History Main / BadPresent

** Each time Cap's origin is retold, the level of 'bad' present gets worse. When he was first unfrozen in 1964's Avengers #4, only twenty years had passed. All his friends and loved ones were [[OhTheHumanity middle aged]] and had moved on with their lives. Also there were hippies and peace movements. Since major events in the MarvelUniverse remain at fixed points X number of years ago, retellings of his unfreezing now include all his friends and loved ones being dead, and the technology of the world nigh-unrecognizable.

* Lampshaded on one of the many "future" episodes of WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons where Homer is bemoaning what a terrible future they live in before Marge reminds him it is the present.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' shows two alternate versions of [[spoiler:Tokyo]] near the end of the game:
** The first one is [[spoiler:Blasted Tokyo]], which takes place in a timeline where [[spoiler:Masakado was not summoned 25 years ago and the [=ICBMs=] hit the metropolis, turning it into a toxic desert where demons roam the land and humans are cooped up in shelters, with God attempting to finish the job that He couldn't do with the missiles.]]
** The second one is [[spoiler:Infernal Tokyo]], which takes place in a timeline where [[spoiler:Masakado was not summoned 25 years ago ''but'' the missiles were destroyed through other means. Tokyo has become a large mass of rubble where humans either become {{Half Human Hybrid}}s called Demonoids and [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority rule over territory with their strength]], or become Neurishers who serve Demonoids by offering up their neurotransmitters as food.]]

[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] [[IGotARock horrible]] [[MyNewGiftIsLame gifts]].

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] figures out he's returned to his own time when he notices a filthy bum sleeping on the park bench.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(The_Twilight_Zone) Once Upon a Time]]" (1960). A janitor from 1890 is sent to 1960 via a time helmet. He finds it much noisier and hectic (including having to dodge cars in the street), the prices much higher, is almost arrested by a policeman, etc. He eventually escapes back to the past, which he finds much better.

* In the DirectToVideo, ''Our Friend Martin,'' the main character, a teenaged African American boy, and his best friend, a white teenaged boy, travel to the past and interact with a young Martin Luther King Junior, and after learning he was assassinated, they and two other classmates, another white boy, and a Latina girl, go back to the past to save him from being killed. When they came back, his best friend clearly tells him he would never be friends with a "negro," racial segregation is in full force, the Latina girl works as a maid along with her mother and doesn't speak English, their feminist principal teaches home-ec and doesn't respond to the principal's sexist insult, and asks the two formerly friendly classmates to "escort" our hero and the teenaged MLK Jr. out of the school. When they get home, the hero's mother, a self employed businesswoman, works as a cleaning lady. Things only get back to normal after King accepts his fate, and goes back to his own time.

* ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'': A demoness named Succoria travels from an ancient past full of magic where humans and demons are fighting to an industrialized present where demons are gone and humanity thrives on technology. From Succoria's perspective, this human-run present is a ''very'' depressingly bad present.

* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica''. Every incarnation uses this trope to some degree or another, but [[UltimateMarvel Ultimate Cap]] is probably the most apparent. At the same time, however, Steve will be the first to admit if something's improved.

* In ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'', a bunch of UsefulNotes/WorldWar2 superheroes get put in stasis as they're trying to prevent a Nazi operation. When they wake up (in 2009), they're very disoriented to say the least: one guy can't understand the concept of mixed-race marriages, another tries a career as a humorist relying on offensive stereotypes seventy years out of date, one tries to get to his old job as a journalist (and has never heard of the Internet), one who has [[SuperSenses Super Hearing]] now has to deal with all the wireless broadcasts (phones, TV, radio...), etc.

* In one arc in the ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' comic, Hal Jordan is brought to the present era and learns that not only has Coast City been destroyed, not only is the Corps dead, but the latter was his own doing as part of a massive FaceHeelTurn.

* Similarly, the 1940s MarvelComics heroes in ''Avengers/Invaders'' arrive in the aftermath of ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' and briefly think that the Germans won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII as a result.

* Played with in ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'', where a time traveler from the heavily {{Magitek}} past arrives in the current feudal world [[spoiler:only to find out it was bringing his date-minder through the time portal that hosed his "future".]]

* In the IntercontinuityCrossover ''ComicBook/JLAAvengers'' when they discover their {{Silver Age}}y joined universe isn't "real" they get a glimpse of the real two universes, and Hal Jordan & Barry Allen are especially disappointed about being dead, and in Jordan's case learning that he destroyed the Corps. Both still want to fix things though, because that's what they think is the right thing to do.

Imagine, for instance, a Japanese {{Samurai}} that [[FishOutOfTemporalWater arrives in the present from 200 years in the past]]. He'd probably be shocked to learn that Japanese culture has largely been replaced by Westernization, and that Japan surrendered to the United States after UsefulNotes/WorldWar2. Modern citizens of Japan have largely moved on, but the Samurai might see this as their BadFuture.

-->-- '''[[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]]''', ''Film/TheAvengers2012''

-->-- '''[[CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]]''', ''Film/TheAvengers2012''

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' TOS episode "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(The_Twilight_Zone) Once Upon a Time]]" (1960). A janitor from 1890 is sent to 1960 via a time helmet. He finds it much noisier and hectic (including having to dodge cars in the street), the prices much higher, is almost arrested by a policeman, etc. He eventually escapes back to the past, which he finds much better.

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/TheAvengers'', Steve Rogers does admit in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' that there are a few good things about the future, such as better food, no polio, and the Internet. [[spoiler:However, this is later overshadowed by the revelation that the future in which he woke up was essentially railroaded by his old enemy HYDRA from within SHIELD. A good chunk of the misery in the world was deliberately engineered by them to make people more amenable to surrendering their freedom for the illusion of security.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Singularity}}'' goes all {{timey wimey|Ball}} with this: [[spoiler:the main character, Nate Renko, is actually a present-day Marine from the year 2010 and that is the era when the game begins. However, upon arriving on the Russian research island facility "Katorga-12", he is thrust backwards in time to 1955 at the epicenter of a massive disaster on the island where he saves the life of a man who almost falls through the floor when it collapses beneath him. That man, unfortunately, is Nikolai Demichev, a Russian scientist who was planning to use the research conducted on the island to rise through the ranks of the Soviet Union. By saving him, Renko allows him to accomplish this and when Renko returns to the present, he finds that he created the BadPresent where Demichev is now High Chancellor of a substantially more powerful Soviet Union and the United States lays in ruins]]. The simple answer here is to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. [[spoiler:You think...]]