While each MCU hero has coped with the pain and suffering he or she has faced in their
own unique way, they all came out stronger and better people because of their experiences.
With that in mind, these are some of the most tragic origins of your favorite Marvel superheroes.
Perhaps one of the most tragic origins of all the Avengers is that of Bucky Barnes.
A good friend of Steve Rogers before Rogers became Captain America, Barnes was captured
by HYDRA during World War II after falling off a train at a high altitude, leading Rogers
and the U.S. Army to presume him dead. However, Barnes's body was recovered by HYDRA, who
implanted a cybernetic arm to replace the one that he lost in the fall and conditioned
him into becoming their premier assassin, the Winter Soldier. Barnes carried out many
high-profile hits over the years, including the murder of both of Tony Stark's parents,
until he was able to break free of his brainwashing, depicted toward the end of Captain America:
The Winter Soldier.
Framed for killing the Wakandan king T'Chaka, Barnes was subsequently hunted down by his
son T'Challa, also known as the Black Panther. His eventual escape from HYDRA and mission
was part of what ultimately sparked the Avengers' civil war over the Superhuman Registration
Act, which ended when Barnes and Rogers subdued Iron Man in battle after he learned that the
Winter Soldier killed both his parents. When you consider that Barnes was presumed dead,
forced into being an assassin against his will, framed for crimes he didn't commit,
and nearly killed for the ones he committed against his will, Bucky Barnes' deeply and
perpetually tragic backstory is enough to make you wonder how he ended up fighting alongside
the Avengers rather than simply staying home in the fetal position.
Another Avenger with a tragic origin story is Steve Rogers: Captain America, the First
Avenger. Rogers desperately wanted to serve in the U.S. military during World War II,
but was repeatedly rejected during the recruitment process due to his small stature and slight
build. His gumption was appreciated by Doctor Abraham Erksine, who recruited him into Project
Rebirth and injected him with the experimental super-soldier serum that turned Rogers into
Captain America.
Immediately after the procedure was completed, however, Erksine was assassinated by a HYDRA
agent. Later, while attempting to apprehend Arnim Zola, Rogers lost his best friend and
fellow soldier Bucky Barnes in a fall during combat, only to be forced into doing battle
with his long-lost compatriot years later after Barnes was brainwashed into becoming
the Winter Soldier. Of course, every hero deals with loss, but Cap's victories have
often been tainted by tragedy: after defeating the Red Skull, for example, he was forced
to crash the Skull's bomb-laden ship into the Arctic Ocean, tearing himself away from
Peggy Carter, the woman he loved.
"I'm gonna need a raincheck on that dance."
When Rogers finally awoke in the modern era after decades in deep freeze, he was thrust
into a new period of time he knew nothing about. Given the loss of his mentor Erksine,
his friend Bucky, and the selfless sacrifice of his love for Peggy, Captain America's origin
story is one that has been repeatedly marred by tragedy.
The tragic backstory of Peter Parker is well known. So well known that the death of his
Uncle Ben isn't shown in the MCU. When we meet Parker, he's already living alone with
his Aunt May. This also means that Parker's parents are either dead or unable to take
care of him, meaning that he had suffered the loss of at least three dead and/or missing
relatives before he made his debut in Captain America: Civil War. That alone would make
for an awful backstory, but it only gets worse.
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Parker is forced to take down the Vulture. While Parker doesn't
kill the Vulture, his arrest results in Parker's love interest Liz being forced to move out
of New York City, as the Vulture is Liz's father. Later, Parker has to watch his mentor
Tony Stark die after he snaps Thanos out of existence in Avengers: Endgame. This understandably
leaves a lasting emotional trauma, which he is forced to confront in Spider-Man: Far From
Home. He's one of the funniest Avengers, but Parker also has one of the saddest origin
stories.
Among the more tragic backstories in the MCU is that of Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord.
When Quill was a young boy, his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Immediately
after the death of his mother, Quill was abducted from Earth by the alien known as Yondu, which
tore him away from the only life he'd known and thrust him into a life of crime. Quill
was forced to become an intergalactic outlaw by Yondu, who threatened to eat him on multiple
occasions if he didn't.
"God! Twenty years, you've been throwing that in my face, like it's some great thing not
eating me!"
Last, and perhaps most heartbreaking, is what Quill was forced to do to his father Ego.
It turns out that Ego caused the cancer in Quill's mother because, to make a long story
short, his relationship with her was a distraction from his quest to take over the universe.
Quill and Ego ended up doing battle with each other, which resulted in the death of Ego.
With the death of his mother, his outlaw youth, and the murder of his father, Quill's backstory
definitely has its fair share of tragedy, and that's all without even getting into the
death of his father figure Yondu or his star-crossed love affair with Gamora. Speaking of which…
Where to begin with Gamora? When she was a young girl, her planet was invaded by Thanos,
and her scrappy but doomed efforts to save her mother caused Thanos to spare her from
being among the half of her planet that was about to be executed. Upon her adoption, Gamora
was forced to become an assassin for Thanos, and while she did serve him, she always resented
him for destroying her previous life. Thanos also had her repeatedly duel her "sister"
Nebula, with the loser slowly becoming more and more machine. While Gamora never lost,
it definitely pained her to be a part of, and to witness, this abject cruelty.
Finally, Gamora ended up being killed by Thanos in order to complete his acquisition of the
Soul Stone. While MCU fans saw Gamora again in Avengers: Endgame, it was a version of
her from an alternate timeline, before she met the Guardians of the Galaxy.
