Dive into the darkest corners of the Marvel Multiverse, where heroes become villains, worlds crumble, and hope is nothing more than a distant memory. We're exploring the most disturbing alternate realities that will make you grateful for Earth-616!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the grittiest, most disturbing,
00:05and darkest alternate universes and timelines in Marvel Comics,
00:08away from the main Earth-616.
00:10Beware, there could be story spoilers.
00:17Imagine a world where the Avengers had been forced into retirement,
00:20and now a fascist shield is in control.
00:23Well, that's the state of the world in the story Avengers Twilight.
00:27This existence was like Earth-616 until the events of Hero Day.
00:31Ultron took control of Hulk, making him go on a rampage,
00:35wrecking Boston and killing heroes, including Spider-Man.
00:38In the present day, even the US President is corrupt as he's controlled by Tony Stark's
00:43son Jimmy and Edwin Jarvis' suspicious brother Kyle Jarvis.
00:46Speaking of the elder Iron Man, he's a head in a jar.
00:50Captain America was stripped of his super soldier serum,
00:53but eventually, he got back in the fight.
00:55But for years, it is a bleak world.
01:01Marvel has had a few characters similar to Superman.
01:04However, none has been as brutal and sinister as King Hyperion.
01:08Making his debut in Exiles number 38 in 2003,
01:12he joined the dimension-jumping team Weapon X,
01:14and it didn't take long for his evil side to come out.
01:17On his home of Earth-4023, Hyperion decided to be in charge and went on a killing spree,
01:23wiping out heroes and cosmic beings like Galactus.
01:26Terrified with this monster,
01:28the citizens of the planet launched a nuclear arsenal at Hyperion.
01:31However, rather than end him, it annihilated all of them,
01:35leaving Hyperion with his empire of dirt.
01:38When the Exiles team eventually defeated him,
01:40they sent him back to his barren world, the worst punishment for him.
01:47The 2006 event Civil War was one of the biggest in the Marvel Universe.
01:51When God Emperor Doom created the Patchwork Battleworld in 2015's Secret Wars,
01:56one terrible existence was the War Zone.
01:59In this area, Captain America and Iron Man's civil war never ended.
02:03In the past, when the teams fought at Prison 42,
02:06Cloak saved who he could as the facility exploded.
02:09However, he couldn't stop the energy from wrecking St. Louis,
02:12taking the lives of 15 million civilians and numerous heroes.
02:16Since then, people have lived in two factions, the Iron and the Blue.
02:21Causing families to be separated, including Spider-Mans.
02:24However, someone is pulling the strings, making the two sides fight,
02:28causing more destruction and death along the way.
02:34While 2018's Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse made Spider-Man Noir look like edgy fun,
02:39his homeworld is horrible.
02:41Designated Earth-90214, this universe is like noir films,
02:45where the mob dominates and wears fedoras.
02:48Rather than being a team of plucky outcasts,
02:50the X-Men are a criminal syndicate run by Charles Xavier,
02:53who thinks sociopathy is an evolutionary step.
02:56For Peter Parker, Uncle Ben met a far more terrible demise
03:00than his Earth-616 counterpart.
03:02After he upset New York City's elites for organizing a union strike,
03:05they sent the Vulture to attack and eat Ben.
03:08Yikes!
03:09Throw in Dr. Octopus working for the Nazis
03:11and kidnapping black people to experiment on,
03:14and it is not a world filled with joy.
03:1716. Thanos Wins
03:19Thanos and the personification of death have a long, weird connection
03:22that's caused the Mad Titan to do a lot of bad.
03:25However, in the 2017 story Thanos Wins,
03:28it got far worse in this twisted, barren future.
03:31To impress her, Thanos goes on a rampage
03:34and takes the lives of nearly everyone in the galaxy.
03:37However, he sends his minion, the cosmic ghost rider,
03:40into the past to grab Earth-616 Thanos and bring him to that reality.
03:45King Thanos needed younger Thanos to help take out the Fallen One,
03:48a powered-up version of the Silver Surfer,
03:51and then himself so he could finally be with death.
03:53However, young Thanos had other ideas,
03:56seemingly changing his life to erase that existence.
03:59But it later returned.
04:0115. The Ultimate Universe
04:04To revamp the comic universe and give new readers an easy starting point,
04:08Marvel released the Ultimate Universe in 2000.
04:10Designated Earth-1610,
04:12it was created to be what the real world would look like with superheroes.
04:16Apparently, it would be a disturbing existence.
04:19Along with plenty of other catastrophes,
04:21the biggest was when Magneto reversed the Earth's poles
04:24and flooded New York City in Ultimatum.
04:26On top of millions of civilian deaths,
04:28many heroes either perished in the water or in other brutal ways.
04:32One shining light of the universe was Spider-Man.
04:35However, in 2011,
04:37Peter Parker heartbreakingly met his demise before later coming back.
04:41But at least we got Miles Morales out of it,
04:43so it's not all dreadful.
