The darkest alternate Earths in the Marvel Multiverse

If you enjoyed the dark new future in Avengers: Twilight, these five alternate earths present some of the darkest storytelling in the Marvel Multiverse. 

Avengers: Twilight is finally out. The long-gestating work of esteemed Daredevil and Batman writer Chip Zdarsky, Avengers: Twilight is a vision of a future where heroes are all but eradicated and a dystopian force watches over the world with an iron fist. 

The idea of an alternate world where things go wrong is nothing new. Marvel has dabbled in them for years with concepts like What If…?, while DC has used the Elseworlds branding to explore dark alternate worlds Kingdom Come and Red Rain. 

Marvel has had some incredible dark stories over the years, but these five earths take the cake as the darkest in Marvel’s multiverse. 

Earth X removed what made everyone unique

Of all the various multiverse stories Marvel has told, Earth X (Earth-9997) might be one of the few to maintain a sense of hope. Don’t underestimate it, though; Earth X is still plenty dark. The title comes from a speculative pitch by legendary Kingdom Come artist Alex Ross, who imagined a dystopian Marvel future. It was so well received that Marvel hired Ross to turn the pitch into a series. 

Earth X saw humanity gain super powers, resulting in a power shift and a dystopian future.

In Earth X, Black Bolt of the Inhumans unleashes the Terrigen Mists on Earth. As a result, everyone has superpowers, and now the era of the superhuman is an era of mundanity.

In this new dark timeline, Captain America lives with the guilt of killing the Red Skull. Heroes like Invisible Woman, Professor X and Daredevil die in various incidents, while others like Spider-Man and Wolverine fall into unremarkable lives. 

The story, which expanded in sequels Universe X and Paradise X, becomes consistently more winding and bizarre. It’s always dark and always twisted, but there remains a characteristic tinge of hope just on the outskirts of Earth X’s bleak narrative of a world where nobody is special anymore. 

Old Man Logan made Wolverine the X-Men’s enemy

Fans who only know of Old Man Logan (Earth-807128) from the 2017 film will be in for a shock when they read this one. Originally published in Wolverine #66 and running for seven issues (including a special Giant-Size one-shot finale), Old Man Logan is a road trip through a dark corner of the Marvel multiverse. 

With its surge in popularity, the original dark tone of Old Man Logan has been somewhat downplayed.

In this timeline, heroes have all fallen. An older Wolverine and his family live in Hulkland, a remnant of Sacramento. It’s ruled by the Hulk Gang, the inbred descendants of Bruce Banner. To get enough money to save his family’s land, Logan agrees to a road trip with a blinded Hawkeye. 

Old Man Logan spins out of a story beat where Logan kills the X-Men while being manipulated by Mysterio and only goes downhill from there. From the horrors of President Red Skull to the brutal final encounter with the Hulks, Old Man Logan is considerably darker than most fans remember. 

The Cancerverse conquered death – for better or for worse

The Cancerverse (Earth-10011) is a unique instance here on this list. While it is an alternate world, it’s not part of an alternate story; rather, it’s an invading universe seen during the Thanos Imperative event. 

In the Cancerverse, Death was defeated, resulting in a nightmare universe ruled by old gods.

In the Cancerverse, life did the unthinkable: it beat Death. This gave rise to the Many-Angled Ones, the Marvel equivalent of the Cthulu mythos (and some Conan mythos, thanks to the presence of Shuma-Gorath). 

The result is a nightmare universe where everything is twisted and everything lives forever, longing to infect and takeover universe after universe.

The threat of a Cancerverse is ultimately beaten back thanks to the efforts of Nova and Star-Lord. Though Nova is assumed dead for years, it’s revealed he was killed time and time again while held captive, eventually escaping by using the Cosmic Cube. 

Marvel Zombies turns Marvel’s heroes into monsters

Marvel Zombies (Earth-2149) was originally discovered by Reed Richards of the Ultimate Universe. On this planet, the heroes of the Marvel Universe have been possessed by a zombie virus that drives them to eat flesh. 

An unstoppable virus turned Marvel’s greatest heroes into unstoppable, insatiable zombies.

The virus is sinister and unstoppable. Everyone from street-level heroes like Spider-Man to nigh-omnipotent heroes like The Sentry fall pretty to the virus, which is only contained by virtue of a time loop wherein the source of the infection is an infected Hulk from the end of the saga. 

The various Marvel Zombies minis are dark affairs and pull no punches in their deaths, mayhem, and displays of gore. For fans of old-school zombie stories, this is a must-read. 

Ruins is the worst outcome of every Marvel story

Ruins (Earth-9591) was pitched by Warren Ellis as a parody of the prestige series Marvels, which was a vision of an idyllic Earth-616, a world where heroes were bright and shining triumphs no matter how bleak things got. In contrast, Ruins is the darkest corner of the Marvel multiverse, a world where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. 

Ruins removes anything resembling hope, creating a universe predicated on the worst outcome always happening.

Wolverine lives out his days in a bar, his skin sloughing off his bones as he succumbs to adamantium poisoning. The Avengers are killed when their Quinjet is shot by a missile. Bruce Banner is dead, his body irreparably changed into a hulking mass of oozing green tumors when he was exposed to a gamma radiation explosion. 

With page after page of gore, death, and despair, Ruins is a rough read, even for fans of edgier ‘90s comics. So much of this two-issue story is plain unsettling, graphic, and dark.

While other stories maintain some facade of hope to back their narrative, Ruins only has misery. Even the book’s closing, where Peter Parker is revealed to unknowingly be spreading a deadly radioactive virus, makes sure fans find only a bad taste in their mouths on the final pages. 

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