The MCU has hosted some particularly dark twists over the last 16 years. This should come as no surprise considering how large the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, with 34 movies and 13 shows (and counting) in its repertoire. The more grim events within these MCU movies are also a testament to the franchise’s ability to deliver grounded depictions of some otherwise outlandish characters and stories.
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Marvel Studios’ liberal use of creative license, meanwhile, makes its delivery of certain twists impossible to predict as the MCU pivots from established narratives in Marvel Comics. These unexpected turns help to make the MCU so compelling, drawing audiences both familiar and unfamiliar with the source material and leaving both equally awestruck. Still, despite their narrative value, these gut-wrenching examples are most likely to linger in the mind for more unpleasant reasons.
10 Wanda’s Control Over Westview Is Revealed
Wanda Maximoff’s Descent Into Villainy Begins In WandaVision
Custom Image By Karlis Wilde
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The precise nature of the Westview anomaly was shrouded in mystery in early episodes of WandaVision. It was then steadily revealed that Wanda herself was using her powers in a particularly egregious manner by turning the innocent civilians of the original Westview into thralls, removing them of their free will so that she could live a happy family life. This culminates in the WandaVision finale as Agatha releases the minds of the Westview residents, whereupon they reveal the mental torture that Wanda’s magic forces them to endure.
Westview resident Abilash Tandon, AKA Norm, clarifies one effect of being under Wanda’s thrall when he states ”
When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares
.”
This MCU twist is especially dark as it marks the first step in Wanda’s descent into villainy. While being tainted by the Darkhold underscores this sinister turn, the seeds were sewn when Wanda defiantly kicked back against Vision’s insistence that she free her victims in WandaVision episode 5. While Wanda’s motives are sympathetic, Vision vocalizes the uneasy feeling that Wanda fans would have felt about her actions in WandaVision.
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9 Thanos Returns In Avengers: Endgame
The Avengers Were Painfully Close To Rectifying The Snap
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After their devastating loss in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame began with a palpable sense of hopelessness among the Avengers emphasized by the pyrrhic victory over Thanos after he had already destroyed the Infinity Stones. With that version of Thanos gone, it would take five years for the Avengers to discover a glimmer of hope. The tooth-and-nail success in collecting the stones from the past would then see Smart Hulk instigate the blip but at the cost of Black Widow’s life. Then, Thanos returns anyway.
It is implied that Thanos and the Black Order reverse-engineered the Pym Particles found with Nebula to travel to 2023.
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Thanos’ success in traveling from 2014 to 2023 was a crushing development so soon after the Avengers had clutched victory from the jaws of defeat. His subsequent subjugation of the MCU’s Big Three evoked the hopeless brawls with Thanos on Titan and in Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War, threatening even to result in yet another loss. This intensified the impact of their bittersweet victory as Tony Stark fulfilled his role and made the ultimate sacrifice, finally bringing an end to Thanos’ Infinity Saga tyranny.
8 Bucky Barnes Kills Tony Stark’s Parents
The Reveal Cemented The Rift That Would Lead To The Avengers’ Defeat
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Captain America: Civil War sees Iron Man fight Captain America in an ideological battle that devolves into an outright rift orchestrated by Baron Zemo. After forming a truce with Cap and Bucky, Tony Stark liases with them in a HYDRA facility containing video evidence that Tony Stark’s parents were assassinated by the Winter Soldier – a brainwashed Bucky Barnes. The dark twist was exacerbated by the brutality of the execution, which Stark witnesses with palpable shock that grows into unbridled, though understandable, rage.
The twist was also darkened by the rift it drove between two of the most prominent Avengers whose bond had developed throughout several cataclysmic events.
The twist was also darkened by the rift it drove between two of the most prominent Avengers whose bond had developed throughout several cataclysmic events. It would also splinter the Avengers to dire results, as Thanos was able to ultimately overpower the disparate group and cause the Snap. Bucky’s guilt over his brainwashed actions as the Winter Soldier, meanwhile, still plagues him despite his heroics since reclaiming control of his mind.
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7 Ego Killed Peter Quill’s Mother In The Worst Way
Ego Swiftly Became One Of The MCU’s Most Hated Villains
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Despite ostensibly being among the MCU’s protagonists with no superpowers, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 revealed that Peter Quill had the potential to be one of the most powerful after debuting his father, the Celestial Living Planet, Ego. When learning of his Celestial heritage, however, Ego divulges that he implanted the fatal brain tumor into Meredith Quill’s head, citing that the love she made him feel would have been too distracting. Unsurprisingly, this causes Quill to immediately turn on his father and ultimately relinquish his Celestial powers.
