Most of the time, superheroes are paragons of virtue. That’s kind of the whole point: they dress up in gaudy bright costumes and fight back the forces of evil and darkness. They are meant to be inspirational figures, and they are often written as squeaky-clean characters because of this. Every now and then, though, a writer lets the guard down for our favorite characters. We get to see them stop being superhumans for a moment and just be human. This helps us relate to the characters even more and flesh them out as more than a walking set of superpowers.
And sometimes being human means having some very inappropriate thoughts. Over the years, we see how even the most morally upright characters have the kind of wild fantasies that are enough to make their spandex stand up. The includes fantasizing about teammates, colleagues, and the occasional enemy. On other occasions, we see these specific thoughts that keep heroic relationships together, including the "unique' things that happen behind closed doors after they’ve saved the day. If you want to know what these inappropriate moments are, you don’t have to scan the minds of your favorite artists and writers. Keep scrolling to read about the most inappropriate thoughts that superheroes ever had!
15 CYCLOPS STAYS FROSTY
Most of the entries on this list are one-off moments, the kind that prove that even superheroes can find their minds wandering to some dark places. However, in New X-Men, we see that Emma Frost helps take Cyclops to one of those dark places via a psychic affair. And, unfortunately for everybody, Cyclops takes up residence there!
What began as the kind of everyday flirting that Emma Frost is all about eventually become a prolonged psychic affair with Cyclops. This included some relatively unorthodox things, including Emma Frost making herself look like Cyclops’ wife, Jean Grey. All of this led to a pretty ugly confrontation between the three, with Cyclops offering the pretty lame defense that such an affair doesn’t count if it’s all mental and not physical.
14 BLACK CANARY LIKES IT HOT
If you lived forever, you still might have trouble writing down all of the things that were wrong with Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin. This is, of course, the series that brought us the classic line “I’m the goddamn Batman.” However, when Miller wasn’t making Batman a laughing stock, he took the time to ruin other characters such as Black Canary.
There’s a lot wrong with her portrayal in the series, but one of the standout moments is when she is watching Batman go to town on some thugs. She watches Batman not only beat them up but set them on fire, and it turns out that this makes her a bit hot, too, so they hook up while surrounded by burning bodies. While it’s all pretty disturbing, the idea that Canary gets off on watching people get murdered is one that will stick with you!
13 ROGUE'S DRINKING GAMES
When you think about inappropriate moments between Rogue and Gambit, you’re likely thinking about Gambit. After all, the Cajun charmer often comes across like a dirty thought given mutant form. However, his particular thoughts and habits are contagious, and we get a really weird glimpse of it when Rogue is escaping an enemy.
The enemy has a water based power, and is offering a tied-up Rogue some regular water to drink. Rogue spits it in her face, giving enough of a connection to steal the villain’s powers. Then, Rogue tilts the cup of water onto her body so she can use her newly-acquired powers. Her inner monologue goes from getting wet to thanking Remy LeBeau for all his, well let's just call them, "drinking games". We’ll be honest here: we’re not sure what those two have been doing in their off-time, and we’re not really ready to know!
12 SPIDEY CAN'T HELP HIMSELF
The Ultimate Universe of Marvel Comics was meant to give us newer versions of our favorite heroes without all those decades of canonical baggage. That meant a return to teenage Jean Grey, but this led to a fair amount of creepiness around her character. As she openly admits, the first thing that everyone does when they meet her is to imagine that she’s naked.
When she first meets the Ultimate version of Peter Parker, she compliments him by saying that he’s the first person who didn’t imagine her naked as soon as they met. Unfortunately, as soon as she says it, he can’t help but imagine it…and she gets progressively more pissed when he finds himself unable to get the image out of his head!