04:4514. Hulk The End
04:48When all is gone, only Hulk remains.
04:50On Earth-2081, everything was like Earth-616
04:54until a set of villains caused wars to erupt everywhere,
04:58ending with nuclear weapons that destroyed the planet
05:01and annihilated nearly everyone on it.
05:03Bruce Banner, one of the survivors,
05:04spends decades traveling the planet's broken civilization
05:07until he's the last human alive.
05:09At that point, a robot recorder from the Watchers
05:12is sent to document Earth's fall,
05:14which seems a little inappropriate.
05:16Banner attempts to take himself out many times,
05:18only for the Hulk to stop him.
05:20To make it worse, somehow,
05:22the radiation had caused the planet's bugs to mutate.
05:25Every night, they come and consume the Hulk,
05:28leading to him regenerating for the grim cycle to continue.
05:3113. Marvel Universe vs.
05:34Over on Earth-11080,
05:36the Punisher is doing what he does best,
05:39taking out scum.
05:40However, this time, it caused a pathogen to be released.
05:43Patient Zero is seen at a hockey game
05:45when Spider-Man battles Rhino and then eats him.
05:48This virus spreads quickly.
05:50It causes people to devolve into primal beasts
05:53that hunger for any kind of meat.
05:55They're similar to zombies,
05:56but without decaying and better cognition.
05:58Over three stories,
06:00we see Punisher's mission to clean up his mess,
06:02Hawkeye and the Avengers trying to stop it,
06:04and Wolverine getting involved and having his arm bitten off.
06:07One terrible moment is when Tony Stark turns while in his suit.
06:11However, because it's damaged,
06:13it loses power, trapping him inside.
06:1612. Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe
06:19On Earth-12101,
06:21the X-Men had enough of Deadpool's antics
06:23and sent him away for psychiatric help.
06:25However, the villain Psycho Man had other motives.
06:28Before he can turn Wade Wilson into a brainwashed minion,
06:31all the non-disturbed voices are gone in Deadpool's head,
06:35yet one new one is unlocked.
06:37This dark voice turns Wade into a determined psychopath
06:40who yearns for the end of the universe.
06:42Deadpool, without his usual jokes and nonsense,
06:44goes on a killing spree,
06:46taking out every hero and villain he can find.
06:49Imagine being a citizen in that world
06:50and seeing those people who constantly save the day
06:53getting ended by Deadpool brutally.
06:55Not fun.
06:5611. The Cancerverse
06:58After the War of Kings released an explosive
07:00that ripped apart time and space known as the Fault,
07:03the path to the Cancerverse was open.
07:05Designated Earth-10011,
07:08it's a Lovecraftian horror world,
07:10mirroring Earth-616 with the demise of Captain Marvel via cancer.
07:14Only here, this version of Mar-Vell accepted a deal
07:17with the Many-Angled Ones.
07:19He then corrupted Earth's heroes,
07:21leading to them ending death in the universe,
07:23making it so no one can perish.
07:25Now, demonic versions of the Avengers,
07:28the Revengers are the premiere team.
07:30Earth-616's Star-Lord, Richard Rider-Nova,
07:33and Thanos get even stuck in that nightmare.
07:35It's worse for Nova as he's there longer,
07:38massacred over and over again by the corrupted heroes.
07:4110. House of M
07:43This limited event series written by Brian Michael Bendis in 2005
07:47features an alternate reality created by Scarlet Witch
07:50in which mutants rule over a world
07:52where humans were seen as second-class citizens.
07:55Magneto, now known as Magnus, is in charge,
07:57with his children Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch at his side.
08:01It's an authoritarian world that,
08:02despite not seeming too bad for mutants,
08:04doesn't look to work out too well for non-mutants.
08:07Though things were eventually returned back to normal,
08:09Scarlet Witch uttered no more mutants,
08:11which decimated the mutant population in the main Marvel continuity.
08:159. Earth-X
08:17Earth-X is a dystopian future timeline
08:19which sees a large number of shocking changes
08:22to the normal Marvel Universe
08:23after Black Bolt releases Terrigen mists onto Earth,
08:26causing the population to become inhumans and develop powers.
08:30The series features an aging and self-doubting Captain America,
08:34a Bruce Banner that's been physically separated from the Hulk,
08:37President Norman Osborn,
08:38and a depressing past-his-prime Wolverine,
08:41along with a number of new heroes and villains.
08:44It's a complex and cosmic story,
08:46but the highlight is the dark tone of the world.
08:488. Future Imperfect
08:51In the early 1990s,
08:52the Incredible Hulk featured a storyline
08:54that explored a post-nuclear war future
08:56that has nearly caused humanity to go extinct.
09:00The Hulk is driven insane due to the radiation
09:02and is able to gain the mental ability of Bruce Banner
09:05while maintaining the physical form of the Hulk.
09:08This results in Maestro,
09:10an evil, super-intelligent, super-strong Hulk
09:12that rules over the remaining population
09:15with an iron and green fist.
