The 15 Worst Things The Avengers Have Ever Done

The Avengers are supposed to be synonymous with honor, justice, and heroism, but like any professional organization, there are times when its members disagree on the parameters of those virtues. The Marvel Comics franchise began in 1963, featuring the cross-over between several popular superheroes, including Iron Man, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk. Over 60 years later, every Avengers movie has been a cultural phenomenon, and the group has gone through a countless number of variations throughout the comics. 

However, even though the Avengers are supposed to be the good guys, there are plenty of examples in the comics where that’s not always the case. Whether it’s through their treatment of heroes that are supposed to be their allies, or the complex ways they’ve struggled to survive in a modern political landscape, the Avengers have been responsible for their fair share of bad PR. These 15 moments from throughout the Marvel franchise, spanning comics, movies, and television shows, highlight some of the worst actions made by the Avengers as a collective of superheroes who, while trying their best, end up becoming the very thing they banded together to stop. 

Because they’ve been around for six decades, the Avengers have had a long way to go in terms of representation. It wasn’t until 1969, six years after their debut, that Marvel introduced a future prominent black Avenger: Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon, whose original, infamous inspiration was none other than O.J. Simpson. Obviously, Anthony Mackie redefined the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but back in the character’s early days, it was hard to be accepted into the Avengers even in-universe. 

In issue #181 of the original “Avengers” comics, the team is forced by Henry Gyrich of the National Security Council to diversify their line-up based on new governmental guidelines for equal opportunity employment. While this allows Wilson to join the team, it results in him taking the place of longtime member Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, essentially making Wilson feel like a “token” black member. It’s disappointing that it takes government action to get a team of good guys to let Falcon on the team, but even then he’s made to feel like he doesn’t deserve his spot. 

It’s not surprising  that when you put the strongest Avengers on one team, egos clash. One example of this came in 1992, in issue #347 of the original “Avengers” run. At this point, the team included not just mainstays like Captain America, Iron Man, and Scarlet Witch, but also characters like Black Knight, Sersi, and Starfox. Despite being published over a decade prior to the now-iconic “Civil War” storyline, the Avengers were divided over the fate of the Supreme Intelligence, the A.I. ruler of the Kree. 

Particularly, a faction of the team led by Iron Man sought to execute the Supreme Intelligence for the accidental genocide of thousands of Kree via Nega-Bomb, but another faction led by Captain America objected to killing of any kind. In the end, the Black Knight took Iron Man’s side and killed the Supreme Intelligence despite most of the group’s reservations. Perhaps Cap was right, in the sense that killing the Supreme Intelligence not only didn’t save the lost Kree lives, but the surviving remnants of the Supreme Intelligence would be set up to return and kill a friend of the Avengers, Rick Jones. 

With three words, Wanda Maximoff (a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch) changed the Marvel universe forever, but it didn’t have to go that way. One of the most famous Marvel Comics storylines of the 2000s was “House of M,” an Avengers and X-Men crossover in which the timeline of Earth-616 is altered by a maddened Scarlet Witch following the loss of her children. The Avengers and X-Men debate how Wanda’s fragile mental state should be handled, with Steve Rogers floating the possibility of suppressing her powers, while others think she should be executed. What follows is Scarlet Witch changing the very fabric of reality and flinging our heroes into a completely different world.

This new reality sees both groups achieving their greatest dreams, including Magneto ruling the mutant world. The few heroes who remembered everything reunited to face Magneto, but in the process, Wanda casts a spell that exterminates a vast population of mutants on Earth-616. Some of the best X-Men comics you need to read deal with the fallout from “House of M,” but none of it would’ve happened if the Avengers and X-Men hadn’t planned on killing Wanda in the first place. 

The Hulk has always been the most poorly-treated member of the Avengers, despite being a founding member of the group. In fact, the team would’ve never become a thing if the Hulk hadn’t become mind-controlled by Loki in the very first appearance of the team. Still, their lack of trust in Bruce Banner’s alter ego also put him at odds with the heroes at various points in Marvel Comics history, which culminated in the “Planet Hulk” story arc, where the Illuminati (including prominent Avengers like Iron Man) orchestrate the Hulk’s exile to the planet Sakaar.

Sakaar wasn’t exactly a vacation for the Hulk, given he was almost immediately captured and forced into gladiator-style fighting arenas. Once he eventually rose the ranks in Sakaar, the Hulk exacted revenge on the Illuminati by waging war against those who crossed him, wreaking absolute havoc. While the Illuminati and Ironman thought they were ridding themselves of a problem by banishing Banner, they actually ended up causing even more mayhem for themselves and Earth. 