Ego is not a Celestial in Marvel Comics.
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Peter Quill’s origins are dark enough, but to learn that his estranged father – one of the most powerful beings in the MCU – was the one to cause Meredith Quill’s insidious death is particularly horrific. Ego’s blasé admission, which belied his affable persona until that point, swiftly turned him into one of the most reviled villains in the MCU. Quill’s visceral reaction was easy to empathize with, something on which he doubled down when choosing his family above his Celestial powers, turning him into one of the MCU’s truest – if least powerful – heroes.
6 Project Insight Went From Dark To Darker
Project Insight Was Questionable To Begin With Before HYDRA Made It So Much Worse
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Project Insight was unveiled in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as SHIELD’s response to the tumult of the Battle of New York. The project was designed to eliminate individuals who posed a threat with a set of Helicarriers after analyzing their behavior with a specialized algorithm. The operation was hijacked, however, by HYDRA after it was revealed that the organization had infiltrated SHIELD, switching the algorithm to eliminate threats to HYDRA instead. Had they succeeded, the results would have been devastating.
It could also be argued, however, that the original function wasn’t much better, with the twist simply darkening what was already a shady function.
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Nearly succeeding in mass murder on a global scale is certainly a disturbing near-miss. It could also be argued, however, that the original function wasn’t much better, with the twist simply darkening what was already a shady function. Technically, SHIELD would target innocent civilians – no matter how airtight its future-predicting algorithm was. This is a concern summed up perfectly by Steve Rogers, who stated in response to the project “I thought the punishment usually came after the crime .“
5 Thanos Reverses Vision’s Sacrifice
Vision’s Second Death Was One Of Avengers: Infinity War’s Most Hopeless Moments
The desperation felt by the Avengers in their final scramble in Avengers: Infinity War culminated in the harrowing decision to remove the Mind Stone from the equation and Vision along with it. The fact that this task could only be performed by Wanda Maximoff was an agonizing watch, though her success provided at least a small glimmer of hope that Thanos’ plans were thwarted at the last second. Tragically, however, the Time Stone allowed Thanos to reverse the process, restoring the Mind Stone and Vision before Thanos brutally killed him again by tearing the stone from his head.
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It is also impossible to fathom how this would have felt for Vision, whose second death would have no doubt wracked him with guilt in his final moments.
When it comes to dark MCU twists, Wanda Maximoff’s MCU arc is almost unfairly targeted by some of the darkest – but it is also what makes her character so compelling. Still, the dismal sequence of events that forced her to kill her lover only for the ordeal to be rendered meaningless moments later is especially hard to stomach, emphasizing the hopelessness surrounding Thanos’ victory. It is also impossible to fathom how this would have felt for Vision, whose second death would have no doubt wracked him with guilt in his final moments.
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4 The Truth Behind Nicholas Scratch In Agatha All Along
Agatha Harkness Now Has A Particularly Tragic Backstory
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The entry below discusses the death of a child.
Agatha All Along did a lot to humanize the titular villain-turned-antihero, especially regarding her son, Nicholas “Nicky” Scratch. The mystery surrounding her absent son was pervasive throughout the series, with all signs pointing towards a nefarious deal made by Agatha to exchange him for the Darkhold. The truth, however, was revealed in Agatha All Along‘s finale: that Nicky was marked for death as soon as he was born, ultimately succumbing to an unspecified illness just six years later.
The truth behind how Agatha obtained the Darkhold after
Agatha All Along
revealed what really happened to Nicky now remains a mystery.
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It’s hard to tell which of Nicky’s fates – the rumored or the true – is darker. After all, being exchanged for the Darkhold may have made Nicky the ward of a nefarious being – but he likely would have lived. On the other hand, while the truth is tragic, it punctuated Agatha All Along‘s motifs on the inevitability of death and its importance in the cycle of life, with Nicky’s passing being beautifully depicted as painless and serene as Rio Vidal reluctantly performed her cosmic duty.
