Top 5 Darkest Marvel Comics! Too Dark For The MCU

when you read a superhero comic book you usually know what you're in for the good guys win the world is saved and the villains learn that crime does not pay but what happened when things go wrong when the bad guys win or things seem absolutely hopeless in these dark marvel stories our heroes face impossible odds and are torn down to their very lowest whether giving up on heroism altogether or being dragged to literal hell these stories push the heroes to the very edge forcing them to make morally questionable choices and question just what makes a

hero some of these stories are alternate realities but some involve the heroes of the main marvel universe facing their very bleakest moments spider-man reign death isn't scary giving up is spider-man rain takes place in a dark future version of new york where superheroes have been outlawed peter parker is an old man down on his luck and completely miserable a total loser stuck in a string of dead-end jobs he can't hold down at the outset he had already given up on being a hero and helping others and was now a complete shut-in weakened sniveling and haunted

by his many failures crime had been wiped out but at the expense of individual freedoms new york was now controlled by a corrupt mayor and his police enforcers known as the rain one night while walking home in the rain a young boy on the run from the rain crashed into the elderly peter parker he begged for peter's help as the police wrestled him to the ground and violently beat him for a moment it seemed like the former spider-man might break out of his funk and save the boy cracking his smirking getting ready to launch insults

at the cops in classic spider-man banter but instead he simply took a beating from the reign who smashed his nose and broke his arm but the real pain came when after pulling himself back up to his feet peter turned to see the boy's sister who asked him you just let them take him how could you peter walked away into the silence without saying anything just fired from his job he was simply trying to bring home some flowers for mary jane but they had been ruined in the scuffle when he arrived back at his rundown apartment

he apologized to his sickly white redhead trying to explain what had happened he begged her to speak to him but she just sat there silently he lashed out demanding her to speak but in truth no one was there peter was alone haunted by the memory of his dead wife mary jane but before we explain just what is going on here remember to subscribe to the channel with notifications on so you never miss an upload and hit that like button for some more plot armor comics peter parker's life is famously a mess perpetually broke or looking

for a job or struggling in love but this dark vision of spider-man's future took the old parker luck to a whole other level peter wasn't just struggling though he was in a seemingly endless spiral of depression and shame and had lost his marbles a little bit okay a lot peter was trying to forget his life as spider-man and putting that whole great power great responsibility mantra behind him but a visit from his old boss j jonah jameson pulled him back now regretting his years of calling spidey a menace jameson was trying to make up for

his misdeeds by fighting against the authoritarian government of new york that had stripped people of their freedoms and hope he presented the decrepit pete with a camera and spider-man mask to remind him who he used to be peter recoiled in horror and shame collapsing to the ground in his underpants you know curling up and laying down naked on the floor that famous thing superheroes do outside of peter's apartment the rain were beating jameson for his protests against their authority a few moments later an underpants wearing mask marauder dramatically descended from the sky as if peter

was possessed by an outside force spider-man was back jumping and flipping and telling jokes the rest of the series follows peter as he grappled with reclaiming his identity as spider-man while the mayor unleashed spider-man's old villains to capture and kill him spider-man's reappearance inspired the people to stand up against the government and the authorities as a crowd of protesters surrounded parker's apartment which had been reported at the site of spider-man's reappearance the rain bombed his building but leaping out from the smoke came a figure dressed in black spider-man still lived putting the spider-man suit back

on it was as if he was suddenly a man possessed by an outside entity the pathetic old man was replaced by the athletic bounding wisecracking spider-man peter couldn't even understand why he was suddenly behaving so differently it was like the mask unleashed someone that he had long buried away but even with his renewed vigor he was no match for the combined might of the release sinister six who beat him bloody until the corpse of doctor octopus rescued him doc ock's corpse was now being controlled by his mechanical arms and they were on a mission to

save spider-man before he died och had seen the wall crawler as a kind of brother octavius's arms had dragged peter to a cemetery where he sat before the graves of mae parker ben parker and mary jane auka dug up mary jane's corpse to retrieve what was buried with her and that's when things got really weird confronted with the corpse of his beloved wife peter wrapped his arms around her and sobbed remembering the last time he saw her alive he tried to apologize to mj's corpse telling her how sorry he was that he had poisoned her