This Gamora was surrounded by people who'd had experiences with "her" that she'd never
shared, a difficult emotional burden that could be explored in Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol. 3. With the loss of half her planet, her adoption by Thanos, being pitted against
her adopted sister, and her death at Thanos's hands, Gamora's origin story is clearly among
the most tragic of the Avengers.
Although Tony Stark's hardships were often mitigated to an extent by his insane wealth,
he still suffered no shortage of tragedy and heartbreak. When he was a young man, Tony
lost both of his parents in what was initially thought to be a car wreck but would later
turn out to be one of the Winter Soldier's assassinations. This forced him to take charge
of his father's company at a young age, and although he did very well for himself, achieving
world renown as a manufacturer and seller of cutting-edge munitions, the loss of his
parents still always shadowed him.
Years after the deaths of his parents, during an overseas demonstration of his company's
missiles, Stark was attacked and struck with bits of shrapnel from an explosion, some of
which nearly struck his heart. Forced to rely on a handmade arc reactor implanted in his
chest simply in order to stay alive, Stark built his first Iron Man armor as part of
a plot to escape from the Ten Rings terrorist organization that nearly killed him, and although
it was successful, he was unable to rescue the scientist who saved his life and helped
him build the suit.
"Thank you for saving me."
"Don't waste it. Don't waste your life."
After losing his parents, nearly dying in a terrorist attack, and failing to rescue
his savior, Stark was able to use his tragic background in order to become a better person,
and ultimately made the greatest sacrifice, giving up his own life in order to thwart
Thanos' nefarious plans once and for all.
Wanda Maximoff's backstory definitely has its share of tragedy. When she and her brother
Pietro were young, their parents were killed by bombs, and the siblings only survived due
to another missile failing to explode. That missile had the Stark name on it, which caused
the siblings to direct their grief and hatred toward Tony Stark and, by extension, the Avengers.
HYDRA was able to exploit this, and convinced Wanda and Pietro to undergo experiments that
would give them the power they needed to gain their revenge. Eventually, the siblings escaped
from HYDRA and decided to work with Ultron due to his desire to kill Tony Stark.
The Maximoffs eventually joined the Avengers to stop Ultron, yet while they succeeded,
it came at great cost, as Pietro sacrificed himself to save Hawkeye. Through the loss
of her parents by Stark missiles, her manipulation and subsequent experimentation by HYDRA, and
the loss of her brother in the battle of Sokovia, the Scarlet Witch's origin story is clearly
tragic in nature, and the tragedy only continued later, as she lost the love of her life when
Thanos killed the android known as Vision by forcibly removing the Mind Stone from his
body.
Nebula's tragic origin initially follows a path similar to Gamora's: She was taken from
her world at a young age by Thanos and forced to become an assassin. From here, however,
the adopted sisters' paths diverge. They were routinely forced to fight each other, with
Gamora routinely the victor, and Nebula slowly carved up by Thanos and made more machine
than living as punishment, leaving her understandably bitter toward Gamora, and her so-called "father."
"I will hunt my father like a dog and I will tear him apart slowly, piece by piece."
Knowing Thanos viewed Gamora as a potential successor to his throne, Nebula was driven
to prove she wasn't the inferior daughter, which further drove a wedge between the sisters.
In fact, when MCU fans meet Nebula, she's hellbent on killing Gamora, a dynamic that
proves stubbornly resistant to change, although Nebula slowly comes around to viewing the
Avengers as her allies and standing up to Thanos in his mad quest to wipe out half of
all life in the galaxy. A formidable warrior through the course of terrible circumstances,
Nebula finally learned to recognize love and friendship, but she could have, and should
have, had a far easier life.
Doctor Strange's origin story is steeped in misfortune. A successful neurosurgeon, Stephen
Strange's bad luck begins when he gets into a car accident that renders him unable to
use his hands. Following this, he sells off nearly all of his possessions to fund efforts
to heal his wounds, an obsession that ends up pushing away his love interest, Christine
Palmer. While Strange is eventually able to salvage his bond with her, he's unable to
pursue a deeper relationship with Christine, or anybody else, really, after his efforts
to regain the use of his hands lead him to become a Sorcerer Supreme and, eventually,
the protector of the mystical sanctum based in New York City. It's a long story.
Strange's journey from shallow surgeon to magical protector is not without its setbacks.
Aside from the emotional difficulty involved, he's almost immediately pitted against
Kaecilius, then forced to confront Dormammu, the ruler of the Dark Dimension,
with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance. No big deal, right? Although Strange
hasn't faced the level of tragedy that some of his fellow Avengers have had to cope with,
he did lose his career and had to basically rebuild himself as a person, making sacrifices
along the way.
Bruce Banner has his fair share of tragic chapters in his backstory. As Marvel fans
know, he was a gamma radiation expert who was contracted by the U.S. military to develop
a version of the super-soldier serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America,
but an accident left Banner changed, and always at risk of turning into a green rage monster
whenever he got angry.
"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry."
Banner attempted to isolate himself from those he loved, as he feared what would happen if
he lost control, and he was also being hunted by the military. Banner was forced to try
and find a cure for his condition so he wouldn't be treated as a weapon and could live a somewhat
normal life, but he was forced to become the Hulk when the Abomination, the gamma-infused
alter ego of special-ops vet Emil Blonsky, attacked Harlem. Banner ultimately fled the
United States entirely, only returning from exile at the urging of Nick Fury's Avengers
Initiative. Transformed by the forces he attempted to control, hunted by the government he worked
for, and prevented from living a normal life, Banner is an Avenger whose backstory has definitely
been darkened by tragedy.
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