The “Civil War” comic book arc was not only a huge enough event to spawn the superhero movie fans had been waiting for in “Captain America: Civil War,” but it also saw many beloved characters turn more morally gray than they had been in years. No hero is guiltier of this than Tony Stark himself, who allies with the United States government to enforce the Superhuman Registration Act, a law that would essentially make masked heroes agents of the government, and goes to some pretty great lengths to keep the bill’s detractors from acting out.

Namely, Tony and the pro-SRA side of the Avengers collaborated to build Prison 42, an internment camp for superheroes located in a multi-dimensional pocket universe called the Negative Zone, an alternative to the maximum security Raft. For a hero known for having built the foundation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans could’ve maybe empathized with Tony’s guilt in the “Civil War” film, but in the comics, hunting down Marvel stalwarts like Luke Cage and the Invisible Woman is a bridge too far.

The Avengers and the X-Men have often been at odds with one another, but even the squabbles between their Earth-616 versions pale in comparison to the depths that Earth’s mightiest heroes go to antagonize mutants in the multiverse. This is a major plot point in the 2011 comic series “Age of X: Universe”, part of a story arc in which the world governments on Earth-11326 crack down on hunting mutants. In a move that would make the Tony Stark of the “Civil War” arc proud, a team of Avengers in this universe is assembled for the sole purpose of capturing rogue mutants. 

The team included the likes of Captain America, Invisible Woman, The Hulk, Iron Man, Ghost Rider, and Jessica Drew (fighting crime under the moniker Redback instead of Spider-Woman). In a stark contrast to Earth-616’s Captain America’s no-killing rule, this universe’s is more akin to the MCU’s U.S. Agent, killing Mystique, only for her last words to wake him up to the horrifying injustices they were committing. Too little, too late, Cap. 

Obviously, the conflict between Avengers and mutants comes to a head in the 2012 limited series “Avengers vs. X-Men,” which kicks off when the time-traveling Cable targets the Avengers for their involvement in the future death of Hope Summers, a new reincarnation of the Phoenix, one of the most powerful X-Men villains. In the Avengers’ confrontation with the Phoenix, Iron Man attempts to shoot her dead, only to inadvertently cause the Phoenix Force to imbue itself into five other mutants, who collectively call themselves the “Phoenix Five.” 

However, the Phoenix Five aren’t as villainous as you’d expect. In fact, the group, made up of Cyclops, Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus, and Magik, become god-like benefactors for the universe, granting natural resources to humanity and creating a global utopia. However, the Avengers are still hired by the U.S. government to curb the Phoenix Five, given that their powers are too unpredictable. Of course, their powers end up being used for nefarious purposes, like waging war against Wakanda, but maybe it wouldn’t have gone south if the Avengers just let the Phoenix Five be. 

By now, it should come as no surprise that when the multiverse is involved, the Avengers have the tendency to make enemies out of other Avengers teams. This is certainly the case in the fifth “Avengers” comic book series, in which the Avengers from Earth-14325 (editorially called the All-New Avengers) are saved from an incursion by A.I.M. scientists on Earth-616, only to find themselves head-to-head with their alternate selves. 

While this incarnation of Earth-616’s Avengers included Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Captain America (Steve Avengers), the All-New Avengers included a nearly-identical variant of Rogers known as General America, as well as Iron Monger, the resentful and murderous variant of Tony Stark’s childhood butler Edwin Jarvis. Even though the All-New Avengers turn out to be bad apples, Earth-616’s Avengers are responsible for the death of their Ant-Man, giving them a just cause to be angry at the supposed heroes. The only reason the fighting ceases is thanks to A.I.M’s intervention. 

We’ve been focusing a lot on comics canon thus far, so let’s take a brief side-step into one of the more infamous acts the Avengers committed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some would argue that “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is the best and most interesting “Avengers” film, namely thanks to how it sets up for “Captain America: Civil War” with Avengers clashing over the out-of-control A.I. made by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), as well as the introduction of Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). 

One of the ways it sets up for “Civil War” is in the film’s climactic final battle, in which the country of Sokovia is completely decimated in the wake of the battle between Ultron’s cybernetic army and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. It’s a mess that weighs heavily on the conscience of Stark in “Civil War,” prompting his siding with the Superhero Registration Act, but it’s pretty heartless of the Avengers to completely wreck this country and then fly off as if nothing happened. 

Speaking of “Civil War,” Marvel Comics revisited the crossover with 2016’s “Civil War II,” a comic book event in which Avengers got killed, sides got chosen, and the lines between good and evil were blurred. However, instead of the conflict revolving around the Superhuman Registration Act, “Civil War II” centers on Ulysses Cain, an Inhuman with the ability to predict the future, with the superhero community divided on the best way to utilize this latent power. On Captain Marvel’s side, they want to use Ulysses to stop major threats like Thanos, while on Iron Man’s side, they believe that’s manipulative.

