The Marvel Cinematic Universe is packed with characters, and many of them received their powers in pretty traumatic ways. Since the live-action franchise began in 2008, the MCU has grown to include a staggering number of characters from the Marvel Universe. Using the most popular arcs from the comics as inspiration, the movies of the MCU have seen it become one of the biggest and most successful franchises in cinematic history. While much of its strength lies in its shared universe premise, the MCU is also aided by the strength of its characters’ individual stories, which are often both incredibly comprehensive and utterly unique.
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Although they’re almost exclusively action-packed affairs, Marvel movies occasionally offer up some emotionally taxing stories. The saddest MCU movies have earned themselves a reputation for being especially upsetting, particularly when it comes to giving characters tragic backstories. Sometimes, the best characters come from the worst origins imaginable, and while audiences have grown to love them implicitly, these characters’ respective stories are often incredibly emotional.
7) Wiccan
Although he might not quite be one of the MCU’s most powerful magic users, Wiccan is one of the franchise’s magical characters with the saddest backstory. Having been created out of grief by Wanda Maximoff’s chaos magic, Billy Maximoff then found himself in the body of the recently deceased William Kaplan, with the pair’s respective identities merged into a single being. Uncovering the truth of his magical origins and his own conflicting memories and emotions regarding his nature and parentage makes Wiccan’s backstory altogether pretty traumatic.
6) Rocket
As well as being one of the most prominent members of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU, Rocket boasts one of the most traumatic backstories in the franchise. After receiving enhanced intelligence as a result of the High Evolutionary’s genetic experimentation, Rocket and his animal friends attempt to escape captivity. Being the only survivor of the attempt shapes Rocket’s MCU character in a major way, as he’s shown to have witnessed his friends experiencing perhaps the saddest Marvel movie deaths of all time.
5) Wolverine
Wolverine is one of Marvel’s most iconic movie heroes, and his arrival in the MCU was a big deal. However, as Hugh Jackman’s iteration of the character originated in Fox’s X-Men franchise, the traumatic nature of his origins is easy to overlook in the context of the MCU. As well as the standard Wolverine origin story involving a painful adamantium grafting procedure and outliving everyone he ever loved, the MCU’s Wolverine has a dark past involving the death of his fellow X-Men, making it somehow even more traumatic than expected.
4) Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver
The Maximoff twins might be two very different characters, but they share an origin story, and it’s pretty traumatic. After their home was hit by Stark Industries missiles, the twins spent days trapped with the remains of their deceased parents in their crumbling apartment before being rescued. This led them on a quest for revenge, which saw them assist in the creation of Ultron, eventually resulting in the pair joining the Avengers, only for Quicksilver to die soon after. The trauma the pair both suffered is a key part of their MCU characterization, and their origin story is an incredibly tragic tale.
3) Moon Knight
Moon Knight’s arrival in the MCU was a great moment for the character, and one that introduced general audiences to his traumatic backstory. As revealed in his MCU TV show, Marc Spector’s childhood was defined by the tragic accidental death of his brother, after which he was repeatedly abused by his mother. The trauma resulted in Marc developing dissociative identity disorder, and while it didn’t directly contribute to him becoming the show’s titular hero, it remains a key part of the character’s origins.
2) Bucky Barnes
Since his introduction, Bucky Barnes has had many great MCU moments. He’s also one of the franchise’s most notable examples of a hero with an incredibly traumatic origin story. After enlisting to fight in World War II, Bucky was kidnapped by Hydra and experimented on before being brainwashed into becoming the assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Breaking free from his conditioning after seven decades, Bucky finally managed to regain some of his humanity, but is still forced to live with the traumatic memories of the Winter Soldier’s deeds, which were ultimately committed against his will.
1) Star-Lord
Introduced as a light-hearted MCU hero, Star-Lord turned out to be one of the most emotionally damaged characters in the MCU. Immediately after his mother’s death, Star-Lord was taken by Yondu and raised among the Ravagers, who constantly threatened to eat him. He later learned that his father, Ego, had not only killed his mother but had created him solely to assist in the destruction of multiple planets, marking Star-Lord’s origin story as one characterized by traumatic revelations and emotional moments of loss.
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