3 What Happens To Branching Timelines
The TVA Removes Free Will On A Universal Scale
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Avengers: Endgame both rounded out the Infinity Saga and set up the Multiverse Saga, specifically as it showed 2012’s Loki becoming a variant by escaping his fate after the Battle of New York. Loki season 1 opens with the aftermath of his escape, as the TVA debuted by apprehending the now-variant Loki and setting down a Reset Charge to prune the branching timeline he created. The details of this routine would later come to light: that the TVA is in the business of disintegrating the inhabitants of entire timelines.
It would later be revealed, of course, that the victims of the TVA’s Reset Charges are simply sent to the void at the end of time, rather than killed. Still, as Loki would go on to underscore in season 2, the TVA’s erstwhile tyranny over free will is difficult to reconcile with, even with He Who Remains’ justification that it helps stave off a multiversal war. Loki seemed to agree, as he would go on to ensure the free will of the multiverse by securing his place as the living temporal loom in the Loki season 2 finale.
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2 Rocket Is A Raccoon After All (With The Darkest Backstory)
Rocket’s Realization Comes As A Painful Reminder Of His Past
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Rocket’s MCU appearances saw him repeatedly flout the notion that he is a raccoon, despite physically resembling one in every way. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would finally confirm that he was wrong – but also that the whole truth was particularly harrowing. The tear-jerking reveal came towards the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, when Rocket discovered cages filled with baby raccoons alongside a menagerie of other animals that were ostensibly doomed to undergo very similar ordeals to his tragic backstory.
The twist that rocket is biologically a raccoon makes him a permanent reminder of the High Evolutionary’s heinous megalomania and the suffering he inflicted on animals he forced to become sentient.
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Rocket was the most central character in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which detailed his torturous early life as a creation of the High Evolutionary as he spent nearly the entire movie on the brink of death. The twist that rocket is biologically a raccoon makes him a permanent reminder of the High Evolutionary’s heinous megalomania and the suffering he inflicted on animals he forced to become self-aware. His rescuing of the animals that would have faced the same fate, meanwhile, was a touching portrayal of how Rocket now embraces his identity and the agonizing history that made him,
1 The MCU Experiences The Snap
The Effects Of The Snap Still Linger In The MCU
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One of the darkest and most consequential twists in the entire MCU came with a conclusion that flipped established storytelling tropes on their heads. Avengers: Infinity War concludes with Thanos’ victory and the total failure of the MCU’s many established heroes as he acquires every Infinity Stone and snaps half of the universe out of existence despite the best efforts of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Untold trillions die at his hand in an instant, with a large swathe of the MCU’s foremost superheroes being among the dusted casualties.
In Marvel Comics, Thanos wishes to kill half the universe to win the affection of Lady Death, who was recently introduced in Agatha All Along.
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The shocking turn of events could only be met with stunned silence, begging the question of what recourse, if any, the surviving heroes have to rectify their loss. They would, of course, find a way to reverse the Snap one year later – but its effects still linger in the MCU today. As destructive, painful, and consequential as it may have been, Thanos’ victory remains one of the best twists in the MCU with a shock value that will forever be difficult to beat.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
Created by Kevin Feige First Film Iron Man First TV Show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Cast Robert Downey Jr. , Chris Evans , Scarlett Johansson , Samuel L. Jackson , Jeremy Renner , Chris Hemsworth , Mark Ruffalo , Edward Norton , Paul Rudd , Tom Holland , Tom Hiddleston , Anthony Mackie , Cobie Smulders , Brie Larson , Chadwick Boseman , Sebastian Stan , Chris Pratt , Dave Bautista , Zoe Saldana , Bradley Cooper , Vin Diesel , Pom Klementieff , Josh Brolin , Karen Gillan , Clark Gregg , Paul Bettany , Don Cheadle , Benedict Cumberbatch , Evangeline Lilly , Simu Liu , Aaron Taylor-Johnson , Angelina Jolie , Kit Harington , Salma Hayek , Richard Madden , Barry Keoghan , Gemma Chan , Ma Dong-seok , Brian Tyree Henry , Kumail Nanjiani , Lauren Ridloff , Lia McHugh , Jonathan Majors Expand
Upcoming MCU Movies
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Captain America: Brave New World
Release Date February 14, 2025
- Thunderbolts* (2025)
Release Date May 2, 2025
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Release Date July 25, 2025
- Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Release Date May 1, 2026
- Spider-Man Homecoming 4
Release Date July 24, 2026
- Avengers: Secret Wars
Release Date May 7, 2027
Captain America: Brave New World
Thunderbolts* (2025)
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Spider-Man Homecoming 4
Avengers: Secret Wars
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