Worst Marvel Universes To Live In

Highlights

Marvel Noir is a bleak and mundane universe where popular superheroes live mundane lives and face dreary scenarios.
The Age of Apocalypse is a dystopian era where mutants reign supreme after Charles Xavier's death and Apocalypse's rule.
Old Man Logan is set in a world where supervillains have taken over and terrorize the remaining superheroes.

At first glance, any universe in Marvel Comics can become an awesome place to live under the existence of superpowers. Just an innocent accident can transform someone into a superhuman, and with the Avengers among many teams to defend the Earth, the world is practically their oyster. Even as a civilian, it seems any dimension in the current Marvel Multiverse may be worth the exploration just to come face to face with the epic battles between the Earth's Mightiest Heroes and their respective supervillains. Unfortunately, not all universes in Marvel Comics have the same freedom.

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In fact, some universes in the Marvel Multiverse are built to have horrible timelines that even Marvel's toughest superheroes have a hard time dealing with. For fans of Marvel Comics, just which Marvel universes are the worst places to live in?

1 Marvel Noir

A Noir-Inspired World Where Heroes Become Involved In Bleak Scenarios

As Seen In	Various Noir titles (2009-2010), Spider-Man Noir: Twilight in Babylon (2020)
Claim To Infamy	A version of the Marvel Universe with noir and pulp elements, depicting characters in dreary scenarios

Serving as the backdrop of the dreary mystery stories of Marvel Noir, its eponymous universe is a melancholic take on Marvel superheroes. Now neither “super” nor “hero,” the limited stories in the Marvel Noir line depict the lives of popular characters as normalcy brings them to undesirable situations, most of which occurred in the past. For instance, the X-Men don’t have powers but are instead patients of psychiatrist Charles Xavier whose “powers” comprise mental health concerns. Meanwhile, Iron Man’s armor is more of a life support system than a powerful weapon, serving as the main tool in his mission to find a cure for his weak heart.

Perhaps the only saving grace in Marvel Noir is Spider-Man Noir, whose mystic connection with a spider-god granted him arachnid abilities. However, despite Spider-Man’s existence, the general bleakness and tragedies surrounding Marvel’s heroes at the time make Marvel Noir as mundane and unremarkable as the real world.

2 Days Of Future Past, Future Present

Sentinels Turn On Humans After Hunting All Mutants

As Seen In	The Uncanny X-Men #141-142 (1981), Fantastic Four Annual #23, X-Factor Annual #5, The New Mutants Annual #6, The Uncanny X-Men Annual #14 (1990)
Claim To Infamy	An adult Kitty Pryde possesses his past self in a bid to prevent an assassination that would trigger a Sentinel-led future and a global nuclear holocaust

Not much is known about the day-to-day timeline of the two-issue Days of Future Past, except that the future consciousness of Kitty Pride had to possess her younger body to stop it from ever happening. According to adult Kitty, the X-Men have to stop Mystique’s reassembled Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly, Charles Xavier, and Moira MacTaggert. Their deaths will task the Sentinels to perform a full manhunt on all mutant-kind, and eventually, mankind once all mutants have been either killed or sent to internment camps.

Worse, adult Kitty’s consciousness was sent to the past at the onset of a nuclear holocaust. However, while she stopped the assassination in the past, it’s unknown whether her 2013 timeline was averted or simply delayed. A sequel called Days of Future Present stars an adult Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers, the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, revealed to have come from the aforementioned timeline. Their story is more of a bittersweet romantic tale, but their presence back then implies that the Days of Future Past universe still exists despite Kitty’s intervention.

3 Age Of Apocalypse

Charles Xavier’s Death Lead To Apocalypse Ruling The World

As Seen In	Age of Apocalypse: The Chosen, X-Men: Alpha, X-Men: Omega (1995-1996) and various tie-ins
Claim To Infamy	When Charles Xavier’s son Legion goes back in time to kill Magneto, he accidentally kills his father. This death prompts Apocalypse to attack a decade earlier, plunging the Earth into a dystopian era where mutants reign supreme

When Legion travels back in time in an attempt to kill Erik Lensherr, the latter’s best friend Charles Xavier dies saving his life. While Charles’ death inspires Erik to follow Xavier’s path of mutant coexistence as Magneto, this attack is seen by Apocalypse as an opportunity to strike. Despite Magneto’s assembly of the X-Men, they prove futile against the powerful mutant. As a result, Apocalypse manages to raise his Four Horsemen and create the Age of Apocalypse where mutants reign supreme.

