Marvel's claim to fame has been its heroes, and they are some of the best ever created. The company's roster of respected heroes has been entertaining fans for decades, transforming Marvel from a simple comic company into a multimedia empire, one that has conquered TV and the big screen. Marvel has some of the purest heroes ever created, men and women who set the standard for what a hero should be.
Not every hero can be a paragon of virtue. Some heroes have some rather massive skeletons in their closets and have done things that there is no forgiveness for.
10 Reed Richards Is An Objectively Terrible Person
Reed Richards is one of the Marvel's first Silver Age superheroes, but he doesn't exactly fit the squeaky clean image of the era. He's always been a man who put science above everything else, and over the years, creators have amplified this trait in him to a sometimes monstrous extent. On top of that, he's treated his wife terribly over the years, and then there's all the Illuminati-based genocide during the Incursions.
Reed Richards is undeniably a hero, but he isn't always a good person. His mind is so caught up in the abstracts of science that it's hard for him to care about others, and he emotionally abused Sue for years.
9 Namor Has Attempted & Committed Genocide More Than Once
Namor is an interesting case among Marvel's heroes. He's done things that have been very helpful, and yet he's also been responsible for multiple attacks on the surface world, including flooding New York City and killing countless Wakandans when he had the Phoenix Force and attacked the country to get at the Avengers. On top of that, he was a member of the Illuminati with all that entails.
It's ridiculous that Namor has gotten a pass for all the people who have been killed by him and his actions, yet the heroes always welcome him back with a slap on the wrist and a promise to never do it again.
8 Wolverine Has Murdered Innocent People
Wolverine has become one of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe, but that doesn't change the fact he's killed countless innocent people in his day. Wolverine did a lot of very terrible things in the years leading up to him becoming a hero, and while he tries to atone them, he knows deep down that nothing he does will ever make up for it.
Wolverine's sorrow over the things he's done is one of the few things that makes him palatable as a hero. There's no redeeming his actions, but that doesn't mean he has to continue being a monster. Every day, he works to balance the books.
7 Punisher Is An Unrepentant Killer
Punisher is one of the Marvel Universe's most well-known anti-heroes, and he has killed a lot of people. He's basically a serial killer and a mass murderer. It doesn't really matter that it's evil people he's taking out. He has compulsively murdered an unimaginable amount of people in a variety of ways that he's spent a lot of time thinking out.
Punisher is not a hero at all. He's a broken man who fills the hole inside of himself by killing people who he believes deserve it. However, this makes him just as bad as the people he kills because they are still people with families who now have to mourn the loss of their loved ones.
6 Scarlet Witch Depowering Most Of The Mutant Race Costs More Lives Than Anyone Knows
Scarlet Witch gets a lot of sympathy, but she doesn't always deserve it. So, while her actions in Avengers Disassembled were bad, everyone who was killed returned. Creating the House Of M world was wrong, but it was as much Quicksilver's fault as it was hers. Depowering mutants was all on her, though, and it was a terrible act that led to more deaths than anyone knew.
To begin with, many mutants depended on their powers to live, and the loss of their powers essentially killed them. Mutants who were flying at the time died in their fall. There's no way of knowing how many mutants died when their powers left them, and there's truly no way to forgive Scarlet Witch for that, regardless of what the Avengers think.
5 Beast Has No Problem Doing Terrible Things Recently
Beast has been through a lot of changes in recent years, and none of them are good. To begin with, he joined the Illuminati, helping them commit genocide on a planetary scale during the Incursions. He brought the original five X-Men into the present, taking a chance with breaking the entire timeline. Recently, he's taken over as leader of X-Force and has bungled his way through it, doing terrible things that often come back to bite him.
Beast is unrepentant in his actions. He feels completely justified in every monstrous thing he's done in recent years and seems almost proud of it.
4 Black Bolt Is Responsible For So Many Innocent Deaths
Black Bolt is a king, and kings have to make tough decisions. His decisions have cost a lot of lives, and many of them were innocent people. Like other members of the Illuminati, he's committed genocide on a massive scale during the Incursions. Releasing the Terrigen Mists into the atmosphere led to not only new Inhumans being born but also the M-Pox, which killed many mutants.
While Black Bolt has shown sorrow for some of his actions, he never cared very much about all of the mutants killed by the M-Pox, something he was directly responsible for.
3 Professor X's Pragmatism Has Led Him To Do Some Terrible Things
Professor X is one of the shadiest people on Earth. While he wasn't a member of the Illuminati during the Incursions, he still did some terrible things as a founder of the group. He's used his telepathy in some very questionable ways over the years, and his tendency to do anything for the survival of mutantkind has led him to do act with no remorse.
He once had a crush on teenage Jean Grey and has been using Mystique as a personal assassin since the foundation of Krakoa, lying to her about resurrecting her dead wife Destiny. Professor X is a monster in a lot of ways.
2 Deadpool's Hilarious, But He's Killed Thousands Of People
Deadpool is known for being funny, but that doesn't change the rivers of blood dripping from his hands. For years, he was an assassin doing the bidding of whoever could afford his services and has certainly killed countless innocent people. So, while his antics are entertaining, there's no way for him to atone for the terrible things he's done for years of his life.
Much like his fellow Weapon X alum Wolverine, Deadpool knows just how irredeemable he is. He works tirelessly to make up for everything he's done. His humor is a defense mechanism from realizing just how horrible he's been for a long time.
1 Iron Man Is The Most Irredeemable Hero In The Marvel Universe
Iron Man was a founding Avenger and has done a lot of good. The problem is that underneath all of that good is a lot of terrible lies, genocide, betraying his friends for power, arrogance, and a false belief in his own righteousness. Most people point to his actions in Civil War or his leadership of the Illuminati, but those are just some of the terrible things he's done. Iron Man has been doing terrible things for just about his entire heroic career, and that often gets glossed over.