7 Worst Avengers Stories, Ever

While countless Avengers stories and events are well worth your time, with some even reaching classic status, a few stinkers have rolled out over the years. For every “Ultron Unlimited” or “Kree/Skrull War” hitting comic stands, there is a potential “Bloodties” or a Last Avengers Story waiting around the corner to leave readers bewildered. Some of these terrible stories started as lofty goals and radical ideas, but ended up falling flat. Some are products of their time that could land you on a watch list if you bought them today. And then some are just not good, treating beloved characters like trash.

When it comes to calling out the worst of the worst, it’s fairly difficult to nail them down in a specific order. Outside of a few glaring examples, some of these stories did have good intentions, and that will affect their ranking. Still, these seven stories described below are all fairly bad for the Avengers. They might be good for the X-Men or other supporting characters, and they might have great moments, but the Avengers take the creative hit in the end.

So scroll down to peruse the worst Avengers stories that have made it to the page.

1) The Crossing

The ’90s were the worst time to be a fan of The Avengers. The decade started with members of the team donning bomber jackets with the team’s logo, essentially becoming THE look for characters like Black Knight, Crystal, Sersi, and Black Widow. But then Avengers: The Crossing comes, a moment that could’ve been a triumph right up there with Age of Apocalypse, Death of Superman, or Knightfall as the best of an era.

Tony Stark has been revealed to be a pawn of Kang the Conqueror, and he’s been in the fold for years. He betrays the team along with Mantis, commits some murder, and sends the team looking for answers. To combat their evil former partner, the Avengers go back in time to recruit 19-year-old Tony Stark from before Kang’s meddling. This leads to a showdown where Prime Tony Stark is killed, Wasp is transformed into a bug creature, and we’re left with teen Tony Stark taking the mantle for a few months until everybody is killed and rebooted for the Heroes Reborn event.

2) Avengers #200 – Carol Danvers’ Baby Saga

One of the older entries on this list, a quick online search will show that this issue of Avengers is quite controversial. Carl Danvers is the focus, dealing with a sudden two-day pregnancy that brings a baby boy with troubling origins to the team’s mansion. While all of the team members are treating it like a wonderful moment, Danvers isn’t happy. Marcus, the child, grows quickly and is then revealed to be the son of Immortus, one of Kang’s alternate identities and a major villain for the team.

As Marcus explains, he wooed Danvers, then implanted his seed, and manipulated her until she gave birth to him in her own time period. Marcus hoped it would be his ticket out of his home in limbo, and Danvers actually gets on board after some soul searching. So essentially, Ms. Marvel is sexually assaulted, then convinced to keep the baby despite the reported crime, and then chooses to live in limbo with her son. Worse yet, for her troubles, the story that follows is where she loses her powers to Rogue.

3) Ultimates 3/Ultimatum

A terrible one-two punch written by Jeph Loeb, one could argue that The Ultimates 3 and the Ultimatum event did more to harm the Avengers and Ultimates than any of the prior threats they had faced. One of Hank Pym’s Ultron robots ends up going rogue, killing Wanda Maximoff and becoming Yellow Jacket. The bot then leaks a sex tape featuring Tony Stark and Black Widow, all to disguise evidence in the death of Scarlet Witch. Her brother Quicksilver would also be killed in the series, and the Ultron plot is revealed to have been orchestrated by Doctor Doom.

That departure from the Ultimates formula was bad, but the Ultimatum event that followed was even worse. After his children’s deaths, Magneto steals Thor’s hammer and uses it to reverse the poles of the Earth. This wallops New York with a tsunami, killing heroes and kicking off a crazy story. It’s almost a snuff feature from there, with The Wasp being eaten by The Blob, Doctor Strange having his head popped like a grape by Dormammu, and many others. Magneto ends up killing Wolverine, but then is killed himself by Cyclops, who also later dies after being shot by a sniper revealed to be the still-alive Quicksilver. The Thing also kills Doctor Doom to end things, essentially planting seeds for a story that never will happen.

4) Heroes Reborn

While Heroes Reborn doesn’t have any stories that stick out as absolutely horrible, the overall idea was a bad detour for The Avengers. All of the heroes who sacrifice themselves to defeat Onslaught have actually been transported to a counter-Earth created by Franklin Richards. Several stories taking cues from old Avengers tales make up this run, with Galactus arriving to close things out in a four-part epic with the Fantastic Four.

But then, the heroes returned, and anything that happened in Heroes Reborn was gone pretty much forever. It was a success in one way, revitalizing the team’s book, along with successful reboots for Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four. Always nice to end on a positive.

5) Civil War 2

A more recent event, Civil War 2 is also an example of an event’s name taking on a new meaning, as people will flock back to see what’s new under the hood. After Ulysses Cain becomes an Inhuman after being exposed to Terrigen Mist, he gains the power to see into the future. These visions lead to the Avengers taking the initiative against an invasion and later ambushing Thanos in disastrous fashion. War Machine is killed, She-Hulk is thrown into a coma, and Iron Man draws a line in the sand with Captain Marvel over the situation.

It’s quite the silly storyline from there that seems created to take some juice from Captain America: Civil War when it was released in theaters. In the end, heroes fight and Iron Man is put into a coma by Captain Marvel. Ulysses becomes Enternity’s new sidekick, while Danvers takes the lead for the superhero community.

6) Onslaught

Heroes Reborn was a controversial mess, but it wouldn’t exist without Onslaught and the treatment the Avengers experienced during that storyline. After Charles Xavier goes insane due to corruption from mind-wiping Magneto, Onslaught is born. The main crux of the story puts the focus on the X-Men, with the other heroes joining for the finale.

If you tear away the shine from the X-Men’s popularity at the time, the story is essentially an excuse to get the heroes “killed” and pin it on the X-Men before Operation Zero Tolerance kicks off. The Avengers and Fantastic Four enter Onslaught’s energy form after his armor is cracked by The Hulk, providing mass for the X-Men to attack. It was necessary, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.

7) Secret Empire

Similar to The Crossing, Secret Empire takes a beloved member of the team and turns them into a hidden villain who tries to take over the world. Kang the Conqueror turned out to be the puppet master villain for The Crossing, controlling Tony Stark. Secret Empire left the villain role solely for Captain America, who was revealed to be a secret Hydra member in a shocking turn of events.

The story just features Steve Rogers doing a lot of awful things, exacerbated by a lot of real-world events people couldn’t escape. By the end, the Hydra cap is revealed to be a fake, while the real Cap has been trapped inside the Cosmic Cube due to the events of Avengers: Standoff! They face off, with the real Cap winning and the Hydra Cap ending up locked in the Shadow Pillar prison. Nobody seemed to enjoy a Nazi sympathizer Captain America, and it created a lot of controversy.

Do you agree with our choices? Think we missed the mark? Let us know in the comments.