future, and Carol used it as justification to stop and jail villains before they could commit crimes. Instead of this being an exploration of whether this is ethical or not, Captain Marvel became an idiot who did whatever the visions told her to, even when it was proven that they were not infallible. At the close of the story, Carol fatally wounded Iron Man, putting him in a coma, then declared herself the winner and morally correct.

This is perhaps the strongest case of character assassination in Marvel, and the strangest part is that it absolutely destroyed Carol’s character right before her MCU debut. By this point, Captain Marvel was set to appear in the MCU, and there were clear plans for her to be a main face of it. However, this story has Carol all but kill Iron Man, who in 2016 was one of the most beloved superheroes around. Fans absolutely hated Captain Marvel for this story. Many still do. By the time her movie was released, an entire fandom formed around hating her, and the movie would have had to have been perfect to even slightly appease these fans. Needless to say, Carol was not well received.

So there we have seven moments that have left permanent marks on some incredible characters. Which moment do you think did the most damage? Is it one on this list, or another one that we didn’t put here?

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