Greetings nerdy list aficionados and welcome back to top 10 nerd today we’re looking
at times that heroes were not at their most heroic being a hero doesn’t make you always
right it doesn’t even mean that you always make the right choice but you should want
to.
These are times when heroes found themselves pushed to the limit and went over the line
you can be the judge of whether you agree with them or not perhaps you’ll look at
all these and go no actually justified thank you very much.
I’m Sasha and these are the Top 10 Times Superheroes went to far with the caveat some
of these aren’t in continuity anymore.
Number 10 – Identity Crisis MindWipe.
So many heroes were involved in this so many Zatanna does the actually wiping but hawkman
black canary the flash elongated man green arrow and green lantern all help and superman
knows about it.
So Identity crisis is a murder mystery that opens with the murder of sue dibney as the
story unfolds we learn of a terrible event from the justice leagues history.
One evening up on the watch tower sue dibney wife of the elongated man was up there and
doctor light snuck up there he sees and rapes her cause the plot says to.
So when the heroes come upon this they decide it is so heinous zatana should wipe his mind
and alter his personality so he never hurts someone like that again.
While this is happening batman beams up and is horrified by what they are doing so they
mind wipe him to.
This even leads to him becoming paranoid and distrustful as he knows something happened
but not what and it turns dr light into a brain addled idiot.
So yeah wiping someones mind is definitely crossing a morality line somewhere but wiping
the mind of one of your closest allies cause they were calling you out on what you did
meaning that yeah maybe there was a question to be asked that’s stone cold and definitely
too far.
Number 9 – Green Arrow In Cry For Justice – Cry For Justice in general went too far
for many fans this is the mini series that infamously killed Lian Harper Roy Harper Aresenal
formerly speedy’s daughter just for shock value really.
It was quite awful and then she was retconned out of existence so roy could be a relatable
teen with a baseball cap, progress.
Cry for justice involved a couple of members of the justice league most notably green arrow
and green lantern who are friends despite not being able to stand each other to quit
the league and hunt down the secret society which would put them on a collision course
with Prometheus this is extreme cliffnotes btw.
Prometheus is like the inverse batman his criminal parents were killed by cops so he
turned to a life of crime.
Anyway it’s his actions that lead to Lian’s death and forces the heroes to let him go
or he’ll kill even more innocents.
Green Arrow encourages the rest of the league to let him go but then hunts him down and
kills him.
Now I mean he indirectly killed a little girl buuut there’s always been collateral damage
for Arrow to go and kill him now because it impacts the lives of people he knew like his
former ward who he wouldn’t even help when he found out he was on drugs no it was hal
who helped.
But now now he’ll kill for his loss.
Not only over the line but selfish but cry for justice is from 2009 lots of edgy stuff
happening then.
Although some of you may be with arrow in this it all got retconned away but lian never
came back sadness.
Number 8 – Reed Joining The Illuminati, really anyone who joined the Illuminati.
The Illuminati was a secret marvel team comprised in its first iteration of namor, tony stark
reed Richards, black bolt professor x and dr strange.
So why did I single out read there’s a reason wait for it.
The Illuminati wanted to find a way to deal with impending global threats or universal
threats before they happened a secret advance squad who would decide the best course of
action for everybody.
Reed’s solution to this was to go get the infinity gauntlet which he was planning to
wish out of existence upon finding he couldn’t he divided up the stones amongst the members.
No more gauntlets for reed so many reed’s on the council of reeds had gauntlets.
All of thse behind the scenes machinations would play into secret invasion and civil
war.
For all the repercussions this group ended up having and what a dictatorial combination
they would prove to be later on yes reed and the Illuminati went too far.
Number 7 – Wolverine Kills Hank Pym, time travel is a tricky thing and when you mess
with it you had better be prepared for the fallout.
In the 616 comicverse Hank Pym is the creator of Ultron the sentient android who would grow
to be one of the big villains in the marvel universe.
So in 2013 it had actually succeeded in conquering the earth of an alternate universe this storyline
line was called age of Ultron or au for short.
Which works cause in fandom au stands for alternate universe so layers.
Hooray.
The heroes of this conquered world end up finding a time travel solution and wolverine
would be the one to attempt it, why cause they have poor judgement wolverine’s solution
was just to kill Pym before he could finish his work the only thing this had a ripple
effect and ended up making the timeline worse and threatening the multiverse.
The other heroes warned him about this, this is why Cyclops has to be so abrasive wolverine
never listens to him.
Nearly re-destroying the world and messing up the multiverse cause you wouldn’t listen
to others going too far.
Number 6 – Daredevil Kills Bulleyes – Death death everywhere this happened in the 2010
storyline shadowland.
This story featured a dark daredevil just returning from japan which in marvel always
makes you brutal just look at wolverine.
He decides to use the hands techniques to keep hell’s kitchen safe parts of which
had been destroyed during the dark reign storyline by bullseye.
So he would seek bullseye out and kill him in the same manner that bullseye had once
killed Elektra.
Stabbed right through the heart all while wearing his new dark evil looking ninja costume.
