Favourite Superheroes Betrayed Their Fans:
Superheroes are supposed to be the bastion of hope and justice. They are the last lines of defense. They stand tall and strong when everything else around them falters. That is their trademark. They are champions of righteousness. But to say that they have not fumbled in their journey to upkeep the law will be a lie. Superheroes, even the ones we will follow to the ends of the Earth, have sometimes done some extremely questionable stuff. They have betrayed their fans by becoming the very thing they intend to save the world from – Evil.
1. Wolverine singlehandedly kills the X-Men
The Marvel Comic book Universe has several alternate universe storylines in place to keep you at the edges of your seats. In one such alternate reality arcs, we get to see the Old Man Logan universe. This universe shows us a bleak reality where the entirety of Earth’s superheroes has been killed by a globally coordinated strike by all the supervillains of the planet. The ones who survived have gone into hiding. Wolverine, now an old man and a shadow of his former self, lives in the Wastelands – an irradiated barren desert which was once the United States. Wolverine reveals that the X-Men, one of Marvel’s greatest superhero teams, was killed by him when Mysterio uses a powerful hallucinogen that tricks Logan into hallucinating that the X-Men as trespassing super villains.
2. Superman goes evil
The Big Blue Boy Scout can never go rogue. Right?! Wrong!! Even with the sturdiest of ideals ingrained into him, Superman still has the potential to become one of the most ruthless dictators to ever exist. In Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Joker tricks Superman with a modified version of the Joker Venom-Fear Toxin combination into killing Lois Lane, Superman’s wife who was pregnant with Clark’s Child. Superman finally loses it and kills the Joker in cold blood. But he does not stop there. Superman decides that the world must bow down to him and he shall remain the ultimate authority so that tragedies like this never happen again. Superman starts the Regime – a global council of super heroes and villains that act as his personal enforcers.
3. Omni-Man betrays the World
The Invincible comic book series that hit the stores back in 2003 is still considered a cult classic. They were one of the first comic book prints to parody the superhero genre and deliver a good storyline with amazing characters taking lead and supporting roles. Mark Grayson, son of the world’s most powerful Superhero – Omni-Man, inherits the powers of his father and becomes the new superhero Invincible. Halfway through the series, it is revealed that Omni-Man has no intention of saving the world. He is only playing along to prep the planet for an eventual invasion by his race. Guardians of the Globe – a superhero team that catches wind of his plans are mercilessly executed by Omni-Man so that everything goes according to plan.
4. Iron Man sides with the government in Civil War
While the Superhuman Registration Act or SRA remains a contentious topic, it is still a matter of personal freedom and liberty! Every person, super powered or not, has the right to privacy and must be endowed with the ability to say ‘No’. The SRA was poised to take away that right. It was evident why so many superheroes were against it. Many of the Superheroes even shockingly sided with the government in helping them enforce the law. But the one superhero we had never imagined would become a government stooge was Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Tony did not just side with the Government but even led the charge again Captain America and the Anti-SRA faction.
5. Gambit orchestrates the Mutant Massacre
Gambit was a fairly unknown character when he first debuted in the X-Men covers. Starting out as a burglar with a penchant to steal extremely valuable objects, Gambit soon became the right-hand man of Mister Sinister – a powerful X-Man foe obsessed with genetic mutations. He gave Gambit a task. Gambit was supposed to become the leader of the Marauders and travel to the sewer undergrounds and infiltrate the Morlocks’ lair.
His objective – kill all the Morlocks, which he executed flawlessly. The event later became infamous as the “Mutant Massacre”. Gambit has managed to salvage himself and become a respectable member of the mutant community but most will seldom forget the part he played in this infamous event.
6. Hal Jordan becomes Parallax
After Coast City is destroyed during the Reign of the Super-Men story arc, Hal Jordan tries to use the Power Ring to revive it. The Guardians of the Universe, as well as the rest of the Green Lanterns, ask him to stop. Hal, instead, goes on a furious rampage because he does not like being said not to. Hal kills many Green Lanterns in his wake and leaves Oa a devastated graveyard of corpses, even snapping Sinestro’s neck. But he does not stop there. Hal absorbs the entity of Fear and guardian angel of the Yellow Lantern Corps, Parallax, and for almost a decade, becomes a huge problem for the Justice League and the rest of the DC Universe.
7. Cyclops kills Professor X
The Phoenix Force came to Earth and divides itself into five parts, each part possessing one of five prominent superheroes of the X-Men – Namor, Colossus, Emma Frost, Magik, and Cyclops. Cyclops’ transition to one of the big bad wolves of the Avengers vs. X-Men is complete after he uses extremist and radical methodologies to fight back the Avengers. Cyclops leads a mutant assassination team and attacks both human and mutant installations. When things went sideways, Cyclops even killed Professor X, his long-time mentor who had come (unarmed) to reason with him. Cyclops even fought Wolverine when the latter objected to his decision of using child soldiers in his crusade against the world.
8. Batman’s contingency plans to kill the entire Justice League
In the acclaimed Tower of Babel storyline, the Batman Villain Ra’s Al Ghul, hacks into Batman’s computer to gain access to some critical secret information. What he stumbles upon is the mother lode. Batman has secret fail-safe plans in place to take down and even kill the rest of the Justice League members, should they go rogue. The methods he had listed down are so intricate and well-researched that the Justice League is taken aback. The fact that Batman, one of the founding members of the League could do such a devious thing behind their backs is enough for them to oust Bruce Wayne out of the group.
9. Captain America – Hail Hydra
The Secret Empire arc reveals just how screwed up the world of Marvel Comics can be when the best of humanity falters to temptation. The Cosmic Cube is used by Hydra to re-write the Origin story of Captain America – one of the greatest superheroes of Marvel Comics. He reveals himself to be a Hydra agent all along, with the new timeline now in place. Captain America goes on to use a global crisis as an opportunity to take control of Shield and the rest of the world, which had been thoroughly infiltrated by Hydra agents. But the most shocking moment was when Rick Jones is executed in cold blood.
10. Jean Grey becomes the Dark Phoenix
As one of the most side-lined characters in the X-Men, Jean Grey became the star of the day when she became the Dark Phoenix. As the Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey had command over the Phoenix Force, an entity that is so powerful it guards the Multi-Verse. As Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey entirely forsook her moral ethics and went on a total rampage throughout the universe. She killed a lot of the X-Men, destroyed Shi’ar battle-ships that tried to stop her (killing thousands of innocent Shi’ar troops) and destroyed a star and killed an entire planet, killing literally billions of sentient beings.
