Superhero movies are typically straightforward. There’s a bad guy who wants to rule or destroy the world, and the titular hero (or heroes) has to do everything in their power to stop them. However, while that formula worked for movies in the 1980s, such as Richard Donner’s Superman and Tim Burton’s Batman, there’s little chance it flies these days. Audiences expect big thrills, twists, and turns. Avengers: Infinity War is a great example because it pushes the envelope of what a comic book movie can be, following multiple teams of heroes as they fight a threat on multiple fronts. The Marvel Cinematic Universe movie also delivers a shocking twist at the end by having Thanos snap his fingers and wipe out half of existence.
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Not every movie twist is as great as the one in Infinity War, though. There are several major instances of Marvel films attempting to subvert expectations, only to fall face-first due to laughably bad execution.
1) Goose Takes Out Nick Fury’s Eye
Nick Fury already has an eye patch when he shows up in Iron Man‘s post-credits scene. The only time he references his missing eye is in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when he tells Steve Rogers that he doesn’t trust people because the last person he let get close cost him the organ.
Captain Marvel reveals the real story behind Fury’s eye, and it turns out that Goose, Carol Danvers’ cat-like alien pet, is to blame. It’s hard to look at Fury the same after he loses a battle with a feline.
2) It Was Wanda Maximoff All Along
WandaVision is about the trauma Wanda Maximoff deals with after she loses everyone close to her in the MCU. She takes over an entire town and essentially tortures its residents until she realizes the error of her ways.
Instead of turning over a new leaf, though, the newly dubbed Scarlet Witch turns heel in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The movie keeps her true intentions a secret at the start, but it doesn’t do a good job, hurting her character in the long run
3) Aldrich Killian Is the Mandarin
The Mandarin, a terrorist in charge of the Ten Rings organization, starts launching attacks all over the world in Iron Man 3. While Tony Stark does his best to stop him, he gets more than he bargained for when he learns the villain’s true identity.
It turns out the Mandarin is actually an actor named Trevor Slattery who is playing a part for Aldrich Killian, the leader of A.I.M. Killian tries to claim that he’s the real Mandarin at the end of the movie. However, his announcement falls flat after Pepper Potts hits him with a piece of metal.
4) Mysterio’s True Motivation
Mysterio looks to be the MCU’s next great hero when he bursts onto the scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home. He’s helping Fury deal with the Elementals and makes quick friends with Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Quentin Beck dupes the young hero.
Beck was a former employee at Stark Industries whom Tony disrespected. In retaliation, he dons the Mysterio persona and attempts to ruin Iron Man’s legacy. Mysterio ends up being a great villain, but his backstory can’t be taken seriously.
5) Jean Grey Killing Cyclops
Fox’s X-Men franchise is on a roll until it hits X-Men: The Last Stand. After Jean Grey seemingly dies at the end of X2, she returns as the Phoenix and appears in front of her beloved Scott Summers, who hasn’t been doing well.
The leader of the X-Men is happy to see his partner, but things take a turn quickly. The Phoenix kills Cyclops only a few minutes into The Last Stand, leaving other heroes to pick up the slack. Yes, James Marsden wanted to leave the role, but it’s still a great example of a twist done for pure shock value.
6) Weapon XI
The follow-up to The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is worse than its predecessor, making Logan’s origin story a snooze fest. One of its few redeeming qualities is Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson, who feels ripped right out of a comic book.
Sadly, toward the end of the movie, William Stryker removes Wade’s mouth when he becomes Weapon XI. The live-action debut of Deadpool is hilariously bad and something that Reynolds wants everyone to forget about.
7) X-Force’s Big Entrance
Once Deadpool gets his own franchise, the character stars firing on all cylinders. He cracks a joke at every opportunity and turns the gore meter up to eleven. He can’t do everything on his own, though.
When the odds are stacked against him in Deadpool 2, Wade puts together X-Force, a new group of heroes that looks ready to rival the X-Men. However, they only survive all of 30 seconds, dying immediately after falling out of a plane on their first mission. While the scene is supposed to be funny, there’s so much wasted potential in it.
8) Almost All the Original X-Men Are Dead
X-Men: First Class gets the mutant franchise back on track, introducing a new generation of heroes that will work alongside a young Charles Xavier. The end of the movie features them coming together as a team and stopping the Cuban Missile Crisis.
First Class‘ sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, takes a bunch of the new mutants off the board, killing them to make way for the original versions of characters to return. It was going to be tough to give everyone the screen time they deserved, but killing Banshee, Angel, and Emma Frost wasn’t the move.
9) Galactus Is a Giant Cloud
Galactus makes his MCU debut in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is great because his first live-action appearance comes in a lackluster movie. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer sees the titular team deal with the threat of the Devourer of Worlds, but they can’t really fight him.
See, Galactus in Fox’s franchise is a giant purple cloud rather than a giant person. He doesn’t even talk in Rise of the Silver Surfer, leaving his herald to do all the heavy lifting, including eventually taking him down.
10) The Vulture Is Back
No Marvel list about bad things is complete without an entry from Sony’s universe. Morbius brings the Spider-Man villain to live-action in a lackluster fashion, pitting him against a forgettable villain.
The worst sin the movie commits, though, is bringing back Michael Keaton’s Vulture and revealing that he’s putting together a team to fight Peter Parker. Morbius doesn’t have any reason to fight the Wall-Crawler, making the twist feel completely out of left field.
Which of the Marvel twists on this list do you think is the worst? Is there another one that deserves recognition? Let us know in the comments below!
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