it wasn't just his blood that was radioactive but all of the fluids in his body loving him had sentenced her to die this is both extremely tragic and extremely disturbing in so many ways his greatest regret the thing that caused him to quit being spider-man was when he left her on her deathbed to fight crime he had promised to come back to her but in the end could not be with her now tangled up with the dead body its fingers clawing at his mouth admitted his greatest shame he was a liar he had promised that

he would rather rip out his own heart than harm mary jane but he was the reason she was dead with these words mary jane was torn away from him by ox arms leaving him bleeding and crying and chasing after her where he was led to a coffin peter entered ready to let go of his pathetic life we warned you that these were the darkest marvel stories of all time and this won't even be the only time we see spider-man in a coffin in this video the main conflict of the story besides peter parker's internal torment

and wrestling with reclaiming his identity as spider-man is that the mayor of new york city intends to extend his authoritarian power by erecting a laser-powered grid around the entire city of manhattan this grid would close it off and make it inaccessible from the outside world in order to create a city free of crime but at the cost of all freedom eventually the comic reveals that the real power behind the mayor's efforts to close off new york and make it a police state was actually venom the evil symbiote who had moved on to a new host

the alien creature wanted revenge on spider-man for isolating and leaving him abandoned in the original black costume saga everything venom had done to control new york was to spread that same fear and make the island of manhattan a feeding ground for his symbiote spawn children this version of venom is particularly creepy a pulsing black mass of goop that absorbs everything all light all people he towers over everything and has an insatiable hunger and lust for violence it is maybe the scariest venom has ever been especially his reveal where the black goo oozes out of his

host's skin down his teeth and unleashes his tendrils that stab and absorb innocent bystanders the story comes to its climax when spider-man emerges from the coffin reborn in his classic red and blue costume that peter had buried alongside his wife so many years ago the cowardly shameful peter parker was dead and now spider-man was back and ready to fight and singing his classic theme song to boot in the closing issue spider-man tries to distract the symbiotes and free the people of new york from their new prison in the process hoping to inspire them even if

it means sacrificing his own life through these efforts spider-man becomes a symbol to the people that anyone can become a hero if they are willing to put their life on the line to save others spider-man fights his way through the sinister six quipping and jumping just like old times to get to venom all the while symbiotes are rampaging eating the people of the city and causing chaos when spidey finally confronts his old foe he leads him to the top of the empire state building to the laser grid isolating the city the symbiotes follow him beating

him bloody but spidey has been newly inspired with an unfamiliar spark of hope now he was ready to fight the good fight in memory of mary jane who always supported him surrounded by venom in its countless offspring spidey detonates a massive explosion that destroys the laser grid and vanquishes the symbiotes this dark future is a bleak vision of a world where every man peter parker is at the lowest he has ever been it's a tale of how a man comes back from the brink after losing everything dark though it may be it ends with a

hopeful message that despair can be overcome and that acts of selflessness can ripple across society and inspire others to heroic action age of apocalypse this is the time of your undoing i have waited centuries for this day to dawn and who if any are worthy enough to oppose me none of you from a dystopian alternate future to a twisted version of the present the age of apocalypse is a depressing tale of how the death of one man can change all of reality it all starts when professor xavier sun the reality warping not quite sane mutant

named legion traveled back in time to killed magneto the master of magnetism for distorting his father's mission of peace between humanity and mutant kind as legion prepared to kill a younger magneto before he could do any of his evil deeds xavier jumped in front of legion's attack and he was killed instead legion was horrified at what he had done and screamed in horror when he realized the paradox he had created but there was no time to deal with the weight of his actions before reality warped around him in the x-men and they blinked out of

existence the echoes of this change to the time stream rippled through reality ending all of creation in a wave of frozen crystal before all of existence shattered in the place of marvel universe as readers knew it came a new age the age of apocalypse with no professor xavier to form the x-men the arrival of apocalypse meant the end of the world apocalypse is one of the x-men's greatest villains an ancient mutant obsessed with the evolution and perfection of life on earth through survival of the fittest how dark is this reality well apocalypse sits upon a

