Marvel is known for telling amazing stories and they've taken that reputation to the bank, using their tales as the basis for some of the biggest movies ever made. Some of these stories have become known as the greatest around but not all of them can be looked at in that light.
The changing times, wavering hype, and just poor storytelling have resulted in comics Marvel wants audiences to completely forget. It's no wonder the MCU turns a blind eye when it comes to adapting certain aspects of Marvel's history.
10 2019's Uncanny X-Men #17 Went A Bit Far With Its Metaphor
The 2018-2019 Uncanny X-Men reboot isn't exactly the most loved in the title's long history. Fans were given a story that spurred a lot of controversy with 2019's Uncanny X-Men #17, by writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Carlos Gomez. The book went into how Wolfsbane was killed by racist humans, but the metaphor Rosenberg used wasn't exactly the best.
He likened mutants to trans people, with the scene reminiscent of a murder committed in a trans panic situation. It was the type of story that meant well, but missed the mark wildly. Uncanny X-Men #17 was the subject of a lot of critical conversation and not in a good way.
9 Marvel Wishes Fans Would Stop Talking About One More Day
One More Day, written by J. Michael Straczynski and Marvel editorial with art by Joe Quesada, is one of Spider-Man's most infamous stories. While One More Day led to a renaissance in the Spider-Man titles, the story started a firestorm with fans. Spider-Man and Mary Jane trading their marriage to Mephisto so Aunt May would survive and the world would forget Spider-Man's secret identity was something fans have never let Marvel forget.
While the comics that came after have been good at times, One More Day is the story that no Spider-Man fan will stop talking about and seeing as how Marvel's editors – many of which still work for the company – had a huge part in crafting the story, they'd prefer it if everyone stopped.
8 Marvel Subbing The Inhumans For Mutants Was A Disaster
Marvel doesn't always make the best decisions. One of their worst was trying to replace mutants, their civil rights allegory characters, with a eugenics obsessed, slave owning monarchy – namely the Inhumans. It makes it worse that money was the motivation behind the whole thing, as Marvel didn't have the film rights to the X-Men.
Fans did not take kindly to it, as the multiple Inhumans books flopped terribly. Marvel literally just did mutant stories with the Inhumans and the whole thing was seen as a cynical cash grab. Marvel swept the whole experiment under the table quickly and the Inhumans have been a poisoned brand ever since.
7 The New Avengers: Illuminati #3 Retconned The Beyonder's Origin In The Worst Possible Way
The Illuminati was a pretty great idea, with Marvel's top leaders secretly meeting and trying to head off threats to the Earth proactively. It led to some great stories and showed just how bad at leadership some of Marvel's greatest heroes were. Not every story was a winner, though. The New Avengers: Illuminati #3, by writers Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed and artist Jim Cheung, saw Marvel try to retcon the Beyonder's origin. They posited that the Beyonder was a mutant Inhuman and the whole thing was done.
6 Avengers: The Crossing Was The Worst Of '90s Avengers
Marvel has pulled some outrageous retcons over the years, but Avengers: The Crossing was shocking for how bad it was and how quickly it was undone. Running through all of the Avengers books of the time, the crux of the story was that Iron Man had been Kang the Conqueror's unwitting servant for years. They replaced him with an alternate past version of Tony Stark at the end of the story.
The Crossing was hated by everyone and Heroes Reborn came along before it could get off the ground. After that storyline ended, the original Tony Stark returned and the whole retcon was retconned out of existence. No one has ever brought it up since.
5 AXIS Changed Scarlet Witch And Quicksilver's Parentage, But Was Lackluster
Rick Remender's Uncanny Avengers set up a story that saw the Red Skull become Red Onslaught and fans got excited. What they got was AXIS, with art by Jim Cheung and Adam Kubert, yet another event that played the Avengers and X-Men against each other. This one saw Red Onslaught use the telepathy he had stolen from Professor X's corpse to invert the morality of the heroes and villains.
Other than retconning Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver's parentage, which now that Marvel has the rights to mutants again may get changed, AXIS is regarded as a mistake and fans don't look back on it kindly.
4 Civil War II Was A Soulless Cash Grab That Made Captain Marvel Look Bad
Civil War II is one of the worst events of the 21st century. Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by David Marquez, Civil War II was meant to cash-in on Captain America: Civil War. The plot was basically debating whether or not Minority Report is moral, with Iron Man saying yes and Captain Marvel saying no. The whole story was a massive misstep.
Marvel had been building up Captain Marvel for a while, so making her the antagonist of an event seemed like a weird thing to do. The only good thing to come from Civil War II was the death of Hulk, which led to The Immortal Hulk. Other than that, Marvel wishes the story would go away.
3 Secret Empire Has So Many Things Wrong With It
Marvel has put out some of the best and worst events in recent years. Secret Empire, by writer Nick Spencer and artists Steve McNiven, Leinil Yu, Rod Reis, and Andrea Sorrentino, falls on the worst side of that spectrum. The build-up was great, but the event itself was overly long and drawn out. Beyond that, the optics of Cap as a member of Hydra didn't work for most.
Captain America was created by two Jewish men in reaction to Nazi atrocities, so making him into a member of Hydra, a Nazi organization, rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. It killed anything good about Secret Empire for most readers.
2 Chuck Austen's Entire X-Men Run Is A Mess
Chuck Austen is the X-Men's most infamous writer. His run on Uncanny X-Men and X-Men is one of the worst in the history of both books. There are two standout plots in it that make his time on the books so much worse. The lesser evil is She-Hulk and Juggernaut having sex, which was just generally not liked by anyone.
The other was the extremely inappropriate relationship between teenage Husk and Archangel. They even had sex in mid-air in front of her family. Austen's entire run was full of moments like this. Compared to the then current X-Men books by writers like Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon, and Chris Claremont, Austen's run was that much worse.
1 Avengers #200 Is Marvel's Most Infamous Story
Marvel's history with its heroines hasn't been the best and nowhere is this more apparent than Avengers #200, by writers Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, & David Michelinie and artist George Perez. Avengers #200 is the comic where Captain Marvel – at the time known of Ms. Marvel – was sexually assaulted, had a child who turned out to be her abuser, and then left the team with them because they were in love.
There's nothing more to say about why Avengers #200 needs to be forgotten. Captain Marvel has been Marvel's project for years and this story is a massive black eye on her legacy. Luckily for everyone, writer Chris Claremont fixed the whole thing in Avengers Annual #10, but it's still one of Marvel's most disgusting stories.