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The horrifying dystopia of the Age of Apocalypse is marked by its regular genocidal “cullings” or killings of “inferior” humans. To avoid further interference, Apocalypse has issued the hunting and execution of mutants with telepathic and temporal abilities. The world’s only hope lies in Magneto’s X-Men, whose few numbers have to contend with the government and Apocalypse’s own Elite Mutant Force composed of mutants such as Cyclops and Havok whom En Sabah Nur recruit before they could even join their original team. While Bishop manages to travel back in time to stop Legion’s attack and undo the timeline, the alternate era it showed was one of Marvel’s most horrific.

4 Old Man Logan

Villains Teamed Up And Ushered A Reign Of Terror

As Seen In	Wolverine, Vol. 3, #66-72 (2008-2009), Wolverine Giant-Size Old Man Logan (2009), Old Man Logan (2015-Present)
Claim To Infamy	When supervillains teamed up to defeat superheroes, Old Man Logan became one of the last remaining superheroes to oppose their rule

While not much is originally known about the Old Man Logan timeline, a pacifist Logan finally reveals “the night the heroes fell” to a blind Hawkeye during their road trip. From Logan’s point of view, Wolverine renounced his superhero identity after being manipulated by Mysterio into killing all the X-Men. However, this was just one of the massive supervillain attacks that systematically eliminated most of the world’s superheroes. Since then, the United States became Amerika and was divided among leading supervillains.

Thanks to the Old Man Logan storyline, Logan is convinced to once again become Wolverine and rise up to supervillain rule. In this regard, he’s formed the Fantastic Force alongside the remainder of the world’s superheroes to try and retake their home. Despite the series’ nature as an ongoing storyline offering a sliver of hope to its citizens, the supervillain uprising happening at a global scale means much of the world without the Fantastic Force is still likely living in horrific tyrannical regimes.

5 Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

The Punisher Shows The Power Of Mortal Vengeance Against All Superheroes

As Seen In	Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe (1995)
Claim To Infamy	Frank Castle kills superpowered beings when his family is killed in a crossfire between superheroes and villains

The Punisher of Marvel Comics is already a source of moral controversy due to his kill code towards criminals, and this is taken a step further in Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe. When Frank Castle’s family is killed during a crossfire between superheroes and aliens, he kills Cyclops and other apologizing heroes in a rage. Despite being sentenced to life imprisonment, new associates break him out and fund his crusade against superpowered beings.

Now the Punisher, Castle began methodically killing superheroes. His goal is to kill all superheroes who exist at the time, planning to end his mission after a match with Daredevil on the rooftop. While practically victorious after fatally stabbing the hero, Daredevil reveals himself as Matt Murdock, Castle’s lawyer. Daredevil’s dying words were: “There’s always a man behind the mask.” After realizing that Castle himself adopted an identity and became a superhero himself, he completes his assignment via suicide - ridding his universe of superheroes.

6 Ultimate Universe

A More Grounded Take On Superheroes Rife With Bleakness

As Seen In	Ultimate Marvel (2000-2015), new Ultimate imprint (2024)
Claim To Infamy	A more “grounded” take on superheroics that tried to unify the origins of superheroes, but also resulted in darker stories until its initial destruction via an Incursion

The aim to reboot the Marvel Universe into a more grounded narrative resulted in the Ultimate Universe, with super-soldier programs at its center. The Project Rebirth that would create Captain America came from a previous success with Nicholas Fury, while the failed Weapon X project with James Howlett created the mutant genome. These events also led to the creation of slightly altered superpowered teams, such as SHIELD-sponsored Ultimates, as well as Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy.

Multiple tragedies strike the Ultimate Universe that transforms it into an unideal place to live in. Magneto attempts to wipe out humanity when Ultron kills Wanda Maximoff, reversing Earth’s poles and killing billions of humans. When Doctor Doom is revealed to have orchestrated Wanda’s death, Ben Grimm kills him to avoid future disasters. Convinced that humans can’t be left unmanaged, Reed Richards attempts to take full control. Even when these threats were stopped, they came at the cost of numerous superheroes. Not only that, 2015’s Secret Wars resulted in the Ultimate Universe’s destruction when it became the target of an Incursion.

