In Image Comics' Eight Billion Genies, by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne, every person on Earth has received a genie with the ability and desire to grant them one wish. The series is halfway through its eight-issue run, and after weeks of wish-making, the Earth's population has plummeted, and about half of the people remaining still have their wishes to use.
As one might expect, the entire population of the Earth making wishes has created absolute chaos around the world. Some people made wishes that made the world better or kept their loved ones safe. Others, however, took a much more anarchistic approach. The number of bad wishes seen in the series is huge, but some of those stand out for being particularly terrible.
10 Daisy Was A Bad Friend
One of the first wishes shown in the series is made by Daisy, a member of the band that's preparing to play at the Lampwick Bar and Grill, where most of the series so far has taken place. She wishes that one of her bandmates, Brian, would fall in love with her.
Daisy's wish is awful for multiple reasons. First, it's ineffective, because the proprietor of the bar has already protected everything inside the bar (including Brian) from being affected by wishes from outside. More importantly though, she attempted to take away the free will of another person. This would be terrible to do to anyone, but it seems especially cruel when the target is someone she supposedly cares about.
9 Money Isn't Everything
In the real world, a big pile of money is pretty useful. In a world where everyone has been making chaos-creating wishes, however, nobody really cares about a person's net worth. In Eight Billion Genies, a number of people wished for monetary wealth in one form or another--from an Arizona woman who wished for more money than she knew what to do with to a man driving a monster truck full of gold coins.
People probably wished for money because it was an obsession in their lives before the genies appeared. Once the world became a lawless hellscape of giant robots, dinosaurs, and human-sized fighting corn cobs, however, money became pretty useless.
8 Doom Is Literally In The Name
In Issue #3 of Eight Billion Genies, a news report reveals that eight separate people have wished for a real-life Mount Doom to appear in New Zealand. It's unsurprising that people would wish for things from their favorite books or entertainment, but a giant volcano seems like a strange choice.
For fans of Lord of the Rings, a wish for a real One Ring might have made sense, but the only effect of wishing for Mount Doom to exist is subjecting the people of New Zealand to pain and geological danger. Not only does the wish not help the person who made it, but it also causes terrible harm to anyone in the volcano's way.
7 Physics Still Exists Even In A World With Genies
In every issue, the reader is presented with graphics showing the entire Earth and various things that people have been doing to it with their wishes. In Issue #3, one of the people we can see in this graphic is a giant man. The man is thousands of miles tall, and is grasping at his throat, clearly unable to breathe.
Being a giant could arguably be useful, but this man took it too far. It's hard to image what utility he could get from being so large in comparison to the size of the planet. Obviously the biggest issue was the man's ignorance of basic physics though, meaning that when his head extended beyond the lower atmosphere of the planet, he could no longer breathe.
6 Kids Aren't Likely To Make Good Choices
In Eight Billion Genies, everyone on the planet received a genie, regardless of the person's age. The fact that billions of children were making impulsive wishes probably contributed heavily to the chaos that took over the world after the genies appeared.
In the first issue, one child in Rome wished to become his favorite soccer star, and immediately transformed, to his grandmother's horror. The wish was not completely useless--an adult body in peak physical condition would probably be more of an asset than a child's body in the chaos that ensued. The soccer player's fame and skills were unlikely to still be relevant though, making the wish largely pointless.
5 A School Was Turned Into Chocolate
At one point during the series, Robbie asked a genie whether his middle school still existed. The genie replied that the school technically existed, but it had been turned into chocolate. This means that someone, presumably one of the students, used their wish to turn the school into chocolate.
Many middle school students would probably enjoy a wish that made their school building easily destructible. The students would also likely enjoy a wish that provided them with an enormous supply of chocolate. This person achieved both goals with one wish. From an adult perspective, however, this wish seems quite short-sighted and frivolous.
4 People Want To Be Young Again
Over the course of the series, at least two people wished to be young again--an old man in Oslo, and Jerome Carver, who encountered Wang on his journey and tried to enlist Wang's aid in reaching his family. It seems likely that this wish was a fairly common one among older folks.
Youth is a fairly obvious wish under normal circumstances. A wish for youth extends life, relieves age-related ailments, and leaves the person better prepared to face any physical challenges that come their way. The problem is, after the genies appeared, normal circumstances flew out the window. These folks may have a more healthy life ahead of them, but they can only take advantage of it if they manage to survive the perils dreamed up by other wishers.
3 Bad People Also Got Wishes
Many people in Eight Billion Genies wished for superpowers. Sadly, not all people with powers used them to do good. After Robbie made his wish, he headed outside the bar and joined a group of other superheroes. Almost immediately, they encountered a similar group of supervillains. The two groups became completely engulfed in fighting each other.
The people who wished to become supervillains wished for powers expressly for the purpose of hurting others. Other wishes may have harmed people incidentally, but these folks actually wanted to hurt people themselves. It's hard to imagine a worse type of wish.
2 Sometimes People Are Just Random
In Issue #2 of Eight Billion Genies, a family in Buenos Aires just received their genies. The father looked out his window and saw a giant banana and a giant ear of corn, both with faces, battling each other. The giant ear of corn appeared in the background in Issue #4 as well. Apparently, one or more people wished either to become giant fruits and vegetables or wished for their produce to come to life.
It's hard to imagine what might drive someone to make either of these wishes. Most likely, the wishes were made by a child or children who didn't know any better. At least the giant corn person survived to fight another day.
1 Be Careful What You Wish For
Everyone has said things they don't actually mean. Most teenagers have probably said horrible things to their parents from time to time. In Eight Billion Genies, however, those same teenagers have the power to destroy with those comments.
In Issue #1, a teenager in Atlanta is sitting at the dinner table with her family. She has just said that she wished her parents would burn in hell. She must have said it just after the genies appeared, because both her parents vanished into smoke. She hurt people she loved and made a wish she didn't actually want, making this the worst possible scenario for any wish.