11 GAMBIT LIKES TO IMAGINE THE BLOB NAKED
For the X-Men, being able to protect your thoughts is a pretty big deal. And it’s not just to keep teammates like Jean Grey and Professor X out of their brains: they must also be able to keep enemy telepaths from discovering their secrets. And no one has more secrets than Gambit, which is why he keeps a collection of nasty thoughts on hand to ward off telepaths.
In one memorable instance, he tries to summon up something really nasty to both block out his other thoughts and to gross out his attackers. So what does he summon?He imagines a stark-naked version of the X-Men’s obese nemesis The Blob. It makes for a funny moment, but it’s also great character-building for Gambit: if anyone could weaponized mental images of naked people, it’s him!
10 GREEN LANTERN HAS AN AWFUL MIND
Hal Jordan has a pretty creepy history with underage girls. To his credit, though, he has tried to put that behind him and focus on more age-appropriate conquests. However, this doesn’t keep him from having to deflect some bad thoughts when he teams up with the teenage Supergirl in the Brave and the Bold comic. The midriff-baring Supergirl comments on how space feels pretty chilly, and she’d like to share Green Lantern’s protective aura. He finds himself thinking about the attractive “blonde in the half-shirt” and reminding himself that he likely has food in his fridge older than her.
In case there was any doubt he was thinking about some weird stuff, he thinks to himself “no bad thoughts -- she’s seventeen.” Fortunately, the whole thing comes off as funny rather than creepy, especially when Green Lantern wonders if his wandering eye has made him too much like Green Arrow.
9 WOLVERINE'S MISADVENTURES
In the Ultimates Universe, Jean Grey is often the victim of creepy and unwanted thoughts. On one memorable occasion, though, she helped create them…and almost ended up being complicit in a very serious crime. As a weird punishment and prank, she simply swapped the minds of Spider-Man and Wolverine. What follows is the predictable hijinks of these two very different characters trying to navigate the world in these different bodies.
By the end, everything is restored to normal… and then we get Mary Jane telling Peter that she doesn’t want to try the things he wanted to do until they are older. That’s right: impossibly old Wolverine not only thought about hooking up with a much younger Mary Jane while in Peter Parker’s body, but he damn near made it happen!
8 EMMA FROST FINDS THE BLISS BUTTON
Grant Morrison seemed to take a special joy in writing Emma Frost for New X-Men. Even though the former villain reluctantly joined the superhero team, she still had moments where her selfish and weird inner nature came through. And that included making an entire angry crowd pass out from having thoughts that were a little too happy!
Within the story, Cassandra Nova had taken over Charles Xavier’s body and admitted to the world that he was a mutant. Pretty soon, there are angry protesters outside Xavier’s school every day. Emma Frost eventually gets sick of them and gives all of them a quick burst of certain thoughts followed by their bodies feeling so good that they all pass out. Jean Grey gets annoyed, pointing out that they will have to erase everyone’s memories of the inappropriate thoughts and their physical response.
7 IRON MAN'S LIKE THEM GREEN
One of the things that MCU fans are looking forward to about Avengers: Infinity War is getting to see their favorite characters mingle together. Of course, comics fans have known this joy for a long time, such as when Iron Man joins the Guardians of the Galaxy out in space. This leads to some weird situations… as well as a little too much info from Tony Stark!
Despite warnings from the team, Tony decides he is going to hook up with Gamora. This leads to a funny reaction shot where the two are in bed: he looks dazed and she looks bored, and Gamora eventually heads back to the bar. Later, Rocket laughs at Tony, and Stark admits that he had to go for it because Star Trek had made him fantasize about green alien girls for his entire life.
6 50 SHADES OF JEAN GREY
Overall, it’s not surprising that an attractive telepath like Jean Grey picks up on a lot of weird thoughts from the people around her. What is surprising is how tame most of these “dirty” thoughts are. You might start to wonder if anyone ever fantasizes about something a little more colorful. And for better or for worse, an old Uncanny X-Men issue confirms this!
