7 Punisher Becomes An Angel
Comics often shamelessly use the metaphorical reset button, through which any changes to characters are temporary. Comics writers, usually when a new movie or event is right around the corner, regularly restore the previous status quo. The Punisher is far from immune to the reset button, and the way that his story was reset is particularly insane.
Over the years, it seemed certain that the psychotic antihero who gets in daily gun battles would die. This finally happened to the Punisher, but death didn’t keep him down. Instead, he was retooled as a literal avenging angel, sent by heaven to destroy demons on Earth. This was insane to Bible- and Punisher-readers alike.
When comics scribe Garth Ennis started writing for the character, he simply made the angels throw the man back to Earth, which is full of violent sinners, as punishment for not doing their bidding properly.
6 Green Lantern Becomes A Mass Murderer
The power rings of the Green Lanterns have always posed a bit of a paradox for readers. On one hand, they are supposed to be the most powerful weapons in the universe. On the other, they are powered by individual will, which can be lost or perverted. The latter happened to Green Lantern supreme Hal Jordan, causing him to become a mass murderer before he was stopped.
One of the weirder side effects of DC’s “Death of Superman” storyline was the destruction of Green Lantern’s Coast City. The heroes fail to save the day, and over seven million souls are lost, comprising almost everyone that Hal Jordan knows. He goes crazy trying to get enough power to rebuild his city and its people. During the course of this, he kills several other Green Lanterns and most of the Guardians who safeguard the universe.
Though he eventually redeems himself by saving the world, Hal Jordan seems proof that most heroes really are just one bad day away from becoming supervillains.
5 Ant-Man Tries To Kill Wasp
In the regular Marvel Comics Universe, Hank Pym physically abused his wife, the Wasp, while suffering from a mental breakdown. The edgier world of the Ultimates Marvel universe took this to the next level, and the end result was a bit horrifying.
Instead of the Rhett Butler–esque backhanded slap that Ant-Man gives Wasp in the main comics universe, the Ultimates universe features a full-on physical brawl between the characters, weapons and all. Eventually, Wasp shrinks down to escape her husband, but he finds where she is hiding and hits her with some Raid insect spray. He laughs that it must feel like napalm on her skin. When she refuses to come out of hiding, he puts on his ant-controlling helmet and sends a legion of ants to kill her.
Perhaps the scariest part of all of this is just how soon they get back together afterward.
4 Zatanna Lobotomizes Countless Villains
Fans of the DC Universe have often been frustrated with the concept of secret identities. It seems inevitable that a villain will someday knock the glasses off Clark Kent or pull the cowl off Batman and tell the world their secret. However, the miniseries “Identity Crisis” offered a surprise revelation: Villains constantly are figuring identities out, but hero magician Zatanna—along with Hawkman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and the Flash—regularly uses her powers to wipe their memories.
In the story, Green Arrow points out how often villains have found heroes’ secrets, such as by swapping bodies or walking through their dreams, sure that the villains will tell the world who the heroes really are. So, Zatanna gives the villains’ minds a little tingle and makes them forget.
Things go further when they confront Dr. Light. Light has not figured out any identities, but he has broken into JLA headquarters and brutally raped Sue Dibny, the Elongated Man’s wife. When caught, he vows to move on to all of the other heroes’ wives next and to tell the world about raping Sue. Instead of a memory wipe, they go to another level and alter his whole brain, which explains how he goes from an A-list JLA villain to getting beaten up by the Teen Titans.
When Batman catches them lobotomizing someone and tries to stop them, they wipe his mind, too.
3 Kitty Pryde Phases During Orgasm
For long-time readers of the X-Men who remember Kitty Pryde joining the team at the age of 13, just the idea of her having sex may be unsettling. Then there’s the question of her powers. Given that Kitty needs intense will to keep from phasing through everything, what would happen when she loses that concentration?
Thanks to Avengers mastermind Joss Whedon, we have an answer to this burning question. During his run of Astonishing X-Men, he resurrected Colossus and brought back fan-favorite Kitty Pryde. These two rekindle their romantic relationship in a memorable scene of the normally shy Kitty Pryde seducing Colossus.
While this is entertaining on its own, the climax of the humor comes during a scene in which a naked Kitty phases through the floor, yelling “Oh my God” the entire time. Even the most prudish reader realizes that Colossus is very adept at making Kitty lose her concentration.
2 Blob Eats Wasp
One of the hallmarks of Marvel’s Ultimates universe was its edginess. In addition to telling continuity-free stories meant to lure in new readers, writers felt emboldened to put new twists on familiar characters and events to entice veteran readers. While this normally worked quite well, the writers of “Ultimatum,” the story designed to put an end to that universe, took it to horrific extremes.
The book was filled with wanton violence and murder, and scenes such as Magneto snapping Professor X’s neck were par for the course. Arguably the grossest of these scenes involved the Blob and the Wasp. Giant-Man finds that the Blob is in the middle of eating her, even exclaiming, “Tastes like chicken.” If this wasn’t gross enough, Giant-Man retaliates by turning into a giant and biting the Blob’s head off.
Turning two of Marvel’s longest-running characters into cannibals was clearly just another twist on top of the violence and death that had ceased to shock.
1Preacher‘s Meat Statue Sex
Most of these examples are shocking or surprising moments from otherwise mainstream comics. Preacher is different.
Printed as part of DC’s explicit adults-only Vertigo line, Preacher was designed to be shocking. Nearly every page is filled with gore, nudity, perversion, foul language, and often some combination of the four. It takes something really special, then, to stand out as the most shocking part of such a comic, but that moment comes in a giant woman made of meat.
In the comic, hero Jesse Custer is taking a break (from finding God and forcing Him to admit His sins to the world) by serving as sheriff of a small town. That town is run by Odin Quincannon, a ruthless pervert and Ku Klux Klan member. Readers often see panels of him moaning sexually explicit lines from a darkened room before emerging, covered in blood.
Fans could only speculate about what was in the room until Odin, fatally wounded from a fight with Jesse, crawls back inside. Readers see Odin, pants down, frantically clutching the breasts of a giant woman that he made out of meat. The reader is left wondering exactly what response Odin received earlier, telling the meat woman to “work the shaft” and “say the name.”
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