Who Are the Top 5 Most Tragic Heroes/Villains in the Marvel Universe?

[PupsOfWar]

How about Jean Grey?

doomed to forever have her character exploited as a point of contention in an alpha-male struggle between two grunting white dudes

regardless of being, you know, hero in her own right and all

[marshal99]

And nobody brought up Speedball/Penance ?!

[ChristianJCote]

There are just so many to choose from. I'll go with my favourites since comparing tragic histories bugs me, like forcing someone to pick between some European girl victimised in a sex trafficking ring and a starving African child with HIV.

1. The Silver Surfer
2. Rachel Grey
3. The Punisher
4. Dr. Doom
5. Magneto

[HeroxMatt2.0]

There are just so many to choose from. I'll go with my favourites since comparing tragic histories bugs me, like forcing someone to pick between some European girl victimised in a sex trafficking ring and a starving African child with HIV.

1. The Silver Surfer
2. Rachel Grey
3. The Punisher
4. Dr. Doom
5. Magneto

Or like choosing between an alien who sold himself into slavery to the cosmic being who destroyed his planet and everyone he loved, or the adolescent who was forced into becoming a destructive hunter-killer in a dystopian timeline where her kind is hated and feared.

[PwrdOff]

How about Jean Grey?

doomed to forever have her character exploited as a point of contention in an alpha-male struggle between two grunting white dudes

regardless of being, you know, hero in her own right and all

I think Jean's status as a tragic hero is somewhat diminished now because her story was so widely copied with more and more angst and tragedy piled on to each iteration that the original doesn't seem quite so impressive by comparison. Still though, as the star of by far the most noteworthy female-centric comic book story ever, she occupies a spot in Marvel history that none of these Johnny (and Jenny) come latelies can ever hope to match.

[LetsGetNerdy]

Scarlett Witch - came first to my mind.

Gifted with beauty and tremendous power but these gifts came always back to haunt her (and everyone around her, even by the impact of her power on a global, may cosmic level). Especially the loss of her children an how it effected the whole Marvel Universe are a quiet tragic and painful story.

Silver Surfer - one of the best tragic comic characters ever.

Thanos had one of the his best "tragic" moments, when he admits that his notorious search for power and control is driven by love.

Some thoughts about other characters:

Jean Grey maybe was used too much and her story was often stretched too far for my taste. By this I got some trouble to vote for her, even when she is a still a great character of deep tragic for sure.

Magneto - I think he is one of the most interesting character ever. But I am not sure if the is tragic. I would say he is interesting, strong and ambivalent.

Spider-Man - I dont think he is a tragic character. He is a very positive character. He has suffered losses be he goes on. He swings from failure, losses and doubts and tries just to get along and keeps his humor. He is a good character. To be good has it's price (even in comic world) but I think he is handling this price very well. Cant see any tragic in Spider-Man.

Scott Summers - I guess, he is heading towards to become tragical. Because he always tries to do what is right even when it makes all worst. When Marvel pushes this figure more and more in this direction Scott Summer may become Marvel's tragically fallen son one day.

Captain Marvel - The old version from the 70ties and 80ties was a highly interesting character. Especially this dimension exchange thing with Rick was quite an impressive idea. And the comic of his death is for sure one of my all time favorites and for sure one of the best comics ever.

[taem]

Oh it's Rachel Grey, not Summers. Surprised more aren't naming her, for me her life is the absolute worst, without question. Forced into complicity in the massacre of her own kind, her family is wiped out in one timeline an she then gets to see them alive again but they don't know who she is, her brother from another timeline infected with a deadly disease and ripped out of her new life, her maternal relations massacred in her new timeline, and then after all that she gets to go into the future and live through another age of apocalypse and see her followers all get murdered. And that's just the stuff I know about, I'm sure there's lots more I'm not aware of.

How can that possibly be topped?

Or am I mixing up different characters? Hard to keep track of who is who in x verse.

[Hound of UIster]

And nobody brought up Speedball/Penance ?!

He deserved what he got since it was his own hubris and desire for glory that killed those kids in Stamford.

[Hawkingbird13]

1. Mockingbird
2. Spider-Woman
3. Hank Pym
4. Bucky Barnes

Considering how little she's been in things compared to the others, Mockingbird's life sucks.

[Assassin Spider]

He deserved what he got since it was his own hubris and desire for glory that killed those kids in Stamford.

That's the whole point of tragedy. The protagonist (or sometimes, the antagonist) is undone by their own flaws as a person, but the misery heaped upon them and others around them because of it is horrible enough that you feel sorry for them in some way instead of just gloating that they "got what they deserved." At least, that's the idea.

