Antihero team-ups are nothing new in comicsland. From criminal coalitions like the Suicide Squad to gritty gangs such as The Authority, watching bad guys do good has provided endless amounts of entertainment time and time again. The latest iteration of this? Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato's Savage Avengers.
Launched in May of 2019, Savage Avengers follows the exploits of Wolverine, The Punisher, Elektra, Venom, Doctor Voodoo, and Conan the Barbarian as they battle against the criminal horde of mystical uber-ninjas, The Hand. But don't let their good deeds fool you, they have a lot of red in their ledger. Just how much red? Here are the worst things the Savage Avengers have ever done.
10 That Time Wolverine Murdered An Innocent Kid
Although portrayed as a reluctant hero in the X-Men film franchise, Wolverine is a much darker figure in the comics. Nothing exemplifies this more than Ultimate X-Men #41 when Logan straight up assassinates an innocent pre-teen with budding powers.
As the story goes, a young boy races to school after waking up late one morning. On the way, he encounters a strange phenomenon: people seem to "burn up" right before his eyes. Realizing he's the cause, the boy hides in a cave where Wolverine tracks him down. The next morning, Wolverine leaves alone, having assassinated the youth off-screen.
9 That Time Elektra Worked For King Pin (Willingly)
Netflix’s Daredevil may have brought her more in line with Frank Miller's original creation, but even this gritty reboot is only a mere shadow of the crimson assassin's dark source. Elektra is as treacherous as she deadly, using all she can to achieve her goals. She holds allegiance only to herself and will align with the world's worst to achieve her goals.
Such is the case in Dardevil #178 where Elektra takes up employment as an assassin for Wilson Fisk aka King Pin. Elektra is then dispatched to assassinate Foggy Nelson--who is running for office at this point--and later wounds Ben Urich with a sai.
8 That Time Punisher Killed The Marvel Universe
The Punisher has made many brutal kills over the years, but none as heinous as the time he murdered every single Marvel superhero on Earth. In Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe, a one-shot tale set in an alternate timeline, Frank Castle’s vendetta extends to both heroes and villains alike after his wife and child are caught in a crossfire between members of the Avengers, X-men, and The Brood. As a result, Castle vows to eradicate them all.
The story culminates with Punisher cutting down Doctor Doom and luring the X-Men to the villain's moonbase where he vaporizes them all with an atomic bomb.
7 That Time Doctor Voodoo Almost Killed Bambu
Contributing with a dark mark of his own is the new Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Voodoo. Brother Voodoo, as he was known before succeeding Doctor Strange, once sought to increase his power by way of Damballah's Wangal -- a powerful, cursed amulet containing the serpent god of the same name.
Because of this lust for power, Damballah possesses Brother Voodoo and ignites a fire that burns down his mansion and nearly kills his faithful manservant, Bambu. Seeing the error of his ways, Jericho Drumm seeks out the help Doctor Strange, who frees the magician from the corrupt power of the god.
6 That Time Venom Ate Peoples Brains
Perhaps the most notorious member of the Savage Avengers is Venom, the iconic brain-eating space parasite created by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie in the late 1980s. What starts as a running joke in the series (about eating brains) finally comes to a head in Venom: The Hunger #1, where Eddie Brock, Venom's OG host, struggles with the urge to consume human flesh. Brock spends the issue wrestling with this cannibalistic lust until finally losing it completely.
Changing into Venom, Brock intentionally picks a fight with a gang of unsuspecting bikers and eats their brains afterward.
5 That Time Conan Chased A Woman Down For Sex
Conan the Barbarian is known for his brutal fighting style, showing no mercy on the battlefield, and for being a force of nature that conquers kings and kingdoms. But one of Conan’s biggest foibles appears in the first chapter of The Savage Sword of Conan, an adaptation of Robert E. Howard's original short story titled, The Frost Giant’s Daughter.
In this reimagining, a sex-crazed Conan chases a scantily-clad young woman across the frozen northlands. The woman, a supernatural being, leads Conan into a trap, revealing nefarious purposes of her own. But the fact that Conan spends the entire plot trying to capture and forcibly sleep with the woman leaves a huge strike against the reputation of this legendary figure.
4 That Time Elektra Committed Mass Murder
But wait – it gets worse! How much worse? Try homicidal. It all goes down in Dark Reign: Elektra, a five-part limited series designed to revitalize the title character for modern readers. In this gory tale of blood and revenge, Elektra finds herself imprisoned at H.A.M.M.E.R. HQ (formerly S.H.I.E.L.D.) under the care of Norman Osborn after suffering torture and impersonation by skrulls. While there, Elektra is suddenly targeted for assassination, forcing her to team up with fellow Avenger, Wolverine. Together they battle one mercenaries, until they arrive at the site of the infamous Blackhawk Incident.
There, they meet an ex S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Brothers who reveals himself to be the mastermind behind the assassination attempts. Brothers blames Elektra for the Blackhawk incident, claiming she alone is responsible for destroying the carrier and killing his colleagues. Elektra denies this, but when norman Osborn arrives, he confirms Brothers is right. Not only did Elektra take down the helicarrier single-handedly, but she erased the crime from her mind using a memory-suppression technique.
3 That Time Wolverine Got Colossus Drunk So A Supervillain Could Kick His Butt
Jumping back to Wolverine, one of the most WTF moments in Logan's tenure with the X-men was that time he intentionally got a fellow team member drunk just so a supervillain could kick his ass. The incident happens in Uncanny X-Men #183 after Colossus returns from an extended mission in Japan. Colossus, who dates Kitty Pryde, falls in love with another woman, deciding to end his relationship with the Shadowcat upon arriving home. Pryde tells Logan about the ordeal, setting the antihero off on a violent quest of revenge.
That night, Wolverine invites Colossus out for a good old fashion drunk before siccing none other than longtime arch-enemy Juggernaut on the unsuspecting Russian.
2 That Time Punisher Killed The Last Human on Earth
In the stand-alone apocalyptic thriller Punisher: The End, an aging Frank Castle arises out of the vestiges of Sing-Sing Correctional Facility in New York sometime after World War 3. During Castle’s period of confinement, a nuclear holocaust set the globe on fire, leaving what’s left under the control of The Coven, a one-world-order-like association comprised of the most powerful people in the world.
After leaving the prison, Castle and a fellow inmate set out and kill off each member of The Coven until only the two men are left. Once the mission is complete, Punisher kills his companion for burning down a kindergarten in his pre-apocalyptic life.
1 That Time Venom Murdered a Planet
Of all the dark deeds perpetrated by members of the Savage Avengers, this one is perhaps the grandest: the murder of an entire planet. The act never occurs on-screen but is relayed through backstory exposition delivered by Venom himself. The sequence occurs at the end of Venom: Space Knight #8 just after Flash Thompson, the symbiote's latest host, re-captures the parasite on an alien pleasure planet. During the exchange, Venom guides Thompson to a derelict world full of graves.
Venom goes on to explain the story behind how he became a living agent of chaos, recounting the tale of his first host, an unnamed evil being. Together, Venom and the being went on a mass murder spree, killing off his host's entire race and corrupting the symbiote forever.