throne floating above a massive pyre where he breathes in the scent of hundreds of thousands of burning skeletons i find the aroma soothing they were weak and such is their fate we enter into the world at a time when apocalypse had already taken over the united states after a series of violent cullings of humanity there are only small pockets of resistance both human and mutant these mutant traitors to apocalypse are led by magneto who was inspired by xavier's death to carry on his dream of uniting humans and mutants instead of supremacy now that apocalypse ruled

the us with an iron fist he was entering into a peace treaty with the other nations of the world that would see an end to his campaign to kill off all humans and make a world of only the fittest and strongest mutants of course due to his evil nature he was lying in truth he was on the cusp of world domination and creating an even greater division between humans and mutants that would sink the planet into endless war so dark was this age of apocalypse that when a young child living in one of apocalypse's human

war camps managed to survive being hunted by the disgusting mutant madmen sugar man she couldn't even be happy because it meant she was still alive conditions in these work camps were so cruel and miserable that even children could not find any joy this dark world saw all kinds of changes in characters heroes and villains alike one of the original x-men hank mccoy aka beast was now a sadistic scientist at the service of mr sinister and apocalypse this dark beast was a master of genetic experimentation and torture and he did it gleefully i am well compensated

for my labors but just between you and me i do this for free meanwhile colossus is one of the most gentle characters in the regular marvel universe but in this change reality he is a deadly grim enforcer for a magneto responsible for training new x-men and having them fight to the death tormented by his human sister iliana's murder he had given up hope and joined magneto's x-men to put an end to apocalypse the main story of this brawling epic follows magneto trying to set things right after encountering the time traveling mutant bishop bishop was the

only survivor of the old reality because he was already a time traveling paradox with the help of rogues mutant powers to absorb people's memories magneto learned the truth of what reality should be and pledged to go back and save xavier in order to prevent this apocalypse ravaged present the x-men soon discovered that in fact colossus's sister iliana had survived and she might be the key to putting an end to this reality they believed that she had latent mutant powers that would help them travel back in time colossus took his young x-men to rescue ileana from

the human camps they risked their lives fighting sugarman and his evil guards things look like they might work out but reinforcements were soon called in desperate to keep his sister alive colossus left his trainees behind to fend for themselves as the evil forces of apocalypse crashed down upon them after getting his sister to safety he eventually turned back to help the young freedom fighters but upon seeing the horde of enemies and the impossible odds he shamefully closed the gate behind him and collapsed in shame he had willfully let the young mutants die a selfless hero

in the main universe the colossus of age of apocalypse was more concerned with being reunited with his sister than the greater good this is just another example of how age of apocalypse is such a dark timeline in the mainstream universe colossus is almost single-mindedly devoted to trying to do the right thing and fiercely loyal to his teammates showing him so morally compromised illustrates just how bad things had become meanwhile a pair of mutant spies weapon x this reality's version of wolverine and jean grey were working from intelligence provided by mr sinister sinister opposed apocalypse for

his own selfish desires and helped the humans organize a massive rescue in what they called the great sentinel airlift this mission resulted in the rescue of thousands of humans from apocalypses grasp and carry them to europe but it was only a brief moment of victory and hope apocalypse was planning to decimate the entire world to prevent apocalypse's assault weapon x and the humans unleashed their massive payload of nuclear weapons upon the mutant-controlled us though he hoped to lead the charge the bombs were sent through a portal without logan the mutant was upset that he would

have to live with the consequences having signing on to the mission believing he would die along with a villainous mutants that way he would not need to feel the weight of the decisions he had made and the many lives that would be taken as this all went on the heroic mutants were beginning to hope that maybe they could change things for the better but apocalypse had discovered magneto's secret base and confronted him the two engaged in an epic battle both unleashing their mighty powers upon the other in the end apocalypse managed to capture magneto but

magneto did not regret his actions that led to his capture and possible death he believed that his x-men could recover the dream of his fallen friend charles xavier the final key to the x-men strategy to rewrite history was the m quran crystal the nexus of all realities a cosmic relic that held all of the knowledge of the universe and the power to alter creation an apocalypse was holding it as bait to lure the x-men to him now you might be able to guess that the x-men did eventually set reality back to the way it was