Jean is in the middle of thinking how much it sucks to be a telepath because she must constantly tune out weird human thoughts. As if on cue, her powers focus on a clerk who has a very specific fantasy he is thinking about: “Please walk up and down my chest in six-inch stiletto heels.” Unfortunately for him, he won’t be on the receiving end of 50 Shades of Jean Grey anytime soon.
5 THE CAT GETS THE CREAM
Batman and Catwoman have had a pretty weird physical relationship for the better part of the century. In fact, in her very first comics appearance, Batman famously told her “quiet, or papa spank!” Nowadays, that has blossomed into a pretty mutual relationship, although some of Catwoman’s mid-hookup inner monologue shows how dysfunctional they can sometimes be.
Specifically, she thinks about how every time they hook up, it starts with her wanting Batman and Batman trying to resist her. Then Batman gives in but gets angry, and he channels that anger into a bit of a hate-romp, usually on a rooftop, and always with their costumes still on. Basically, Catwoman’s narration proves the two simply use each other on the regular. This gives new meaning to the “BANG” and “POW” of the Adam West days!
4 MARY JANE GETS PERKY
Mary Jane and Peter Parker have had a very rocky relationship. Depending on the story and the writer, they might be deliriously happy or even have their relationship destroyed by a demonic deal. However, when they were happy, they were VERY happy, as we can see by Mary Jane’s train of thought.
As you can see, she decides that Peter Parker is sounding a little too depressed about his photography career. She thinks to herself that she needs to do something to “perk him up,” and matching actions to thoughts, immediately starts stripping! To top it off, she actually suggests that photographer Peter Parker take some pictures of her for their “private collection.” Scenes like this remind us that Mary Jane wasn’t joking when she told Peter he had hit the jackpot!
3 WET HOT MUTANT SUMMER
Unfortunately, Cyclops has a long history of being mentally manipulated into having bad thoughts. This occurred with Psylocke shortly after she joined the X-Men’s Blue Team. At first glance, it looked like Cyclops was just suddenly drooling over a new teammate for no reason other than her being beautiful. As it turned out, though, psychic Psylocke was nudging his desires in her direction.
None of which makes it any less hilariously awkward when he is staring at Psylocke as she emerges from some water in her bathing suit. His mind gets flustered as he’s talking, and he refers to Professor X as “the Charles, Professor guy” before eventually leaning into the word “perfect” as he stares at Psylocke’s chest. Even though Cyclops was wearing Ruby quartz glasses, it was Jean Grey who ended up seeing red that day!
2 GREEN ARROW AFTER HOURS
There is not a lot of humor in the Alex Ross-illustrated series Justice. In fact, it often comes across as a deliberately grim and gritty version of the old Superfriends cartoon. However, there is one wonderfully inappropriate moment with Green Arrow that is sure to make any comics fan chuckle.
Clayface ends up attacking Green Arrow at home. He appears disguised as Black Canary in her full superhero get-up… and when he attacks, Green Arrow is saved by the sonic scream of the real Black Canary. Afterwards, she is confused as to why Green Arrow already had plugs in his ears to protect himself from her scream. He sheepishly admits that when he saw “her” (as Clayface) come into his bedroom with the superhero wig on that they were going to engage in a bit of rough playtime together!
1 JESSICA JONES: DOWN AND DIRTY
When it comes to weird comic book hook-ups, this scene between Jessica Jones and Luke Cage is near the top of the list. Later, of course, they become a regular couple and end up having a child together. This moment, however, is meant to be a one night stand, and her interior thoughts show us how inappropriate it really is.
Amid extreme close-ups of her face, we get a monologue about how she thinks Luke Cage will feel guilty about this because he’s a good guy, but she doesn’t care because she only wants “to feel something,” even if what she feels includes “pain” and “humility.” This is already pretty risque and inappropriate as is, but series writer Brian Michael Bendis would later (infamously) confirm that she is referring to Luke hooking up with her in a very uncomfortable place (and we’re not talking the backseat of a Volkswagen).