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7 Marvel Heroes With the Most Tragic Backstories, Ranked
Some Marvel Comics heroes got their start thanks to extremely tragic backstories. While many heroes have sad backstories, it often gets very dark for some of Marvel’s most popular characters. Everyone seems to have some tragedy in their past, from Iron Man’s heart almost giving out on him until he found a way to stay alive, to Captain America getting frozen in ice for decades before being revived in the modern day. However, other heroes had it worse, including losing beloved family members to tragic deaths, and even some heroes who underwent some horrific experimentation before they finally found a way to become heroes once and for all.
From Marvel’s most popular hero losing more loved ones than anyone should ever experience to a hero who was tortured and experimented on for years before escaping and becoming a hero, here are the Marvel heroes with the most tragic backstories.
7) Spider-Man
Peter Parker was a young teenager when a radioactive spider bit him, and he became Spider-Man. He was bullied and pushed around, and since his parents were dead, he only had his Aunt May and Uncle Ben there to support him and keep him going. However, when he struggled to figure out what to do with his new powers, his own actions indirectly caused his Uncle Ben’s murder, and Spider-Man blamed himself for this, creating the hero he became.
Things kept getting bad. The woman he loved was killed when Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy, something Spider-Man also blamed himself for. Before that happened, Gwen’s dad died in a battle Spider-Man had with Doctor Octopus, and Spidey once again blamed himself. His close friend Jean DeWolffe died, and his best friend Harry Osborn died. Spider-Man’s backstory contains the worst luck of any superhero in Marvel Comics history.
6) Daredevil
Daredevil is the one Marvel hero who has the most guilt of anyone in comics, and it was never because of anything he did. When Matt Murdock was a child, his dad wanted the boy to excel in life, and that was seemingly ruined when Matt saved a person from an auto accident, only to have chemicals splashed in his face, taking his eyesight. Now blind, Matt sat helplessly while mobsters killed his father.
When Matt grew up, he mastered his other senses and became Daredevil, the defender of Hell’s Kitchen. Tragedy kept following him, similar to what happened to Spider-Man. Daredevil fell in love with a woman named Elektra, and Bullseye killed her. He had a former lover named Karen Page, who sold him out to Kingpin, who ruined Matt’s life before Bullseye also killed Karen. Daredevil is a cursed hero, and the tragedies in his backstory are proof of this.
5) Wolverine
Wolverine is one of the most tragic superheroes in Marvel Comics. He is older than most Marvel characters, born in the late 19th century, only to watch his father get murdered by a man named Thomas Logan, which triggered the young man’s mutant powers. He went by the name Logan and began to lose his humanity while on the run from the law before meeting his greatest enemy, Sabretooth, who killed Logan’s lover, Silver Fox.
Things got worse when he fell in love with a woman named Itsu, who ended up pregnant with his child. A villain named Romulus murdered her and stole the baby, although Logan never knew the baby (Daken) survived until years later. Weapon X made things worse when they tookLogan and gave him the Adamantium skeleton and wiped out his memories, turning him feral. He eventually joined Department H and Alpha Flight before finally finding a home with the X-Men, but his road to that point was full of tragic moments.
4) Cable
Cable never had a chance in life. He was born as the son of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor, the latter of whom was a clone Mister Sinister created to try to make the ultimate mutant child. Sadly, Nathan Summers was infected with the techno-organic virus, and there was no cure at the time, so Scott agreed to send the baby into the future, where there was a cure.
However, it turned out this future was not the safest place to send Cable, since it was an Earth ruled by Apocalypse, and Cable had to grow up as a warrior to fight against this terrible regime. When Cable returned from that future to Earth-616, he was changed and was a hardened warrior thanks to the tragedies of his childhood.
3) Hulk
Hulk was already a tragic character, a scientist turned into a hulking monster when he tried to save a young man who had trespassed into an area where a gamma explosion was set to take place. However, his backstory was more tragic than that because he had an abusive father who was responsible for Hulk’s rage issues. Bruce Banner has DID because of his unresolved childhood trauma.
Brian Banner abused his son terribly because Bruce possessed a gifted intelligence, which Brian considered a bad thing. Brian thought the gamma radiation he worked around tainted his offspring, and Bruce’s intelligence was a sign of this dysfunction. Brian was so violent to his son that when Bruce’s mother came to his defense, Brian killed her in front of Bruce. The youngster blocked it out of his memory, but it is why Hulk is so full of rage, thanks to these repressed memories.
2) X-23
X-23 has a tragic past similar to that of Wolverine, but in some ways, it was even worse. That is because Laura Kinney was not a human, or even a mutant. She is a clone of Wolverine, making her somewhat Logan’s “daughter” in a way. However, when she was cloned and began to grow up, she was tortured horribly. The goal was to turn her into the ultimate weapon and an assassin.
At one point, the scientists exposed Laura to radiation poisoning to trigger her mutant gene. When the scientists believed she was getting soft, they created a “trigger scent” that sent her into a rage, and she killed her best friend, something that traumatized the girl. She had one person who helped her named Sarah Kinney, and it was this woman who helped her escape from the facility. She found Wolverine and joined the Xavier Institute, as she finally found safety for the first time in her life.
1) Rocket Raccoon
Rocket Raccoon’s tragic backstory is the same as X-23’s. He was once a young boy named Rocket who was abducted and used as a therapy animal for inmates at an asylum for the criminally insane. He was soon given intelligence and awareness by robots created to replace the animals, and even made these animals anthropomorphic.
However, the robots were brutal, and they used painful, traumatic means to achieve this goal, using tech similar to what the Kree used to create the Inhumans. Rocket became what he looks like today. He then teamed with his close friends, more anthropomorphic animals, and they escaped the prison world for freedom. It is no wonder Rocket is a sad animal who uses humor to make his life seem better.
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