given that they are not still telling stories where apocalypse rules the planet but even in victory the x-men still lose rewriting reality had great personal costs for the heroes magneto had to make the decision to live in a world where his son never existed while ileana agreed to sacrifice herself to bring back a reality where she had died but they do it for the chance of hope as ileana says i'd rather have hope than nothing at all there is no truly happy ending here no matter the outcome as the x-men began their final desperate assault

the atomic destruction from the human freedom fighters in europe was making its way toward apocalypse's base in new york threatening the lives of all the x-men the only thing that held the nuclear destruction back was jean grey's telekinetic power the war had begun and apocalypse was readying his counter-strike to destroy europe and humanity's refuge this was the only chance they would ever have to set things right they managed to get ileana to the crystal where she used its powers to amplify her own abilities and create a portal through time for bishop to return to the

moment legion killed xavier but they had to contend with more than just the villains colossus went crazy trying to stop ileana from sacrificing herself and fought his fellow x-men to stop his rampage his wife kitty pryde stepped in front of him believing he would never hurt her unfortunately he couldn't stop himself and killed her with his incredible strength utterly mortified by his actions he collapsed leaving an opening for gamba to shoot him with his explosive powers eliana returned from entering the m-cron crystal and sending bishop back in time but he was dying he admitted to

ileana that he was so scared and that he was no hero remember what we said about no happy endings as bishop traveled to the past magneto fought to keep apocalypse away from the crystal and the two powerful mutants engaged in an epic rematch for the aegis with everything on the line they unleashed all of their power upon one another bishop confronted legion daring the young mutant to peer into his mind and see the consequences of his actions upon seeing the fallout of his attack legion broke down literally and metaphorically ashamed of what he had done

legion's powers overloaded and wiped him out of reality bishop began to fade as well the alternate timeline was successfully averted as the age of apocalypse crumbled magneto unleashed the true might of his magnetic mastery upon the tyrant and ripped apocalypse in two in apocalypse's final moments magneto taunted him for 20 years you've gone on and on about how only the strong survive tell me again apocalypse just how strong you are the victory was short-lived and bittersweet as the alternate timeline collapsed magneto held his wife and child remembering the man who inspired him to hope as

existence collapsed into white nothingness around them ready for a breather yet well that's a shame if so because the darkness keeps coming we haven't even covered the hulk versus the devil yet craven's last hunt i will die soon i must die soon but not yet it's raining in new york city and you know what that means it's going to be a sad story as this classic spider-man tells set in the main marvel continuity begins spider-man is in a very dark place and as usual when peter parker gets sad or angry he's in his black costume

his friend ned leeds had just died and consumed with the thoughts of death he joined some petty crooks for the funeral of a criminal named joe face as he watched he couldn't help but wonder why he should care if this man was dead still he did and came to pay his respects peter parker had seen so many people die when would his time be he wondered we didn't say this was a list of the most feel-good marvel stories after all spidey was not the only one contemplating his mortality his old enemy craven the hunter was

facing the end of his own life aging and falling ill he was determined to prove his superiority over his greatest game spider-man after losing to him so many times craven had become obsessed with the idea of proving himself to be stronger and better than spider-man before he died and to do that he would have to face and kill spider-man it should also be said that in addition to dying kraven was also losing his grasp on reality he had begun to hallucinate that spider-man was not just a wall-crawling crime fighter but an embodiment of some great

societal evil the same evil that destroyed the russian aristocracy from which he descended the same evil that caused his mother to go mad in order to prepare for their final battle craven immersed himself in spider-man's beam burying himself in a sea of spiders and feasting on them he believed this prepared him to absorb and know spider-man intimately by feasting on the essence of the spider he could understand it pretty gross craven distraught and distracted by his own anxiety spidey was caught by surprise and hit by one of craven's darts he tried to fight back but

the dart was drugged and he was rapidly losing consciousness craven caught spider-man in his net leaving spider-man trapped and defenseless dizzy from the poison but determined to escape spider-man tried his usual banter but craven slowly walked toward him spidey saw something strange in craven's eyes this was not the arrogant man he knew craven had become overcome with a horrifying madness and malice craven raised the shotgun to spidey's head spider-man could do nothing but look on in terror as the hunter pulled the trigger blam in the first issue's final pages craven looked on as spider-man was