09:17So, when the Hulk we know and love
09:19finds himself in this dark future,
09:21he goes toe-to-toe with his evil counterpart.
09:247. Punisher The End
09:26In 2004,
09:27Marvel published this Punisher one-shot
09:29written by legendary writer Garth Ennis
09:32that introduced a post-apocalyptic world
09:34in which Frank Castle
09:35is one of the few remaining survivors
09:37of a nuclear holocaust.
09:38After taking refuge in a bomb shelter
09:40underneath the prison where he was being held,
09:42the Punisher hunts down the politicians
09:44and leaders responsible for the massive world war
09:47that caused the end of almost all human life.
09:51When he finds them,
09:52they tell him they are the last remaining people
09:54left alive on Earth,
09:55but Castle kills him anyway.
09:57Talk about a downer ending.
09:596. Old Man Logan
10:012008's Old Man Logan storyline,
10:03memorably an influence on 2017's Logan,
10:06tells the story of a future ruled by supervillains.
10:09After being tricked by Mysterio
10:10into killing the rest of the X-Men,
10:12Logan has decided to retire from fighting.
10:15The story picks up with Logan accepting a job with Hawkeye
10:17to escort a package across the country,
10:19and we see the sad remnants of a society
10:22controlled by the likes of an evil Hulk and Red Skull.
10:25Eventually, after a great deal of violence,
10:27Logan succeeds in getting paid,
10:29returning home to find his family murdered
10:31by the nefarious Hulk gang.
10:345. Age of Ultron
10:36Brian Michael Bendis' Age of Ultron
10:38has surprisingly little influence on the Avengers film
10:40beyond bearing the same title.
10:42This storyline focused on what happens
10:44when Ultron travels from an alternate future
10:46where he is ruler to take over the original world.
10:49Ultron's assault with Sentinels is fast and brutal,
10:52taking the lives of both heroes and regular citizens alike.
10:56After some time travel shenanigans,
10:58the heroes are able to prevent the events of Ultron's timeline
11:01from coming to pass,
11:02but seeing Ultron's terrifying version of the world under his rule
11:05is not something we'll soon forget.
11:074. Days of Future Past
11:10When it comes to bleak alternate timelines,
11:12it's hard to outdo the X-Men.
11:14Way back in the early 80s,
11:16as part of Chris Claremont's lengthy and highly acclaimed saga
11:18that spanned several series over a decade,
11:21X-Men explored a potential future
11:22that saw the world dominated by Sentinels
11:25and mutants housed in brutal internment camps.
11:28It's a chilling sight,
11:30especially considering what mutants represented to many readers.
11:33The masterfully written story sees the present-day X-Men
11:36attempting to stop the timeline from coming to pass,
11:38but the story ends with them uncertain of their success.
11:41The dystopian future seen in this series
11:43has been revisited in television, film,
11:46and in sequel comics since its initial debut.
11:493. Age of Apocalypse
11:52Even darker than a Sentinel-run future hellscape for mutants,
11:55is this alternate universe
11:56that saw mutant god Apocalypse rise unopposed
11:59to take over the entire world.
12:02This timeline is no good for anyone.
12:04A time travel mishap causes the death of Professor Xavier,
12:08which Apocalypse witnesses.
12:10This springs him to enact his plan earlier than in the original timeline,
12:14leading to his success and eventual world conquest.
12:17Age of Apocalypse was a sprawling story told in the mid-90s
12:21that became bloated and overdone before limping to its finish.
12:24But the timeline where Apocalypse ruled
12:27remains the most terrifying of all Marvel alternate timelines nonetheless.
12:322. Marvel Zombies
12:34This horror-themed Marvel timeline originated in the mid-2000s
12:37with a limited series very appropriately written
12:40by Walking Dead scribe Robert Kirkman.
12:42The five-issue series sees a zombie plague
12:44spread through the superhero community,
12:46who quickly devour all the humans left on Earth,
12:49leaving no food for the zombies other than each other.
12:52The original series ends with several zombified heroes eating Galactus
12:56and becoming infused with his powers,
12:58forming their own planet and flesh-devouring cosmic entity.
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13:181. Ruins
13:20This notoriously bleak miniseries written by comic legend Warren Ellis
13:24features gorgeous painted art throughout its two issues
13:27that depict a bleak alternate possibility of what could have been.
13:31Ruins tells the story of an Earth in which everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
13:36It's a surprisingly adult story coming from Marvel,
13:38featuring elements like the Avengers as a ragtag secessionist group,
13:42Jean Grey as a prostitute who's murdered by a cannibalistic Nick Fury,
13:46and several horrific accidents that caused the death of a number of heroes.
13:50The two issues are almost unbelievably dark from beginning to end,
13:54and it's unlikely we'll get anything quite like this from the company again.
13:57If you could live anywhere in the Marvel multiverse, where would you pick and why?
14:01Marvel 1602? The Monkeyverse? The Amalgam Universe or something else? Let us know below.
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