Understanding 5 Marvel Superheroes Who Destroyed the Earth and Proved Heroes Can Go Too Far

The Marvel Universe is full of mad scientists and alien warlords who would gladly destroy the world and more to achieve a kind of victory. However, the people of Earth often find themselves not in danger from supervillains but from the very superheroes who are supposed to protect them. Whether it be because of the manipulation of a villain or natural corruption, there are plenty of Marvel heroes who have become genocidal maniacs. And in both the main universe and across the multiverse, there are instances of superheroes using their incredible power to either cause the apocalypse or flat-out destroy the Earth. With heroes like these, who needs villains?

Marvel is no stranger to its heroes going through villain arcs. With the near-unlimited power some of these superheroes have, their corruption practically assures that doomsday is coming soon.

5) Cypher

The mutant Cypher started as one of the weakest members of the X-Men because his only power was that he could only understand and communicate in every language. That all changed when Cypher won a tournament to determine Apocalypse’s successor. Cypher’s reward was a Death Seed, which turned him into the all-powerful villain Revelation. The Age of Revelation universe, also known as Earth-25221, is a dark future in which Revelation rules supreme. To ensure mutantkind thrives, Revelation unleashed a pathogen called the X-Virus that either killed humans or turned them into mutants. With billions dead or turned into mutants, Revelation ruled America with an iron fist while the rest of the world was in chaos. Even with all this death and suffering, Revelation’s masterplan was even more horrifying. Once the mutant population reached critical mass, the X-Virus mutated, causing every living thing to merge into a single massive biomass, with Revelation as its master. Revelation not only destroyed the world but also made him a living planet.

4) Legion

Professor X’s son, Legion, is well-known for switching between hero and villain depending on which of his hundreds of split personalities are currently in control. However, Legion’s worst act occurred when he was trying to be a hero. To undo all the pain and suffering Magneto had caused, Legion went back in time to kill him before he ever became a villain. Unfortunately, Legion didn’t account for the fact that Professor X and Magneto used to be best friends. When Legion tried to kill Magneto, Professor X jumped in the way and sacrificed his life to save his friend. Without Professor X to found the X-Men and protect the world from the forces of evil, the timeline changes drastically, with Apocalypse taking over the Earth and ruling it with an iron fist. On top of accidentally creating a dystopian post-apocalypse, Legion’s actions inadvertently erased the original timeline and everyone in it from existence. It was only by Bishop traveling back in time and stopping Legion that this horrible timeline was undone and the main Marvel Universe was restored.

3) Scarlet Witch

When Scarlet Witch discovered that the Avengers covered up the deaths of her children, it made Scarlet Witch go mad. In her state of insanity, Scarlet Witch was manipulated by her brother Quicksilver to rewrite all of reality so that everything they ever wanted came true. In an instant, Scarlet Witch effectively destroyed the Marvel Universe as we know it by rewriting its entire history and turning it into a world where mutants reign supreme, and humans are second-class citizens. However, the spell wasn’t perfect and had unintended consequences. When heroes began regaining their memories of their past lives and formed a rebellion against Scarlet Witch and the rest of the ruling family, she fully snapped. Although Scarlet Witch failed to destroy the multiverse, she did manage to eradicate most of the X-Gene from the universe. House of M is the story of one of the greatest catastrophes the Marvel Universe ever experienced, and it was all because Scarlet Witch couldn’t deal with reality.

2) Bishop

Despite having prevented Legion from creating a nightmarish alternate timeline, Bishop himself has kickstarted an apocalypse. When Hope Summers was born, many believed her to be the mutant messiah that would restore the mutants lost from Scarlet Witch’s “No More Mutants” spell. Yet, Bishop believed that she would bring about the apocalypse. When he tried to kill the infant, Cable arrived and took her into the future to protect her. To ensure that they would have nowhere to hide in the future, Bishop set in motion various wars, disasters, and plagues to exterminate all life in the future. Bishop believed that once he killed Hope, all the tragedies that he had caused would be undone. However, Bishop was proven to be spectacularly wrong when it turned out that Hope was indeed the savior of mutantkind. Upon returning to the present, her influence undid Bishop’s global genocide. In trying to save the world, Bishop destroyed it.

1) Genis-Vell

Genis-Vell may be the son of the original Captain Marvel, Mar-Vell, but he certainly doesn’t live up to his father’s heroic legacy. When the legacy hero mentally and physically bonded with a man named Rick Jones, Genis-Vell’s latent cosmic awareness abilities were activated. Unfortunately, becoming in tune with the entire universe proved to be too much for Genis-Vell’s mind to take, and he went insane. In his madness, Genis-Vell worked with the villain Entropy to destroy not just the Earth, but the entire universe. Working together, they managed to kill the personification of the universe, Eternity. In that moment, every person and planet in the universe died. Rick managed to bring out Genis-Vell’s forgotten heroism and convince him to betray Entropy. Once the cosmic villain was defeated, the universe and all of its inhabitants were restored. Few beings in Marvel can boast about wiping out the universe, and Genis-Vell is one of them.

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