It might be easy, in this case, to side with Iron Man, if only Iron Man’s followers didn’t kidnap Ulysses later in the story and put him through rigorous scientific examinations, eventually resulting in the death of Bruce Banner after Ulysses has a vision of the Hulk killing the Avengers. In the end, Captain Marvel gets too carried away with the idea of stopping events before they happen, while Iron Man risks his own friends’ lives to stop her.

After “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was cancelled in 2012, some fans of the Marvel superhero team figured it’d be a while before another animated series recaptured the epic adventures, but as it turns out, they only had to wait a year until “Avengers Assemble” debuted on Disney XD. The show is seen through the eyes of the Falcon as the newest member of the Avengers alongside a team inspired by 2012’s “The Avengers,” but similarly to Iron Man’s near-sacrifice at the end of that movie, this show’s Tony Stark suffers a terrible fate.

During a battle against Ultron, Iron Man ends up possessed and, due to the Avengers’ inability to rescue him, end up trapping their teammate in an alternate dimension where his technology is inefficient. Not only is that a plan that could’ve nearly killed Stark, but they’re not able to rescue him for a whole other season of the show, by which point they recruit Loki, who aids the Beyonder in creating Battleworld.

Sometimes, Marvel Comics misses the mark, which is certainly how some fans felt regarding the 2017 comic book storyline “Secret Empire,” which kicks off after the now-iconic moment in “Captain America: Steve Rogers” #1, when the iconic Avenger from Earth-61311 reveals himself as a covert agent of HYDRA. In “Secret Empire,” Rogers plots a takeover of the United States, which involves assembling a new Avengers team that includes Taskmaster, Scarlet Witch, Thor, and Vision. As far as Avengers teams go, this one was purely evil, often embarking on missions to enact HYDRA’s ultimate plans for world domination.

Of course, some of these Avengers, like Rogers, weren’t exactly in their right minds. At the time, Wanda Maximoff was under the control of Chthon, while Vision had been reprogrammed with an A.I. created by Nazi scientist Arnim Zola. Oftentimes, Marvel’s heroes can disagree, or be on opposing sides with equivalently-reasonable views, but “Secret Empire” just takes things too far and portrays many of Marvel’s greatest heroes as full-blown villains. 

It was the “snap” heard ’round the world. When “Avengers: Infinity War” hit theaters in 2018, many expected there to be a bloodbath of Avengers, but nearly nobody expected the characters who died to be the ones who died. The ensemble crossover might be one half of a larger story, but it contains perhaps the biggest failure of a superhero team on the big screen when the combined Avengers, including Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), all the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Hulk, and even the forces of Wakanda, cannot stop the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) from collecting the six Infinity Stones. 

Notably, it’s Thor of all the Avengers who really drops the ball by not, as Thanos points out, “going for the head.” It takes nearly all of “Avengers: Endgame” (five years in the universe’s timeline) for the superhero team to reverse Thanos’ genocide, but even then it’s not without the losses of heroes like Iron Man, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Steve Rogers. And by the way, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), where were you this entire time? 

“What If…?” was a zany and refreshing addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, recruiting live-action actors to reprise their roles in an animated series exploring alternate timelines involving the most beloved Marvel heroes (and some not-so-beloved ones, too). In season 2, they even took the opportunity to explore multiverses that originated from the comics, namely one inspired by Neil Gaiman’s miniseries “Marvel 1602,” which reinterprets popular Marvel heroes’ stories to have taken place in Elizabethan England.

The corresponding “What If…?” episode, “What If… the Avengers Assembled in 1602?” sees Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) venture to this alternate timeline to prevent an incursion, only to discover the source of it is a rag-tag mini-Avengers consisting of Steve Rogers (Josh Keaton), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). As it turns out, Rogers is displaced from another timeline, meaning he’s nearly caused the devastation of an entire universe after stumbling into a temporal anomaly. Nice work, Cap. 

“Thunderbolts*” was an emotional gut punch for Marvel’s cinematic universe. The film served up quite the surprising twist when Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) introduces the misfit team of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Bob (Lewis Pullman) as the “New Avengers,” making them the new government-appointed superhero team that Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) rejected in “Captain America: Brave New World.” This normally would be all well and good, if the Thunderbolts weren’t fully aware of how cruel and power-hungry Valentina is. 

Each of the New Avengers have their own troubled histories, especially recently with their employment by the conniving Valentina, tasked to assassinate Avengers (as seen with Yelena’s appearance in the “Hawkeye” series) and destroying evidence of Valentina’s secret experiments. They also inadvertently give Valentina her biggest weapon in waking up Bob, the super-powered hero transformed into Sentry. Who knows what Valentina’s Avengers have been up to in the 14 months between the events of “Thunderbolts*” and “Avengers: Doomsday,” but judging by the post-credits scenes, this team hasn’t been received well in-universe, but hopefully they can do some legitimate good in “Avengers: Doomsday” to counteract their alliance with clearly-nefarious government operatives.