As for my own contributions, I'd definitely put the Hulk, Betty Ross/Red She-Hulk, and even Thunderbolt Ross/Red Hulk in a Top 5. Why? Their lives were all undone the moment Bruce Banner was exposed to the radiation from his own gamma bomb trying to save somebody else's life. Despite proving himself a force for good time and again, the Hulk's uncontrollable rage and nigh-immeasurable strength have frightened so many even among his heroic allies or those that should be allies that he spends most of his time as a hunted outcast. Every bit of peace and happiness he's been able to find has been ultimately yanked out of his reach (examples off the top of my head being Jarella, the initial death of Betty Ross, and the ending of Planet Hulk with Caiera Oldstrong's death and the seeming death of their child together).

With General Ross/Red Hulk, his Ahab-like pursuit of the Hulk has done nothing but ruin his life, estranged his beloved daughter, and even driven him to betray his country in a deal with the Intelligencia to gain Hulk-like powers and resurrect his daughter as a Hulk-like being to take down the Hulk once and for all. Now that he's on the good guys' side, he's being hunted by one of his old trainees who thinks "Red Hulk" killed "General Ross," and he can never publicly admit he's still alive under his real name or else he'll be arrested, tried, and possibly executed for treason on account of the things he did as an agent of the Intelligencia.

Betty/Red She-Hulk spent most of her adult life torn between her loyalty to her father and her love for Bruce Banner in light of her father's pursuit of Banner for being the Hulk, was poisoned to death by one of Hulk's enemies, and then revived as a She-Hulk to do the Intelligencia's dirty work alongside her similarly empowered father. Even though she's also on the good guys' side now, it's clearly traumatized her to the point of using Red She-Hulk as a vent for all her pent-up anger over these years of tragedy and strife and loss. Her current one-woman crusade against the U.S. military's new super-soldier initiative in her new title has her at cross-purposes with nearly every superhero in the Marvel Universe, ensuring that like her erstwhile husband, she is a hunted outcast despite the good she can and aims to do.

Those are just three. For the fourth and fifth slots, I'd reserve one of them for Cyclops, as his trajectory from shining example of the X-Men's ideals to hardened "realist" willing to do whatever it takes to protect the dwindling mutant race to an outlaw and terrorist who murdered his own father figure (admittedly, under the influence of the Phoenix Force) has been nothing short of tragic, at least in terms of how far a hero can fall when pushed to his breaking point. The fifth, I think I'll take for Colossus, as he was one of the noblest of the X-Men, to the point of sacrificing himself to release a cure for the Legacy Virus and then being revived for experiments by an alien race. After that, he got his sister back, only to find that it wasn't really his sister but a soulless, demonic shadow of her despite his insistence that the Illyana he knew was still in there, he was forced to take on the Juggernaut's power to slow him down after he was possessed and enhanced by one of the Serpent's hammers in Fear Itself, was possessed by a fraction of the Phoenix Force that drove him mad, casually freed from the Juggernaut's power after losing the Phoenix Force just so Illyana could prove to him that she'd never be his "little snowflake" again and to give him a taste of what "being damned" really meant, and now is a hunted outlaw like the rest of the "Phoenix Five." Pretty far to fall for one of the gentlest souls of the MU, right?

[chew]

And nobody brought up Speedball/Penance ?!

Great example. Also Daredevil, Punisher, and others that have been mentioned.
Would like to add Man-Thing, for being betrayed and turned into walking moss, basically. And for being in a situation that not even readers understand yet.
And also Beta Ray Bill, with the "watching his entire race die" card.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

4) Scarlet Witch - she devastated not only the Avengers, but also all of mutant kind.

You'll forgive me if I'm not exactly sold on her remorse.

[Jumpoff!]

Johnny Blaze
Danny Ketch
matt murdock


People really feel for magneto??

[KurtW95]

People really feel for magneto??

His family was killed by Nazis. And his baby was burned in a fire where a mob prevented him from saving her. This then led to his wife's death.

[Prince Of Orphans]

I'm surprised more mutants aren't being mentioned.

Magneto would probably be 5.

Magneto is a tricky one. Personally, I don't sympathize with him for the same reason I don't sympathize with the Punisher I think. As far as tragic heroes go, I feel as if the tragedy is amplified if they remain a hero through the thin and thick of it. If that makes any sense lol

(BTW GOOD TO SEE YOU HEROX)