Captain America: In issue #442, Cap visits his friend Arnie Roth, who is on his deathbed. Arnie reminisces to Steve about an old radio show called The Whistler, whose voice actor was replaced in 1943, and according to Arn, it just didn't sound right anymore. He ponders whether it's really alright to just replace people like that. Despite what it sounds like, it's not really a Take That! toward Legacy Characters - Arnie is dying and his words are meant to drive home An Aesop that people are irreplaceable. But it does become ironic when you remember that Cap himself would be replaced multiple times after The 2000s - after a long history of never really having any successors past Steve.note Cap had somewhere around five replacements historically at this point in time, but they were all either meant to be temporary or introduced via Retcon.
Hulk Grey: Leonard Samson is doubtful General Ross was truly as much of a General Ripper as he was in Bruce's telling. When Bruce simply tells him that Ross "was what he was", Leonard retorts with "Hulk is Hulk". Four years later, and these two phrases could be said to have one and the same meaning.
In an issue of Uncanny X-Men from 1984, we get a flashback (-forward?) to Rachel Summers' Crapsack World of her Days of Future Past, where it's revealed that among the other actions to happen in the war against the mutants, someone destroyed the World Trade Center with a bomb (one panel shows the Twin Towers in ruins). Unthinkable in 1986, but cringe-inducing after 1993 and absolutely eerie after 2001. Bear in mind that, if not for Comic-Book Time, 2001 would likely be the actual year that the World Trade Center was destroyed in Rachel's timeline.
Similarly, one issue of Wolverine's own comic book featured an enemy flying a plane into him. While he was standing on top of the World Trade Center.
More fun with 9/11 in the 1995 Marvel Comics tie-in novel Spider Man The Octopus Agenda by Diane Duane: the book's climax features Spidey's attempts to foil the plans of Doctor Octopus, who's planted a bomb in the World Trade Center.
There was also the Spider-Man/X-Force crossover where the Juggernaut destroyed one of the twin towers in the course of his brawl with the heroes.
There's a late 70's issue of Marvel Two-in-One where the World Trade Center catches fire.
In the "Warriors of the Golden Dawn" arc of Master of Kung Fu, Fu Manchu plants a bomb under the World Trade Center and Shang-Chi is forced to kill an enemy by kicking him off the roof.
Stan Lee wrote the one-shot Origins of Marvel Comics during The '70s, and stated he hoped his characters would serve as a remedy against a world "losing its legends, a world that has lost its heroes". In The New '10s, Stan was among many old-guard Marvel writers and staffers to lose their life. Stan's comment that the world was losing its legends gains a whole new meaning.
The scenes in Uncanny X-Men #101 where the space shuttle breaks up on re-entry and crashes in New York and the similar sequence from the 1990s' Spider-Man: The Animated Series was intended to be merely dramatic when they were created, but some find it difficult to watch them without thinking of the Columbia tragedy. The Spider-Man episode is the most similar to the real disaster, which makes it REALLY creepy.
An in-universe example for the Marvel Universe. One issue of the late 90s Captain America comic had Cap foiling a plot by a Skrull to impersonate him and cause widespread chaos in the United States. What does he say upon defeating the Skrull?:
Cap: Next time, take over a planet without me on it.
Cue 2008's Secret Invasion, in which the Skrulls do take over the planet without Cap on it, as he had been supposedly dead at the time. The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes took it to a new level where Captain America replaced Hank Pym as the Avenger abducted and replaced by a Skrull, making it the new reason why he isn't on Earth.
In Ultimate X Men, mutants are more discriminated than ever before and can be held without a trial even if they didn't do anything wrong, and you can even legally kill them. At the time when it was written, it was meant to show how Ultimate Marvel is different from Earth-616. And then the National Defense Authorization Act came.
The Avengers #111, 1973. Magneto had captured the X-Men and several Avengers, turning them into People Puppets. Only 3 Avengers were still free, Thor, The Vision and Black Panther. So sure about his strength in numbers over the Avengers, and with the Scarlet Witch dancing under his control, he said "But they are decimated, Piper - DECIMATED!"◊ (bolded in the original). He would surely come to regret those words: in House of M the Scarlet Witch, mad and with reality-warping powers, turned all mutants except 192 into normal people without powers, including Magneto. The name of the near-extinction of mutants? "Decimation".
