Updated February 23, 2021 2.2K votes 390 voters 26.5K views
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Vote up the most destructive events in comics
Comics book writers love destruction, especially in the superhero genre. Nothing demonstrates a character's power level faster than having them shake mountains, level buildings, or eat a planet. Sometimes, destruction can be more subtle with plagues, viruses, and even mental manipulation wreaking havoc, but usually it's explosions. However it happens, comic book destruction is what this list is all about.
The amount of destruction can be citywide, continental, genocidal, planetary, universal, or even multi-universal, but it's the lasting impact on that comic universe that really matters. A single event can fuel an entire storyline or permanently change a character's arc.
This list contains the worst disasters, devastating events, and destructive things that have ever happened to change the course of comic book history.
Originally conceived as a celebration for DC's 50 years of comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths turned out more like a housecleaning for 50 years of mangled continuity. To explain all of the DC Universe's splintered origins, duplicate versions of classic heroes, and contradictory concepts, creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez posited that everything that didn't make sense had happened on an infinite number of alternate Earths within alternate universes... and then reduced them into one.
After a meandering storyline where heroes plucked from each Earth must prevent the Anti-Monitor from destroying the multiverse, the resulting timeline took the best parts from each continuity to fuse them into a singular DC universe.
So the good guys win, and the comics get better, but technically an infinite amount of Universes ceased to exist. That's a pretty big disaster.
The Green Lantern, Hal Jordan was a Coast City native, and when the city was destroyed by Mongul and the evil Cyborg Superman, the incident unhinged him. He tried to bring the city back to life, but there wasn't enough power in his ring.
Since Lanterns aren't allowed to use their rings for personal gain, the Green Lantern corps sent representatives to confiscate his ring. He turned on them and tried to steal their power instead. The rampage took him all the way to Oa where he wiped out the Green Lantern corps, killed Sinestro and The Guardians, and drained the main Green Lantern battery to become the villain known as Parallax.
Galactus is the only survivor of the world before the Big Bang, an omnipresent being of unlimited power, and probably the most destructive thing to have ever happened to the Marvel Universe.
To sustain his vast energies, Galactus must consume entire planets. His giant ship converts the raw materials into his food source, and while his menu has been limited to uninhabited planets for brief periods, he always gets too hungry and kills planets full of life.
There's no way of knowing how many planets Galactus has consumed or how many lifeforms he's killed, but since he has been eating for as long as there has been a galaxy, his kill count is probably in the trillions.
Born from cruel experimentation in the harsh conditions of pre-civilized Krypton, Doomsday hates all life. That turned out to be bad for Earth (and good for insurance agents) when he landed in the "Doomsday!" storyline (aka. "The Death of Superman").
He starts by destroying a truck, then a house, then a gas station, then a city block and finally throws down with Superman in a battle that killed both combatants and ripped Metropolis apart.
When the mutant illusionist, Mastermind, tried to manipulate the Dark Phoenix to impress the Hellfire Club, it became an uncontrollable force of destruction. It was also very hungry.
To satisfy its desires, the Dark Phoenix consumed the Sun of the inhabited D'Bari star system. Billions died as the alien solar system collapsed. Billions!
The D'Bari people had never been introduced before, so it was a faceless tragedy, but one that fueled one of the most memorable character arcs in Marvel history.
After the Twin Towers were attacked in September of 2011, Marvel took a moment away from its fanciful punchfests to address real-world events in Spider-Man Vol. 2 #36. Behind it's all black cover design, superheroes were shown working in the rubble alongside first responders, helping to clear debris and rescue survivors.
It is a somber homage to the victims of 9/11, but at the same time a resounding reminder that it doesn't take super powers to be a hero. It closes with a splash page that honors the FDNY, NYPD and more as Spider-Man urges America to "stand tall."