buried in a coffin tears running down his face in the rain craven's next step in his victory over the spider was to prove he was a better more effective hero he approached spider-man's grave marker adorned with the words here lie spider-man slain by the hunter but he was not dressed in his usual hunting garb instead wearing a copy of spider-man's costume he removed the mask and began to laugh uncontrollably to fully take on spider-man's bean craven began to crawl embodying his enemies movements he soon hallucinated a monstrous spider creature and entered into a metaphysical battle

with the representation of his fears even as he did all of this part of him recognized its madness and asked himself why he was doing any of it the madness had consumed him and he blamed spider-man or the entity that possessed him for his family's fall from grace and russia's global decline part of him knew that he had only created this hallucination to cope with his failure to defeat a mere human such as spider-man another part of him was convinced that the only way craven the hunter could lose was if spider-man was some ancient force

this story paints a particularly tragic image of kraven who was one of spider-man's more pathetic villains up to that point a guy who dressed in a lion's pelting carried an old-fashioned spear he was not much of a physical threat but giving him such a psychological examination gave him a whole new dimension his massive ego combined with whatever terminal illness was looming over craven's head led to a psychotic break having faced the spider demon it was time to prove he was a better hero than the original wall crawler craven went on a violent crusade even rescuing

mary jane who was looking for her missing husband from a mugging seeing how brutally he beat her attackers mj knew that peter was not behind the mask and feared something horrible had happened to him craven turned his sights on a mutated creature called vermin who spider-man only managed to defeat with the help of captain america sometime earlier by single-handedly defeating an enemy spider-man could not craven would prove his greatness craven tracked vermin down through the stinking sewers of new york city and beat him brutally wailing on the simple-minded cannibal as he thrashed and cut at

craven but the hunter ignored the pain and rose victorious over his prey as craven accomplished his mission a hand rose out from spider-man's grave it turns out that craven hadn't killed spider-man in truth the hunter had shot spider-man full of drugs that left him catatonic for two weeks buried beneath the ground peter was left to hallucinate as he flitted in and out of consciousness six feet underground he was tormented by visions of his dead friend dead leads and monsters squashing him and the image of craven taunting him spider-man clawed his way out of the coffin

and threw the layers of dirt dramatically bursting out from beneath the ground groggy and sickly he managed to stumble half-conscious back home to mary jane who had nearly given up hope that peter was still alive reunited the two embraced their love for one another was the only thing that had kept both going and now they were back together but spider-man could not let craven continue prowling around in his name and prepared to leave in the middle of the night with her husband crouched in the window mary jane made peter promise he would return he took

her hand endearingly before leaping from the window to confront his killer spidey arrived at craven's lair where the hunter was keeping vermin locked up in a cage and torturing him while disguised as spider-man upon seeing this the real spider-man was horrified and began to beat craven in anger but craven no longer had any desire to fight he had already won he had killed spider-man symbolically by burying him and defeating vermin craven felt that the wall crawler would be dead if he had wished it to be so by burying him and donning his skin he proved

himself superior to his enemy craven then unleashed vermin to attack spider-man silently the hunter watched as vermin attacked the exhausted spider-man in a brief moment of clarity amid his madness craven realized all that he had done he chased vermin off and helped spider-man to his feet he had won and that was enough he finally saw the man beneath the mask not the ancient creature he had imagined he let spider-man go encouraged him to track down vermin and promise that he would never hunt again spider-man was skeptical but believed craven to be a man of his

word honorable in his own way after spider-man left craven pondered the unfamiliar feeling of accomplishment as he raised his gun and turned it upon himself it doesn't get much darker or tragic than this spider-man went on to catch vermin and reunite with his wife mary jane but the victory wasn't a particularly happy one given all that they had just went through the best they could manage was gratitude that they were back together but don't let it get you down we're about to talk about the elite x-men kill squad for a pick-me-up x-force angels and demons

you think i don't know the line i'm crossing i do this isn't x-men work this is x-force no one can know now this is a series that really pushed the boundaries of what superhero stories could depict and still be considered a story about heroes it's a bloody story of clandestine spies and assassins led by wolverine tasked with eliminating the biggest threats to mutankind while exploring the moral questions of their actions did i mention it's bloody in the first two issues alone nearly 50 people were killed the setup is this mutantkind has been decimated after the