There's also the fact he had Wanda dancing for his amusement; given her choice of outfits and the way everyone used to react to her, this was probably for his own titillation. Bear in mind, a few years later, Magneto would discover that Wanda is, in fact, his daughter.note Until the comics made canon that she wasn't, which was originally something done in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Speaking of which, New Mutants #42 had a scene where Cannonball was told by his mother that his little brother Josh would "wither and die" if he ever had to leave Kentucky to attend the Xavier Institute like Cannonball did. Years later, Josh actually did end up attending the Xavier Institute, where he was Killed Off for Real in the aftermath of the aforementioned Decimation storyline.
In-Universe example: The 2002 Spider-Man storyline Death in the Family has a scene where Spidey walks in on the Green Goblin using dolls to re-create the death of Gwen Stacy Spaceballs-style while implying that Gwen was on the bridge because she was sexually attracted to Norman Osborn. Later, the 2004 storyline Past Sins revealed that Gwen did indeed sleep with Osborn before her death, resulting in twins Gabriel and Sarahnote At least until it was retconned that they were clones all along and the affair never happened.
The Marvel Civil War was painfully cringe-worthy, to begin with. Now, let's just say that it starts with a disturbed individual attacking an elementary school in Connecticut and leave it at that.
In the last issue of Brian K. Vaughan's run on Runaways, the entire creative team wonders what will happen with the characters in the next ten years. One of the comments mentioned they'll probably be all dead. Near the team's tenth anniversary, two of the characters are in book dedicated solely to killing teenage superheroes.
And then came Secret Wars (2015), where Earth-616 was destroyed, and so far, from the Runaways, only Nico and Molly have been confirmed to have survived.
The arc that introduces Victor has Nico vowing to rip his damn heart out if it ever appears that he's going to become Victorious. Fast forward to 2016, where Victor is murdered by Virginia Vision, who rips his heart out after he accidentally kills her son. His last thought is that at least he never became Victorious.
And then the third issue of the new Runaways has Chase accidentally activating Victorious during an attempt to revive Victor.
The 1990-91 Foolkiller limited series climaxed during the summer of 1991 around the same time that Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested and his long killing spree revealed. Although readers knew who the Foolkiller was all the time, this is when the general public and his former friends and acquaintances learn of his identity on the news.
May 6-7, 2016 were not good days for War Machine in any medium. The former saw the release of Captain America: Civil War, which saw him crippled following a stray blast from The Vision damaging his armor and the latter saw the release of the Free Comic Book Day special that kick starts Civil War IIwith his death by Thanos being what set things off.
Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand features the heroes of the Ultimate Marvel universe trying to stop Galactus after he appeared in their universe following the events of Age of Ultron and a plot point shows The Maker seeing his mainstream counterpart's daughter, resolving to save the world. What caused the story to fall into this trope of the double whammy of the Maker being a villain in The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman) (and revealed to have lied about reforming) and the events of the Secret Wars (2015) tie-in Ultimate End, which would see the destruction of the Ultimate Universe, meaning the heroes only delayed the inevitable.
Back in the early nineties, one of the most famous songs by Italian band 883note that now, by the way, is no more since its lead singer is now pursuing a solo career was titled "Hanno Ucciso L'Uomo Ragno", which is Italian for "They Killed Spider-Man". Fast-forward by twenty-years-or-so.
In "Cats and Queens", the focus of MJ's story was her wanting to run away from home so she and Peter could be married, with him saying he'll always be there for her. Also in the same arc, Black Cat tells him he'll have seven years bad luck. This was in 2004...
Similarly, every time the subject of sex came up between Peter and MJ, they resolve to "wait until they're older".
