In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I'll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is "missing" if it is not listed. It's just not one of the five examples that I chose.

Today, we look at some of the most memorable misfires in Marvel Comics history and show what impact they each had.

POWER NEUTRALIZER ACCIDENTALLY HITTING STORM INSTEAD OF ROGUE

One of the members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the young villain, Rogue, was having so much trouble dealing with her powers (she could absorb people's powers by touching them, but she adopted their memories, as well, and having touched Carol Danvers, the hero then known as Ms. Marvel, for too long, she permanently absorbed Carol's memories and personality, just living in her head along with her own mind. It was not pleasant) that she turned to Charles Xavier for help. He agreed to help her and actually let her join the X-Men. The other team members were very displeased with this decision, but Rogue ultimately proved to them that she was legitimately wanting to reform.

The U.S. government, on the other hand, was less convinced, especially when Rogue (inspired by Carol's memories) broke an old boyfriend out of SHIELD custody and was then framed for killing some SHIELD agents. Government operative Henry Peter Gyrich hired the mutant inventor known as Forge to build a power neutralizer. Forge started working on it, but he didn't know they were planning to use it already and since he had not fully tested it yet, Forge did not know whether it would neutralize someone's powers permanently, temporarily, or possibly even KILL them!

Thus, when Gyrich was about to blast Rogue with it in Uncanny X-Men #185 (by Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr. and Dan Green), Forge tackled Gyrich, forcing the shot to go wide and instead hit Rogue's X-Men teammate, Storm!

The now-powerless Storm fell into the river, where she was rescued by Forge. He nursed her back to health and the two began to fall for each other, until, you know, she found out about that whole "him building the device that stole her powers and almost killed her" deal. Storm then returned to the X-Men and became their leader again even without her powers. Eventually, her powers returned and she and Forge reconciled for a while.

LEGION ACCIDENTALLY BLASTING CHARLES XAVIER INSTEAD OF MAGNETO

Charles Xavier's son, David Haller, had immense amounts of power but also a number of split personalities (hence his codename, which was Legion). Eventually, David grew so powerful that he was able to actually go back in time. He decided to go back in time to an era he knew Charles Xavier and Magneto were both in, a period where Charles was dating David's mother, Gabrielle Haller, and Magneto (going by the name Magnus) was working alongside them. David felt that Magneto was the biggest threat to his father's dream and if David killed Magneto in the past, then the X-Men probably didn't even need to exist in the present and Xavier would have been a part of David's life since childhood.

Naturally, things went wrong and Xavier stepped in front of Magnus to save his friend's life in X-Men #41 (by Fabian Nicieza, Andy Kubert, Ron Garney and Matt Ryan) and David instead killed his own father...BEFORE he was born.

This sort of broke reality and allowed Apocalypse to wake up early and conquer the world. Magnus, inspired by his friend's noble death, formed the X-Men in honor of Xavier and fought against Apocalypse. This was the epic crossover event, The Age of Apocalypse. Eventually, Bishop was able to go back in time and stop Legion from killing Xavier and things went back to normal.

IRON MAN ACCIDENTALLY BLASTING WASP INSTEAD OF HERCULES

During the Avengers crossover, The Crossing, it was revealed that Iron Man was secretly a sleeper agent for Kang. He turned on his teammates, killing a couple of lesser-known Avengers and finally faced off against the full team in Avengers #393 (by Bob Harras, Terry Kavangh, Ben Raab, Mike Deodato and Tom Palmer). Hercules was really giving it to him, so Iron Man let loose with his full repulsor blasts, only for Wasp to step in front of Hercules and take the blast meant for a demi-god instead.

Seemingly killing his friend gave Iron Man pause, and he escaped. Hank Pym saved Wasp's life by putting her into a special device that healed her by mutating her into a giant monstrous wasp-like being. Iron Man was so disgusted by his actions that he ultimately sacificed himself to stop Kang's plans (the Avengers, by that point, had brought a teen version of Tony from the past, before he was corrupted by Kang, to help stop him. That teen Tony remained in the present/his future as the new Iron Man. Shockingly, it did not last).

BISHOP ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTING CHARLES XAVIER INSTEAD OF CABLE/BABY HOPE

After the events of House of M, the mutant population of Earth was reduced to just a thousand or two, with no NEW mutants being born. That changed when a young baby, named Hope appropriately enough, was born. Naturally, everyone wanted this baby. Mister Sinister wanted to experiment on her, the anti-mutant folks wanted to kill her and the X-Men wanted to see if she could restart the mutant population of the world. However, Bishop of the X-Men had come from a terrible dystopian future and one of the things he remembered was that the start of his awful world was a woman named Hope. So he was basically in a case where he could kill Hitler as a baby and he planned to do so.

In X-Men #207 (by Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo and three thousand inkers), the X-Men decided to entrust Cable with the baby, as he could travel into the future to keep her safe. Bishop was freaking out (he had also just lost an arm to a creature known as Predator-X) and tried to shoot Cable and the baby, but Cable had just time-traveled, so the bullets instead...hit Professor Charles Xavier!

Xavier lived, but he had enough brain damage that he took a leave of absence from the X-Men while he restored himself. This led to a series called X-Men: Legacy. Bishop, meanwhile, began chasing Cable and Hope through time, killing millions in the process. However, he was eventually redeemed...somehow.

ULTIMATE PUNISHER ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTING ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN INSTEAD OF ULTIMATE CAPTAIN AMERICA

During the miniseries, Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates (by Mark Millar, Leinil Francis Yu, Stephen Segovia, Gerry Alanguilen and Sunny Gho), Nick Fury started a covert team of Avengers, which included Frank Castle, the Punisher, on the team. Fury was then framed as a traitor and the Ultimates hunted him down. Captain America had Fury pinned down and Punisher's only way of saving him was to use a sniper rifle to shoot Captain America in the knee.

However, Spider-Man swung into the battle to save Cap and took the bullet meant for Cap's knees.

Spider-Man survived that initial bullet, but it weakened him to the point that he later died in battle with the Green Goblin. Punisher did not take shooting a kid well.

KINGPIN'S ASSASSIN ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTING AUNT MAY INSTEAD OF SPIDER-MAN

My pal Michael H. wanted me to include this one, and it IS pretty notable, so sure. In Amazing Spider-Man #538 (by J. Michael Straczynski, Ron Garney and Mark Morales), the Kingpin sent an assassin to kill Spider-Man, now that Spidey's secret identity had been revealed to the world. Spider-Man's Spider-Sense warned him and he instinctively dodged the sniper's bullet...and it his his beloved Aunt May instead.

The guilt over her impending death led to Peter and his wife, Mary Jane, cutting a deal with Mephisto that they would trade their marriage to him in exchange for him saving Aunt May's life (and he threw in Spider-Man's secret identity becoming a secret again as a bonus, like this entry was a bonus!).

If anyone has a suggestion for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!