events of house of m with only a few hundred left they were further whittled down by a massacre at the hands of the religious zealots known as the purifiers who consider mutants to be literal demon spawn cyclops the leader of the x-men and now all of the remaining mutants alive on the planet earth believed they needed a team to proactively deal with threats to their endangered species that's where wolverine came in wolverine was bred to do that kind of thing and was more than willing to do what needed to be done but he was furious

to discover cyclops had enlisted the younger mutants that wolverine believed should be left out of such dirty work this included x-23 his artificially created daughter as well as the young mutant shapeshifter wolfsbane wolverine tried to talk x23 out of being part of the x-force warning her that once she started down this killer path nothing could ever wash her hands clean but having survived torture and experimentation x-23 was prepared to follow in wolverine's footsteps and live in his morally compromised blood-stained world this would be the start of what would become known in the world of x-men

as the schism a split developed between the mutants into two factions one led by cyclops and the other by wolverine they disagreed on how to cope with their decimated status and how to survive in the short term though wolverine agreed that bad needs needed doing for the right reasons and was willing to do those bad things together with a native american mutant code named warpath this team of mutant assassins came together to deal with the purifiers in their first mission wolf's bane was captured when fellow x-men angel found out about this he wanted to tell

the rest of the x-men but cyclops forbade it warning angel that this was a covert operation that couldn't become public knowledge cyclops may have a reputation for being a bland character but throughout this series he was getting progressively more underhanded and morally compromised making all kinds of harsh decisions for what he believed was mutant survival when he began to see his fellow mutants as pieces to move around a board as opposed to people he had gone too far even for wolverine but there was no time for wolverine and cyclops to argue because they had a

teammate to rescue after raiding purifier bases throughout the midwest leaving a bloody path behind them x-force eventually managed to free wolfsbane unfortunately she was horribly tortured and in bad shape they were also unaware that the purifiers had succeeded in revitalizing the advanced human sentinel hybrid known as bastion to lead them to a world without mutants who then recruited some of the x-men's greatest anti-mutant foes and turned them into deadly ghoulish cyborgs bent on wiping out all of mutant kind while the mutant healer elixir tended to wolf spain wolverine lectured x-23 furious at her for being

unable to feel empathy for her fellow mutants x-23 was focused only on the strategy in trying to figure out why the purifiers left wolf spain alive but wolverine was trying to convince her to see that saving lives was the most important thing not taking orders or fulfilling the mission a short time later wolf's bane awoken ruthlessly attacked angel and elixir she viciously tore off angel's wings and then escaped x-23 tried to stop her but she remembered wolverine's lecture and refused to fight her fellow mutant instead wolf spain brutally assaulted her and left x-23 unconscious and

bleeding later after healing x-23 discovered that elixir was unable to affect angel's wings because they were made of inorganic matter at the same time the evil purifiers had discovered that angel's wings contained what they called the apocalypse strand and that from one drop of blood from the wings they could grow metallic wings inside a host's body this was a revelation that the experiments and transformation that apocalypse had performed on angel years ago to make him one of his horsemen were still a part of him although he had appeared to be cured the purifiers planned to

use angel's wings to create an army of flying mutant murdering soldiers soon angels screamed in pain as wolverine and warpath tried to hold him down but he was too strong for them and fought them off as he roared in agony new metallic wings sprouted from his back and turned blue the archangel had returned angel's dark persona created by apocalypse's manipulation many years prior it's just another horrific scene among many too many in fact to describe in this list let's just say that archangel has a tough time trying to fight the violent urges that come with

the return of his apocalypse imbued powers x-force is a fascinating and compelling series that ran for more than two years and asks big questions and deals with heavy themes of violence and emotional cost of war it's not a feel-good theory by any means but definitely one worth reading as it explores the inner lives of some of the x-men's most complex characters and it's got plenty of bloody action for those who just like to see wolverine slice things the same can be said minus the wolverine slicing part for our final story which sees the whole drag

