While Marvel heroes save the day most of the time, there are also those occasions when they made some decidedly bad choices that proved they’re not perfect.
A bright idea goes sideways
It’s not like Tony Stark woke up one morning and decided to build a murder robot, he’s not that kind of guy. But in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he worked with Bruce Banner to use the Mind Stone and create Ultron, without actually asking the rest of the team what they thought first.
Tony did have good intentions, he wanted the Earth to be protected, but it stopped looking so good when that protection involved extinction. Essentially, Bruce and Stark made their own enemy, in-house, even though they had noble aims.
A kid gets the call
Peter Parker. He’s hardly the guy you’d associate with bad things, and you’re right, he’s not the one doing problematic things here, it’s Tony Stark. Iron Man showed up in Queens with money, charm, and serious problems that no teenager should have to deal with.
But Tony still recruited him to help in Captain America: Civil War. He got him to help in the airport fight against Steve Rogers’ side, even though Peter was still, you know, a teenager. Peter barely understood the full political fight, and Stark got him involved anyway.
A secret waits too long
Don’t get us wrong, it makes complete sense why Steve Rogers was so determined to protect Bucky, he was his oldest friend, after all. HYDRA had turned Bucky into a weapon, completely not his fault. Still, Steve knew a lot more about the situation than he told Tony Stark.Â
Steve knew that Bucky killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991, but decided to keep the whole thing a secret. It’s not like Steve was trying to be evil or anything, of course not. Yet keeping such a big truth from your supposed friend? Not exactly something good people do.
A runway becomes a ring
We also can’t forget the impact of the airport fight in Civil War. It’s fun to watch, we’re not denying that, but we also can’t ignore that the whole fight amounts to a bunch of powerful people settling their personal business in public.Â
All those superheroes, all that power, all those arguments being dealt with in public, around completely innocent people. Neither side came out looking especially sensible, did they? It wasn’t fair for them to put everyone else’s lives at risk in that way, it really wasn’t.
A chase almost wins
Grief can really change you and make you do things you wouldn’t normally do. Just look at how T’Challa reacted after his father’s death, he went straight after Bucky because he saw a video of him seemingly being involved. Bucky was framed, but T’Challa didn’t bother to check that.
He was so focused on revenge, so focused on making things ‘right’ in his own head that he completely let his sense of rationality slide. It was probably one of the most human moments in the entire MCU. Not in a good way, though.
A name from the past returns
The movie Black Widow featured Natasha going on a mission against Dreykov, you know, standard superhero stuff. But part of this mission featured an explosion that almost killed Dreykov’s daughter, Antonia.Â
That’s not to say Dreykov wasn’t awful because he absolutely was, and yes, we completely understand Natasha wanted out of the whole thing. But we can’t ignore the truth. A child was nearly killed just to help a future hero get free, hardly good-guy behavior.
A hood changes everything
After Thanos’s infamous Snap, Clint turned into Ronin and began killing criminals left and right, all across the world. We even see him in Tokyo after he’s cut through a group of men, although it’s clear that we’re not supposed to view him as a good guy.
The entire mood is a lot colder than that because we see that Clint lost his family. His grief turned him into someone who killed others he believed ‘deserved’ punishment. It doesn’t matter that some of them were dangerous because he became judge, jury, and blade.
A quiet farm ends badly
We see Thor finding Thanos at the start of Endgame, and by that point, the mission’s pretty much done for. The Avengers want the Stones back. Thanos says he used them to destroy themselves, and at that point, Thanos is weak, injured, and not much use to anyone.
But Thor decides to take his head off. He has reasons for doing it, we understand them as an audience, but that doesn’t mean his reasons are right or even acceptable. It’s simple revenge, through and through. What makes Thor any better during this farm scene, really?
A hand slips away
The scene where Quill picks a fight with Thanos on Titan is so annoying because, yes, we get what he’s doing, but we still feel like screaming at the screen. The plan they had was actually working.Â
Mantis had Thanos frozen, Spider-Man and Iron Man were pulling the Gauntlet loose, they all just needed a few more seconds. But then Quill found out Gamora was dead and punched Thanos. That one burst of anger, that one moment of poor self-control was all Thanos needed.Â
A spell gets crowded
It’s not like Peter was being evil when he asked Doctor Strange for help. He was reacting in a regular way that a teen would, except with a little magic, too. He just wanted a reset button after his identity had been exposed and his friends were paying for it. He wanted to do the right thing.
That’s probably what makes this moment so bad, because he really was trying to be a good person, but he failed. Peter’s attempts to run away from the problem allowed villains from other universes to start walking around New York.
A mother hears herself
It’s easy to understand Wanda’s pain because all she wants is her children back, what parent wouldn’t? The problem is that her plan in Multiverse of Madness requires a scared teenager named America Chavez.Â
Wanda doesn’t go looking for Chavez to ask for help, she actually hunts her, simple as that. The power she’s looking for could actually destroy Chavez, but Wanda doesn’t care. Her grief doesn’t disguise the fact that, actually, Wanda is someone a child is running from.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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