Marvel Comics has become a company that is almost overreliant on events. In 2025, there are multiple events taking place, from One World Under Doom to Imperial and Age of Revelation. However, when Marvel tries to do too many crossover events, they can’t all hit, and there have been several events that have just flopped miserably. There are also some of the worst event series that some fans actually enjoyed, but really didn’t work as well as Marvel Comics might have hoped in the end. It is not just about burning out the readers with constant events; it is forcing creative teams to come up with events that will one-up the last one, and not all ideas stick the landing.
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From sequel event series to Marvel Comics events that changed everything for the worse, here are the worst events in Marvel history.
10) House of M
When people look back at House of M, many fans remember how it changed the status of mutants in the Marvel Comics universe, but often overlook that the series itself was not actually very good. Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel had a tall task ahead of them, and while it was an important event, it just wasn’t a compelling read. For one thing, this is the comic book event that served as a character assassination for the Scarlet Witch.
It took years for Wanda to recover from what Marvel did to her here (as well as in Avengers Disassembled). House of M also destroyed the work that Grant Morrison had done to elevate the X-Men, nearly erasing the entire mutant population. However, its greatest sin was that the world-building was nonexistent, and the story was mostly boring. It was seven issues with only one book that had any real action in it.
9) Secret Wars 2
The first Secret Wars crossover event series was groundbreaking. A cosmic entity known as the Beyonder kidnapped Earth’s heroes and villains, pitting them against each other in a battle where the winners received anything they desired. It changed Marvel Comics, switching up the Fantastic Four’s lineup, changing Spider-Man’s costume by introducing the symbiote Venom, and more.
Marvel was so excited about the miniseries’s success that they decided to do a sequel. What resulted was Secret Wars 2, and it was a massive letdown. Beyonder returned, wearing a white suit that screamed 80s yuppie, and tried to learn more about Earth’s heroes. It was nine issues, and nothing worthwhile happened, but fans still had to read almost every comic Marvel put out (22 different titles) to avoid missing part of the story.
8) Age of Ultron
The worst thing about Marvel’s Age of Ultron event series is that Ultron barely appears in the series at all. Instead, Ultron ultimately destroys society to save it from itself, and then the remaining heroes must figure out a way to reverse this through time travel. Does this sound familiar? That is because Days of Future Past did it better in fewer issues.
Instead of Kitty going back and stopping an assassination, in Age of Ultron, Wolverine goes back to kill Hank Pym so Ultron is never created, only to accidentally create another apocalyptic future. It is an excellent idea for a story, but it just doesn’t remain interesting. As mentioned, these ideas have been done before in the X-Men comics, and they were all better there.
7) Civil War II
The first Civil War had numerous problems, not the least of which was its character assassination of Iron Man, a hero who represented everything he once stood for. It also demonized Reed Richards and Hank Pym, although they were already damaged, broken characters. However, Civil War II ultimately ended up even worse. The story borrows from Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report, where an Inhuman precog’s visions convince Carol Danvers to arrest people before they commit crimes, thereby preventing disasters from happening.
Iron Man opposed authoritarianism this time around. It then made Miles Morales the person Carol was seeking to arrest, even though any Marvel Comics fan knew he wouldn’t kill Captain America. By the end, Iron Man was “dead,” and the U.S. government rewarded Carol Danvers for starting and “winning” this war. Everything about it was terrible.
6) Onslaught/Heroes Reborn
Onslaught was an interesting premise, as it was a combination of Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto after the mutant leader shut down his enemy’s mind. Onslaught was more powerful than anyone else in Marvel Comics, and it took every hero on Earth to fight him. Even with the Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk, and others working together, they couldn’t stop Onslaught, and the entire universe was seemingly destroyed.
However, what really made this a terrible Marvel event was that it essentially rebooted Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Hulk in a new world, featuring creative teams like Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee, who had come over from Image Comics. They were both removed from the books before one year passed, and Marvel reverted everything, realizing its mistake.
5) Fear Itself
Fear Itself had the potential to be something interesting, as it was an intriguing story with a lot of promise. The concept was amazing, and the art by Stuart Immonen was incredible. However, while Matt Fraction is typically a great storyteller, he fell short in this instance. One of the major problems here is that the series introduced a character no one knew about, with Odin’s brother debuting.
He gives seven hammers, similar to Mjolnir, to a variety of villains, allowing them to run rampant. Luckily, Iron Man figures out he can use Uru to create weapons for the heroes, and that is pretty much the story. There are only seven issues, so at least it’s not overly long, but it had no real lasting effect on anyone in Marvel and was a meaningless event series. Its biggest sin is that it’s forgettable.
4) The Clone Saga
The Clone Saga was, for many years, considered the worst Marvel Comics event of all time. It went on for too long, was confusing, and made fans feel they wasted two years reading Spider-Man comic books that had nothing to do with the real Spider-Man at all. Jackal created a clone of Peter Parker that failed and subsequently escaped, named Kaine. He then created a second one who replaced Peter and made Peter think he was the clone (they both shared the same memories).
Then, it turned out that the Peter who left was the real one, and the one who had been Spider-Man for two years was the actual clone, who would later change his name to Ben Reilly. The original clone issue was in Amazing Spider-Man #149 in 1975. The Clone Saga then began anew in 1994. In all, there were 125 issues, and by the time it ended, most fans were tired of the entire Spider-Man comic book line.
3) Inhumans vs. X-Men
Avengers vs. X-Men was a complicated event series, with neither team doing the smart thing to force them to fight. At least, it had the Phoenix Five and the eventual murder of Professor X by Cyclops to make it memorable. However, there is almost nothing redeemable about Inhumans vs. X-Men. This was mainly to build up the Inhumans, whom Marvel had wanted to promote as a replacement for the mutants, due to the Fox rights disagreement.
The worst part about this series was that if the two sides just talked to each other, they wouldn’t need to fight. Instead, they each took their actions to the extreme, and characters like Storm acted nothing like the characters readers had grown to love. There was also the problem that the Inhumans released the Terrigen Cloud, which would kill all mutants, and the storyline made it seem like the X-Men were the villains. Finally, the best part of the Inhumans is the Royal Family, and this attempt to create countless Inhumans on Earth to replace the mutants was met with fan rejection of the forced change.
2) Ultimatum
The Ultimatum storyline was the one that ruined Ultimate Marvel Comics for many fans. The central selling point of the Ultimate Universe was creating new, modern origin stories for Marvel characters and then placing them in a more realistic world. Initially, death meant something here and there were no resurrections (they would come later). There were also more brutal storylines.
However, Ultimatum’s biggest sin was that it was almost a parody of the universe and went in the opposite direction. Magneto murdered Professor X by snapping his neck. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch had an incestuous relationship, which led to her death. The Blob ate the Wasp, so Hank Pym bit the Blob’s head off. This event series had some fantastic stories following it in the Ultimate Universe, which is impressive because nothing about Ultimatum was good.
1) One More Day
The worst event in Marvel Comics history wasn’t a crossover series, but an event series in Spider-Man comics. One More Day is proof that Marvel Comics editors and creative teams hate Peter Parker. This occurred during the first Civil War event series, where, for some reason, Spider-Man followed Iron Man and revealed his identity to the world.
Peter wanted out, and Iron Man treated him like a villain for not following him anymore. This led to an assassination attempt, with the bullet striking Aunt May. What happened next was unexplainable. Peter and Mary Jane made a deal with Mephisto, retconning their marriage and all memories of being married, to save May’s life. Brand New Day marked the beginning of Peter’s new life, and fans have hated the moment ever since.
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