7 Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe

Entire Universes, The Source Of Inspiration Itself, Killed By A Nihilistic Dreadpool

As Seen In	Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe (2012-2013), Deadpool: Killustrated (2013), Deadpool Kills Deadpool (2013)
Claim To Infamy	Psycho-Man mistreating Deadpool transforms him into Dreadpool, whose new mission in life is to end everything

Set originally in Earth-12101, the universe of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe should be the same as Earth-616 except for the X-Men attempting to cure Deadpool via Dr. Benjamin Brighton. Unbeknownst to them, Brighton is actually Psycho-Man who brainwashes people to do his bidding. While he fails to turn Deadpool into a puppet, his treatment “kills” Deadpool’s inner voices and only retains one that says the universe is a “lie” and he should kill everything.

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Both heroes and villains attempt to stop his rampage, but Dreadpool’s knowledge of their abilities and Fourth Wall capabilities allow him to kill them easily. Dreadpool eventually goes to the Nexus of All Realities, kills the writers of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe and threatens to do the same to the reader. Dreadpool’s multiversal rampage continues in Deadpool: Killustrated, where he destroys the Ideaverse to kill the inspiration of heroes from literature. Only the Earth-616’s Deadpool and his Deadpool Corps manage to stop Dreadpool’s multiverseal rampage. Still, many universes have been laid to waste by Dreadpool.

8 Cancerverse

The Death Of Lady Death Paved The Way Of Endless Corrupting Life

As Seen In	Realm of Kings (2009-2010) and various tie-ins
Claim To Infamy	A Universe where Death herself is killed, paving the way for the Many-Angled Ones to continue to spread life and corrupt everything to submission

Beginning after the events of 2009’s War of Kings culminated with the detonation of the Inhumans’ T-Bomb, the Realm of Kings storyline reveals that the explosion opened the Fault that leads into the Cancerverse. This universe was originally just like Earth-616, with its divergence point being the Many-Angled Ones curing Captain Mar-Vell of his cancer through the sacrifice of Death herself. This allowed eldritch creatures to get to the universe and impose absolute rule.

The undefeatable forces of life created obedient versions of existing superheroes such as the Ftaghn Four (Fantastic Four), the Ex-Men (X-Men), and the Revengers (Avengers). What’s left of good was led by Vision and his Machine Resistance, as their nature as machines made them immune to corruption. Even the combined efforts of Earth-616’s strongest heroes, as well as its version of Death, weren’t enough to cure the Cancerverse. Such was its strength that it could only be contained, with the Cancerverse “trapped” in the Power Prism of Earth-21798’s Doctor Spectrum, who can summon Cancerverse manifestations whenever he wished.

9 Marvel Zombies

A Gruesome End To The Universe Due To Superpowered Zombies

As Seen In	Marvel Zombies (2005 to Present) and various sequels, tie-ins
Claim To Infamy	A Universe where zombie plagues of different causes force superheroes and villains to unite as their numbers are slowly wiped out

Different versions of the Marvel Zombies virus have appeared in every new infected universe, although they share various qualities. The infected retain not just their personality and intelligence but also all special abilities except healing factors. Such is the viral potency that gods (like Thor) and even healing factor wielders (like Deadpool) couldn’t resist infection, with the only guaranteed immune being machines (like the Vision) and incorporeal beings (like the Watchers).

Unfortunately, despite the efforts of various infected universes, the zombie virus hasn’t ever been cured. It’s hinted that Earth-Z (-91126) is the “home” of the zombie Sentry that infected the first Marvel Zombies universe of Earth-2149. However, this is proven false when the losing battle between the two sides leads Earth-Z’s Watcher to send the sole survivor Sentry to the past of Earth-2149, creating a causal loop in the hopes that the plague could be contained. They were wrong.

10 Ruins

Where Everything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong

As Seen In	Ruins #1-2 (1995)
Claim To Infamy	A dystopian Universe where accidents and experiments result in horrific deaths instead of getting superpowers

Created as a parody of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s Marvels, events of Warren Ellis’ Ruins imagine a Marvel Universe where accidents that should’ve created superheroes have led to terrible incidents. Phil Sheldon of Marvels returns as the narrator of Ruins, this time determined to investigate where things “went wrong” for the world to suffer horrific accidents. Unlike other “worse” Marvel Universes, Ruins felt like a mockery of the hope superheroes stood for in Marvel Comics.

Professor X has become “President X” of the oppressive United States, where a Patriot missile destroys the Quinjet and the remaining radicalists, the Avengers. Bruce Banner’s gamma radiation reduced him to a mass of green tumors, most of the mutants who would become the X-Men are dismembered to stop them from using their powers, and Ben Grimm’s decision to stay behind would lead to the deaths of the supposed Fantastic Four and Victor von Doom. Phil Sheldon also dies of a spider plague, with Peter Parker as its Patient Zero.