to hell and back multiple times immortal hulk the night is his time like x-force this is one gruesome book it takes the hulk and puts it through a horror lens turning his transformation into a disgusting body distorting nightmare after multiple deaths and resurrections the hulk has returned as a creature of the night in the series debut issue bruce banner has been traveling the country in lane low after recovering from being killed by his fellow avenger hawkeye immortal hulk is one of marvel's most complex and character-driven stories and describing it briefly is near impossible so we'll

run through the highlights and explain it why it deserves to be on this list of the darkest marvel stories like craven's last hunt and x-force this is set in continuity not an alternate reality like age of apocalypse or spider-man reign and it makes it all the more horrifying banner's attempts to lay low ended when in the wrong place at the wrong time he witnessed a young girl shot and killed during a robbery before he could protest the robber shot banner point blank in the skull killing him immediately but upon nightfall banner awoken the morgan turned

green on the outskirts of town the robber a young man named tommy returned to his game shaken from what he had done a thunderous boom rocked the warehouse and the gang scattered looking for who might have attacked them one by one the crew is picked off as green massive hands break through the walls tommy tried to escape fumbling with his key in his cars locked but the monster caught up with him revealing itself as the incredible hulk alive and well and more intelligent and frightening than ever sandra anne bronchus the hulk told tommy that was

her name she was 12. instead of smashing and destroying tommy the hulk taunted the boy calling him weak insane the gun gave him a false sense of power that he couldn't wait to unleash frightened tommy shot the hulk three times but the bullets harmlessly bounced off his body hulk explained that he was able to track tommy because he could smell a liar and ever since he killed that girl tommy had been lying to himself that he was not a bad guy tommy begged for his life pleaded with the hulk that he wasn't really a bad

guy was he hulk just smiled and asked what do you think before everything went black the boy woke up in the hospital his body absolutely shattered this new hulk was an entirely new personality never seen before a crusader for justice with a twisted sense of morality who avenged the abuse or downtrodden by inflicting twisted punishments befitting their crimes in a small town hulk encountered a gamma-powered vampire who fed on the life force of strangers to stay alive the vampire was afraid of being lost in the abyss and nothingness of death so hulk buried him deep

below the ground where he would be forever surrounded by nothingness as the debut issue closed benner looked in the mirror where he saw the hulk in his reflection and asked hulk the same question tommy had i'm not a bad person am i this new hulk who would later call himself the devil hulk was born as a protector personality for bruce banner to survive the abuses of his father banner had long buried this particular personality beneath his other whole personas fearing the devoted and violent loyalty it had to him and the potential violence it could unleash

but now after so many deaths the devil was free however he only transformed at night and was weakened during the day no matter how hurt banner was even if he was dead once night came he was healed and hulk would be free over time as he continued traveling the country hulk came across a number of gamma radiation powered enemies all of whom started talking in horror about seeing a green door and someone staring at them through the door someone frightening and from below the mystery of this green door and the truth behind hulk's seeming immortality

are the main focus of the series in a battle with the canadian superhero called sasquatch a fellow gamma-powered superhero possessed by an unknown entity sasquatch killed banner it hurt to die doesn't it bruce he asked as he bled out on the floor banner's eyes turned green managing to choke out the word always before transforming into the hulk and when you heard banner hulk warned sasquatch i'll take it personal the two super-powered brawlers fought smashing through walls as they traded incredible blows in the middle of the night hulk got a glimpse of sasquatch reflection it's all

staring back in him the specter of bruce banner's abusive father who called him a little monster this rattled the hulk and sasquatch began to beat him savagely saying he always knew bruce had a monster inside of him and that he should have killed him in the crib not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear your dad say about you especially when he's a hairy brute slashing claws at you despite his strength hulk cowered in fear at his father's presence the scars of his abusive relationship never fully healing banner's father accused him of being

scared which made the hulk furious and managed to snap him out of his cowaring he raged at sasquatch and demanded to know who opened the green door and brought the gamma-powered mutates back after death hulk continued to beat an explanation out of his enemy he explained that there was something that used people wearing their souls like a mask the only explanation he gave was these haunting words every light cast a shadow in every mirror there is a reflection as above so below sasquatch gouged out the hulk's eyes and taunted him to see the truth as

