7 Marvel Heroes Who Are One Step From Being the Villain

There are several Marvel Comics superheroes who are always living on the edge, and in many cases, they are one decision away from becoming a fully-fledged villain. While DC Comics started off with heroes who were almost godlike in their presentation, Marvel went in a different direction and created flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, and in any given storyline, either a hero or villain could cross over the line and switch sides. It only takes one bad day, or in many cases, one bad decision, to become a villain rather than the hero that readers had grown up following.

Here is a look at seven Marvel Comics heroes who are one step away from becoming the villain in their own stories.

7) Deadpool

Anyone who has read the miniseries Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe sees how easy it is for the Merc With a Mouth to lose it and finally go off the deep end. Deadpool has never been afraid to take any contract and set his sights on any target, hero or villain, but he also often works with morals, or at least as many as he can commit to in his fractured mind.

However, Deadpool has never been someone who has been working with a full deck, and there is no telling what he will do at any given time. The scariest part of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe is the fact that the story showed what would happen if he got his mind all together again. Once he realized the truth about his life, no one was safe.

6) Scarlet Witch

If there is one Marvel Comics superhero who is one step away from turning into the villain, Scarlet Witch is the one character who has proven it more than once. Wanda Maximoff has always struggled with her own mental health issues, and this has caused her to go full evil more than once. The three biggest instances came in Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and M-Day.

In the present day, Scarlet Witch has taken on the role of the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Comics Universe by force, and she has fought to maintain her rights to hold this position despite the Vishanti rejecting her for the position. This makes sense because Wanda has almost destroyed the world more than once, and she has always been someone who teeters on the edge of turning pure evil.

5) Cyclops

Cyclops is someone who stepped over the line once, but the truth is that it wasn’t completely his fault. This was during the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, where he tried to make the world a better place, but then went too far when the Avengers tried to stop him. When he murdered Professor X in cold blood, he crossed that line and ended up in prison for it.

However, this wasn’t the first time that Cyclops almost went too far, and it won’t be the last time. During the Schism event, he actually ordered a young mutant to murder several people to save lives, and this is something that Cyclops has veered too close to over the years, making his mutants as much of a militia as Magneto ever did.

4) Iron Man

Iron Man has turned into a villain once before, crossed the lines of morality more than once, and even became a very antagonistic superhero with the government’s support. The villainous turn was during the Crossing storyline, when it was shown he had always been a villain, working for Kang. However, even before that, Iron Man was close to becoming a villain.

In Demon in a Bottle, he almost did some terrible things in his armor while under the influence. In Armor Wars, he actually began attacking armored heroes whom he felt had his tech without permission, which put him in the crosshairs of the government. Since then, he was on the side of the law in the Civil War, but his actions were more villainous than Captain America’s. As a member of the Illuminati, Iron Man was the absolute worst and was always one step away from turning evil.

3) Venom

Venom started out his time in Marvel Comics as a hero, but one who was hiding in plain sight as an alien symbiote controlling Peter Parker. When Peter forced the symbiote out of his body, Venom found Eddie Brock, merged with him, and became Spider-Man’s deadliest enemy for years. Since that time, Venom has become an antihero, and he is still one step away from being a villain.

This has happened more than once in the past. For example, Venom was an antihero who wanted to protect the innocent with Eddie Brock, but when Mac Gargan got the symbiote, he became a mass murderer. He was a genuine hero with Flash Thompson and has been a hero with Mary Jane Watson. That said, there is a reason the government has an anti-symbiote task force, because Venom can go evil at any time.

2) Moon Knight

Moon Knight often gets compared to Batman, but they are strikingly different in one area. Batman wears black, hides in the shadows, and stops criminals in non-lethal ways. Moon Knight wears all white, wants the villains to see him coming, and he has no problem killing bad guys to stop them for good. This is a big reason that the police do not like Moon Knight showing up on the scene.

There are some funny moments in recent Moon Knight stories, where the police know that Mister Knight is someone they need to work with, just as long as Moon Knight (or any of his other alters) shows up. Moon Knight is someone that even Captain America has made it clear he can’t trust the anti-hero because Moon Knight is one step away from turning into a villain if he goes too far.

1) The Punisher

The Punisher is a complex antihero because he is, at the end of the day, a mass murderer. Yes, he kills only villains, and he does it because he knows the criminal justice system doesn’t work, especially for the wealthy and powerful villains. It is easy to see how far over the line the Punisher has gone when looking at Captain America. Frank Castle has the utmost respect for Cap, but Captain America loathes Frank, knowing he is a killer.

A recent storyline saw the Punisher taking control of the Hand to keep them under his thumb, but it went so far that the Avengers and Doctor Strange decided they needed to execute Frank because they knew he would never stop. That shows beyond all other examples that the Punisher went too far a long time ago, although he still considers himself a force of good.

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