Daredevil has also killed the kingpin after which he stood over the body and told the
approaching news crews I tried everything else.
Of course everybody got better and daredevil would go back to his code and an attempt to
be better than the criminals he pursues and I for one am glad dark daredevil is scary.
Brutally murdering your enemies in front of people too far, that’s anti hero stuff.
Number 5 - John Stewart – Kills Mogo let’s get some love for some other green lanterns
going too far it can’t be hal murdering the corps and snapping sinestro’s neck every
list.
So back during all the war of light emotion spectrum stuff that was going on john stewart
had an indigo ring so compassion him and kyle Rayner who had the blue hope ring were facing
off against mogo who had been corrupted by krona long story short he was trying to free
the entities that powered the rings it was a whole thing the point Mogo delivers rings
to new recruits and he was being corrupted and sending out corrupted ones sucking lanterns
into his gravitational pull everything.
So John Stewart compassionate soul that he is decides there’s no other way except to
channel black energy the energy of death and destroy mogo all while kyle is begging him
to find another way.
This is one of those we need drama moments.
Cause you get the cool panel of Mogo exploding which does look good.
There are no stakes mogo is fine but for not even trying to find another way even while
wielding the ring of compassion too far John too far though some would say necessary.
Number 4 – Professor X erasing Vulcan there were so many choices for professor x but I
decided on this one cause of the implications and ripple effect.
Vulcan is the sibling of Havok and Cyclops that they never knew about.
Vulcan was abducted from his mother’s corpse and hyper aged in an induction chamber he’s
not ok.
So extremely long story short Vulcan was part of a wave of mutants sent by professor x to
krakoa it all goes wrong and so Xavier wipes the memory of Vulcan and the mission from
everyones minds.
This was especially significant for cyclops who would learn that he had a brother and
his existence had been kept from him to keep him safe.
A lot of this has been retconned in terms of the how and the why and well Krakoa but
that mind wipe remains.
And it was part of the big rift of mistrust that formed between Cyclops and professor
x and we know where that led, magneto was right, killing Xavier mutant . So erasing
people’s minds for their own good which means deciding what that is for them too far.
Number 3 – Batman kills the KGBeast – Batman doesn’t kill anymore not since the golden
age you cry but oh no there are pockets stories where batman finds he must take a life and
the kgbeast arc was one of them.
Although like everyone else he got better I just want someone to stay dead is that too
much to ask.
I’ll get a crowbar.
In this arc the kgbeast was sent by the soviets to assassinate Ronald regan, this whole comic,
so Batman knows that if he captures the kgb he’ll just be handed back to Russia and
nothing will happen so he lures him into a death trap in the sewer and when kgbeast offers
him the chance to fight to the death, he just shuts him the sewer leaving him there to starve
to death.
Cold, ice cold.
This was before Jason died so can we really be surprised Jason was how he was when this
was happening people starving to death in the sewer only he didn’t so it’s fine
I guess.
Number 2 – Civil War 2 – All Of It So this drama about whether or not the inhuman
with precognitive abiltiies Ulysses should be used to pre-empt crimes was a mess and
everybody went too far.
So behind the scenes writers only had at most 4 months to plan this entire event and it
shows motivations are weak, and characters suffer because of it.
Carol Danvers becomes a complete fascist who gets many heroes on her side killed.
Hawkeye would be convinced to kill bruce banner by bruce banner carol would beat tony into
a coma, and none of it mattered unlike the first civil war which has stakes for everyone
like immediate stakes while this arc could have it was presented as oh no my boyfriend
died I don’t want to feel that way again arrest everyone before they do anything.
Vs Tony being like hey that’s bad don’t do that didn’t you learn from what I did
in the first civil war don’t be me.
It just all the heroes fighting amongst themselves and was very poorly received.
So what could be worse than that why the first time this happened Number 1 – Civil War
So this was supposed to be a story where both sides would have valid points and we should
all come away enriched, nope.
So Tony manipulated spider-man into revealing his secret identity then bailed when there
were repercussions, him and reed constructed a secret interdimensional prison in the negative
zone where they housed criminals and superheroes who wouldn’t register.
Captain America arranged a meeting between the two where he was like what if we just
took him out they were best friend before this by the way.
This arc was in no way nuanced from the start it was just tony is wrong and cap is right
and then tony lived down to that.
Also even how it first escalated with cap being declared a traitor cause maria hill
asks him if he’s for it and he mentions no cause he lived though world war 2 and has
seen what registering can do then she just declares him a traitor and pulls gunmen on
him gun men who were waiting by the way.
Reed and hank pym made a clone thor so that they could have a brute member for their side.
Since thor was dead and they had shot the hulk into space.
No one looks good here everyone went too far this would lead to things like one more day
just a mess all around deserving of number 1 also because it failed to deliver on its
promise of being a thought provoking nuanced event you have to pull out of it to discuss
the nuance cause the comic sure isn’t.
So those were ten times superheroes went too far what other times can you think of let
me know down below.
I’m Sasha thanks so much for watching top 10 nerd.
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