the possessed monster threatened to murder children hulk lashed out realizing that somehow it was the gamma radiation that opened the green door he then revealed a new ability he could absorb the gamma radiation from other beings hulk took in the sasquatch's power which violently and gruesomely transformed the beast back into his human form walking through the lonely night hulk turned to look at his reflection and saw the image of his father staring back at him by absorbing sasquatch's gamma banner also absorbed the twisted spirit of his father who now lived in his mind alongside the

various hulk personalities soon the avengers approached the hulk to try to convince him to stop his new twisted form of justice but as often happens when the avengers tried to calm down the hulk they end up fighting hulk was more powerful than ever and laid waste to the earth's mightiest heroes his strength was so great it frightened thor who feared that the hulk had moved beyond mere mortals and had become a kind of god or devil after destroying iron man's hulkbuster armor and swatting away the she-hulk as if she was nothing tony stark escaped and

retreated to an aircraft high above the battlefield desperate to stop hulk tony fired the ship's massive laser which resulted in an explosion that leveled an entire town captain america and black panther looked down at the charred corpse of bruce banner horrified tony explained that this was the only thing that could stop the hulk's rampage but captain america couldn't get past the fact that they had killed their old friend black panther reminded cap that it was a temporary measure and that once hulk was captured and they removed the artificial sunlight that kept his transformation at bay

the hulk would live again sometimes you just have to wonder just how good a friend iron man really is first he shot hulk into space to get rid of him and now he flat out killed him even if they were pretty sure he'd get better killing bruce banner and saying it was for his own good is pretty dark which is part of why it made this list the avengers handed banner off to thunderbolt ross hulk's former father-in-law and long-time nemesis from the u.s military ross gave the corpse over to shadow base a secret military black

site deep underground hulk awoke in an underground laboratory where his body had been cut into pieces and jarred before nightfall leaving hulk helplessly sitting on the shelf pretty grim stuff these gross experiments with hulk being torn apart and studied were not even the darkest part of the series although it is maybe the best example of just how gross and twisted the story could be hulk eventually managed to escape his jar containment and heal himself but he did so by reconstituting his body around the scientists who tortured him literally absorbing and killing the man while that

is some pretty nasty stuff the darkest parts of the series had to do with the exploration of hulk's greatest enemy the one below all who resided in the below place the hulk eventually ended up in a place below hell hulk learned that this place had become a kind of staging area for anyone with gamma in their blood who was killed after death they would arrive in this below place until the green door appeared and they walked through the back into their earthly bodies but none can ever remember traveling through this place traveling through the place

below all hulk was tormented by figments of hatred and fear from his past which caused the devil hulk to lose control in his place the classic savage hulk reemerged the savage hulk unleashed his fury and rage and sadness on the monsters until he was eventually talked down by his new friend a reporter who was following the hulk's recent exploits he broke down in tears begging to know why hold up to hurt so much the story soon revealed that the hulk and all gamma power in the marvel universe had been directly connected to a kind of

metaphysical tormenting spirit and that the gamma explosion that created the hulk had cracked open the door between realities it had made a connection with bruce banner's father and had been playing a twisted game with hulk in his world using hulk as a kind of judgment and testing his and humankind's resilience in the place below all it revealed itself an entity that housed through many mouths and breaks with many hands as hulk traveled through the below place the narration asked the reader to imagine what is the opposite of god in other words does god have a

hulk the series goes on twisting and turning dealing with heavy questions of ethics spirituality religion and science and human vanity and anger hulk even used his power to try and fight for the environment against humanity's abuses inspiring a youth environmental movement all of these difficult and dark questions are brought to life through gruesome and grotesque transformations and monstrous abominations in the end hulk came face to face with evil itself god's hulk to demand why he has to suffer so much pain what does he learn what does this being say the hulk is one of his

great creations a destroyer and creator made to be a counterweight between the destruction and creation that the one above all and its opposite represent ultimately hulk was left unsatisfied but decided he will be whatever he wants to be no matter what cosmic games might ensnare him you might have never guessed the marvel universe could get so twisted so depressing so gruesome but now you know just how dark these superhero stories can go well that does it for this video i'm morse code and on behalf of plot armor comics thanks for watching and remember to subscribe

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