There are a host of ways in which we have seen superheroes deconstructed in modern Hollywood, existing alongside MCU. Be it Will Smith’s drunk and foul-mouthed Hancock, or the genocidal Omni-Man, audiences are familiar with dark takes on tried and tested archetypes, a trend that has become quite popular in today’s day and age.
However, no matter how dark these things get, Marvel concocted the darkest of these deconstructions with its 2 issue miniseries Marvel: Ruins. Essentially, this version of the Marvel Universe sees everything that can go wrong go horribly wrong, such that The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are dying or horribly disfigured by the accidents that gave them their powers.
The Ruins Timeline is too dark for mainstream audiences
While some pretty dark concepts can be found on the cutting room floor of the films in the MCU, Ruins definitely stands as one of those comics that might never see the light of day in the form of a live-action or even an animated adaptation. A lot of fan-favorite characters meet very violent and tortured ends in Marvel: Ruins. The Hulk is a mass of bulbous cancerous cells.
The Wolverine is a decaying human being dying of adamantium poisoning. The Avengers were a separatist group brought down by the US Government. Dr. Donal Blake is a cult leader who says that they can channel an entity known as Thor. Iron Man is disfigured in an accident and wears an Iron Mark along with an Iron Reactor. Mystique dies of adverse effects of Dissociative Identity Disorder on her body, a result of shapeshifting into too many identities.
Essentially, all the heroes that fans love and admire, alongside the villains that are serious threats in the main continuity end up facing harrowing fates in this version of the timeline in the Marvel Comics.
Marvel: Ruins is a parody of Marvels, which the MCU could adapt
Marvels was a 1994 run of comics, from which Ruins was directly inspired. The story was told from an everyman’s point of view, going through the major events in the history of the Marvel universe up until that point. It takes the protagonists through their everyday lives in a world populated by superheroes.
Come the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, Marvel could very well do a special presentation similar to this story, perhaps focusing on Ashley Johnson‘s character in the MCU, who had gone through a somewhat similar arc before additional scenes she had done were axed from the final product.
