The Illuminati was created to protect the world, but the members of this group did more bad things to hurt the world than they ever did to help it. The group formed years before Marvel Comics ever revealed their existence, which happened in New Avengers #7 in 2005. Initially, they formed as Iron Man, Namor, Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, Charles Xavier, and Black Bolt. Black Panther was also there at the start, but refused to join, pointing to the egos of the people involved as the reason it would never work. T’Challa was right, as the Illuminati caused the Secret Invasion and World War Hulk, and they almost destroyed Earth-1610.
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From almost destroying the world to manipulating and hurting even their own allies, here are the worst things that each member of the Illuminati has ever done.
10) Reed Richards
When looking at Reed Richards, there are a lot of things he did that were terrible and deserving of contempt. He is a highly arrogant man who believes he is always right and must always take control. This clearly means that he has done many bad things in the name of science, actions that have almost destroyed the world more than once. Reed’s worst moments often surrounded the devices he built.
Reed Richards created the portal to the Negative Zone, which unleashed monsters like Annihilus onto the world. He made the Multiversal Bridge, which almost destroyed all reality. He also helped build a superhero prison in the Negative Zone during the Civil War storyline. However, the worst thing he ever did was use a weapon to mindwipe his own son, Franklin Richards, and put him in a coma because he feared his powers. His wife, Susan, left him, and it almost destroyed his life.
9) Iron Man
Iron Man has done many bad things, including, at one point, turning into a full supervillain during The Crossing. He also started the Armor Wars, during which he attacked U.S. government military personnel in an attempt to reclaim all armor based on his designs. He even attacked a hero whose armor had nothing to do with Stark. He later ordered Captain America’s memory to be altered for the Illuminati and planned to destroy other planets to save Earth.
However, the worst thing that Iron Man ever did was during the first Civil War. When he proclaimed every hero who didn’t want to register as a government employee a fugitive, it was bad enough. However, Stark also helped create a clone of Thor, which then murdered Bill Foster in cold blood. He also worked with Reed to create the Negative Zone prison for heroes who didn’t want to be beholden to the government’s plans for them. Iron Man became one of Marvel’s most hated heroes thanks to this storyline.
8) Professor X
Professor X has done many things that make him as much an X-Men villain as a mentor. He created the X-Men as a group that could help the mutant and human populations learn to live together in peace. However, thanks to the human race’s tendency to exhibit racist behavior, it hasn’t happened. Instead, what Xavier ended up doing was turning these teenage and young adult mutants into soldiers and sending them often to their deaths.
However, the worst thing that Professor X has ever done was to shut down Magneto’s mind. While Xavier thought it was the only way to stop Magneto from hurting anyone else, it was a violation of his powers and something he had no right to do. He wasn’t the only person punished for this vile act, as it created the villain Onslaught from his and Magneto’s psyches, a monster who almost destroyed the entire world.
7) Beast
Beast has undergone massive changes throughout his life. He started as a mutant with immense strength, but when he tried to use science to “cure” himself of being a mutant, the procedure turned him blue and furry. However, he was primarily a jovial superhero, a member of the X-Men and the Avengers, who was often willing to crack jokes to relieve the tension around him. However, he had the same problem as Reed Richards, as his scientific knowledge led him to do some immoral things.
After Professor Xavier’s death, he brought his original X-Men team from the past to the present to torment Cyclops, and then he couldn’t get them back. That was bad, but the worst thing this Illuminati member ever did was on Krakoa when Xavier put him in charge of X-Force. He used this position of power to humiliate some of the X-Men’s most honorable heroes (Colossus) and then turned his X-Force team into stone-cold killers before they finally turned on him and helped bring him down. Beast is the absolute worst.
6) Black Bolt
Black Bolt is the king of Attilan and the leader of the Royal Family of the Inhumans. However, he has done some pretty bad things in his life that have caused him to lose his crown, and he even seems now to be doing something even worse with his evil brother, Maximus, in Imperial. However, Black Bolt did something terrible before that.
For his part, Black Bolt and the Royal Family had tired of how the world had always treated them, and knowing their existence was due to the Kree Empire, he led his Inhumans into an all-out attack, destroying what was left of the Skrull armada, wiping out much of the Shi’ar fleet, and taking over the Kree Empire, starting a galactic war. Knowing all that, his actions in Imperial are not as surprising.
5) Namor
Namor has never been a genuine hero. He has existed only to protect the oceans, and he cares about nothing else. Namor is also one of the most arrogant mutants on the planet. He fights for himself and doesn’t usually care if anyone on the surface world lives or dies. He has few people he likes, with Captain America as the only real hero he respects. He has launched attacks on the surface world and is as much a villain as an antihero.
However, the worst thing he ever did was as a member of the Illuminati. When the group was trying to figure out how to stop the Incursions, Captain America stopped one with the Infinity Gauntlet before it shattered. Without that, Namor took the choice out of his allies’ hands, and the next Earth that closed in, he destroyed it without a care, killing billions in the process. It ended his time in the Illuminati, as they banished him for his actions.
4) Black Panther
Black Panther was an interesting member of the Illuminati. He strongly opposed the team forming in the first place and refused to join for many years. However, when Black Panther witnessed an Incursion first-hand, he was horrified and realized the Illuminati needed to be reformed to find a way to save their Earth. He then took part in one of the group’s most heinous acts, when he created a device to destroy other Earths.
Black Panther is one of Marvel’s most honorable heroes, and his sins are rare. His worst moments, however, came in the Avengers Vs. X-Men storyline, where Namor attacked Wakanda, bringing it to its knees. Panther was on the Avengers’ side, and the X-Men were protecting the Phoenix Five. As a result, Panther annulled his marriage to Storm without even telling her because she dared stand with her fellow mutants. It was harsh and heartless of the Wakandan King.
3) Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is the Master of the Mystic Arts, and this means his main job is to protect this world from the dark, magical forces that threaten it. However, he has done many bad things over his life, all in the name of protecting the world. He has even hurt people who don’t deserve it, as the main storyline from Strange Academy saw him bringing in young magic users with the full intention of holding them all down, which almost brought an apocalypse with Dormammu to his door.
However, his worst action came as a member of the Illuminati. It was Doctor Strange who, by the orders of Iron Man, wiped Captain America’s memory of the group’s existence and of the oncoming Incursions. It was a terrible misuse of his powers, and it caused Iron Man and Captain America to fight to the death as the entire world came to an end.
2) Captain America
Captain America hasn’t done too many bad things in his career as a superhero. However, he did one thing he believed was right that turned out to be harmful to everyone around him. He took part in the Civil War storyline against Iron Man, splitting the entire superhero population in half.
Mostly, Captain America was right, as it was shown when things ended, and even Iron Man found he wasn’t above the government targeting him when he got out of line. Cap knew the government would be a dominant force over all heroes, and he wanted to fight this. However, he kept pushing even as people like Bill Foster died. Captain America was the better man and surrendered in the end, but he kept the war going much longer than it should have.
1) Hank Pym
Hank Pym has one of the most complicated histories in all of Marvel Comics. One of the original heroes for the company, as Ant-Man, he was also one of the first ones that Marvel used to deal with mental health issues, as he suffered a mental breakdown. He struggled to keep up and even struck his wife in a fit of anger when he lost control. Later, he was part of the group that built the Negative Zone prison to lock up his own friends.
However, the worst thing Hank Pym ever did came around the same time that his mental health breakdown started. He created a robot he believed could help protect the world, so the Avengers wouldn’t need to put their lives on the line all the time. This robot was Ultron, and it became one of the world’s most dangerous supervillains, all thanks to Hank Pym.
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