With almost 90 years of history, Marvel Comics has put out some truly incredible comics, giving readers great stories and beloved characters. They’re stories that have given popular culture some of its biggest figures and sparked the imaginations of countless fans, some of whom would themselves go on to create stories and characters of Marvel fans to come. And for most of the stories over the years, there is a lot to love and be excited about with some stories continue to be classics years and even decades after they were first published.
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And then there are stories that just don’t quite work the same way. While most stories in Marvel Comics contribute something interesting or meaningful to a character’s overall trajectory, there are some stories that aren’t just disappointing but they waste great characters in the process. These are the stories that misuse their heroes and villains, sometimes telling stories that aren’t just disappointing but outright bad and these seven might be the worst.
7) Sins Past (The Amazing Spider-Man #509-514)
There will be two Spider-Man stories on this list. The other, which we will get to a bit later, might be more infamous but this one is just as bad. “Sins Past” was an extremely controversial 2004 storyline told over The Amazing Spider-Man issues #509 through 514 by writer J. Michael Straczynski. The story revealed that, prior to her death, Gwen Stacy had had an affair with Norman Osborne (aka Green Goblin) which resulted in her having his secret twins. Raised by Osborn, the twins believe that Peter Parker is their real father and decide to attack him as they see him responsible for Gwen’s death. Never mind that there are enough holes of logic in this story that you could drive a fleet of semi-trucks through them, the whole story is just gross and is a waste of every character in it. The story was later retconned but yikes.
6) Ultimatum
Written by Jeph Loeb with art by David Finch, Ultimatum is a five-issue 2009 miniseries set in the Ultimate Universe and followed Magneto as he attempts to destroy the world after his children, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, are seemingly killed in The Ultimates 3. While the whole story is honestly just bad, the real waste here is Magneto. The character is reduced to a completely one-dimensional character who is straight up nothing more than a monstrous, genocidal villain and various major Marvel character are killed off in the most disturbing, twisted ways possible for shock value. Even worse, it all ends up being pointless because, spoiler alert, Quicksilver isn’t even dead.
5) Civil War 2
There is a lot to dislike about Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez’s Civil War 2. Positioned as a sequel to 2006’s “Civil War” and intended to capitalize on the release of the MCU’s Captain America: Civil War in 2016 and that’s all well and good even if the comic has pretty much nothing to do with the movies at all. The issue here is that Carol Danvers/Captain America is so poorly presented it all but ruined the character (and in my opinion, she’s never recovered.) The story turned her into an authoritarian bully in a tale that sees her clash with Iron Man over an Inhuman who can predict the future. The story is bad, the book is bad, and it totally wasted and ruined a great character.
4) Avengers: The Crossing
Here is one you probably haven’t thought about in a while, 1995’s “The Crossing”. The story sounds like it would be an interesting one with the revelation that Tony Stark had actually been a traitor working for Kang the Conqueror for years. So, what do you do to fix this? You just have the heroes go back in time to get teen age Tony defeat older, villainous Tony. The story doesn’t make sense—there are seriously a hundred or more ways you could have had Tony somehow take a bad turn that don’t require a completely insane and contrived story. Fortunately, this story has largely gone forgotten by most fans which is exactly how it should be.
3) Avengers vs. X-Men
It seems like everyone wants to see Marvel’s two greatest teams of heroes fight it out with one another and this event was supposed to give them exactly that. Unfortunately, it largely just wrecked the X-Men as characters, especially Scott Summers/Cyclops and in a lot of ways the character has never recovered. IN the story, the Phoenix Force returns and is looking for a new host. With Hope Summers believed to be that new host, the X-Men move to protect her while the Avengers want the girl handed over to them. A clash ensues. The whole series goes out of its way to make the X-Men seem like monsters but Cyclops in particular gets painted with a bad brush. He kills Professor X, betrays Emma, and ends up in prison when really, the Avengers really need to stay out of mutant business.
2) Steve Rogers: Captain America
Marvel seems to have some sort of weird fixation with the idea of heroes actually secretly working for the villains and that is especially true with Captain America. 2016’s Steve Rogers: Captain America written by Nick Spencer sees the hero Steve Rogers revealed to actually be an agent of Hydra and this isn’t a new thing. In the story, he always was a Hydra operative. It totally changes everything we thought we knew about Captain America. Now, it all ends up being because of the machinations of the sentient Cosmic Cube, Kobik and it all lead into the Secret Empire event, but the story just wasted and twisted Steve into something he’s really not.
1) Spider-Man: One More Day
I told you there’d be another Spider-Man story on this list and there really is only one story it could be. You already know what “One More Day” is about. It’s the most infamous of all Spider-Men stories and even if you are somehow in the minority of people who like the story and are cool with how it pretty much wiped out a ton of Spider-Man canon just to make Peter Parker single again the story flat out wastes pretty much every character in it precisely because it does just wipe out bunch of Spider-Man story for a reset. It’s very much the lazy way out when it comes to resetting the beloved character. It made no sense in terms of who Peter Parker actually is and still doesn’t make sense all these years later.
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