At July 2005's San Diego Comic Con, in response to the question the Ultimate & 616 universes crossing over, Joe Quesada stated that he'd rather close down one universe than have them cross over because it meant they were officially out of ideas. Fast forward to 2012, and Marvel announced that they will be having 616!Peter crossing over to the Ultimate universe to meet Miles. Then the 2015 Secret Wars event came along and both worlds — along with the rest of The Multiverse — get destroyed. At the end of the event, Mr. Fantastic starts rebuilding the multiverse, but for two years, it appeared that the Ultimate Universe was gone for good (with Ultimate characters such as Miles and the Maker now living in the Marvel Universe)... until Spider-Men II revealed that the Ultimate Universe is back as well.
Every discussion anyone ever has about Peter's future now that we know his eventual fate. And then shot to pieces after the reveal that he came back to life.
Early in 2003, the original Venom arc was published, which revealed in the Ultimate universe, the Venom suit was originally developed as a means to cure cancer. Fall of the same year, Paul Jenkins's first arc on the second volume of Spectacular Spider-Man revealed that one of the reasons the Venom symbiote was drawn to the mainstream Eddie was because he had cancer. Though in 2019, Venom (Donny Cates), this was mitigated by the reveal that the symbiote had been gaslighting Eddie into thinking he had cancer and screwing with his body chemistry so Eddie wouldn't leave it.
During Heroes Reborn, an LMD of Nick Fury controlled by the Sons of the Serpents told a series of lies to Captain America and Bill Clinton that said the government originally put Steve in cryogenic suspension because he'd objected to the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in the decades since before the "present day", would revive Steve and brainwash him to serve in The Korean War and The Vietnam War only to put him back on ice when the brainwashing started to wear off. "Ice", a story so reviled, it was it was stricken from canon, attempted to retcon that Steve in the main Marvel Universe was really put on ice by the government for objecting to the atomic bombs and his memories of a fight with Heinrich Zemo were falsified, and Bucky Barnes's return revealed that the Soviet Union got ahold of Bucky and subjected him to brainwashing, cryogenically freezing him and thawing him out to carry out missions for them.
A driving force of Nick Fury's actions in the Fury (MAX) miniseries is the fact that he has run out of wars to fight and must scrounge for armed conflict (like being loaned out to the DEA to bring down drug manufacturers). He is desperate to have some sort of battle to fight to escape from his crummy domestic life. The first issue came out in November 2001 but it was clearly written before 9/11. Within a few months Fury would have his war.
Spider-Man: Life Story features a double whammy of this. In issue #2, set in The '70s, we learn that Doctor Octopus had a heart attack, but he survived and reformed, marrying Aunt May. Then comes Issue #4, set in The '90s, where it’s revealed that not only did Aunt May die, but she divorced from Doc Ock, causing him to become a supervillain once again, and when trying to kill Peter, the elderly Norman Osborn suffers a fatal heart attack.
Quite a bit of Steve Rogers's involvement in Avengers Standoff. The "He's Back!" moments of being restored to his young and powers are marred by the fact that Steve really wasn't as Captain America: Steve Rogers revealed that Kobik created a Cosmic Retcon where Steve was a HYDRA sleeper agent, so the real Steve's "He's Back!" moment really wouldn't be until the end of Secret Empire. Furthermore, Steve's call for heroes to stop fighting themselves is dampened by the fact that Civil War II would see heroes fighting each other again — and this time, with the HYDRA version of Steve fanning the flames of the conflict.
Secret Empire itself got hit with this as among HYDRA's crimes was the massacre of the entire population of Las Vegas. Just a month after the story's conclusion, Stephen Craig Paddock went on the deadliest shooting in U.S. history in Vegas, killing 95 people, then himself.
Captain America: Sam Wilson and The Crew had the Americops, a Hate Sink police force who brutalized minorities and heavy-handed approach to policing on behalf of the rich and powerful. Sam's arc revolved around his futile attempt to stop the violent aftermath of the Americops policing as Rage was arrested and beaten into a coma which sparked riots across the country. In May 2020, George Floyd was killed in public by policemen who knee hold him to death and the subsequent police reaction across the United States was a brutal crackdown where anyone supporting the protesters, were arrested, attacked, and killed. To add to harshness, Nick Spencer was a Cincinnati native who during his political career advocated for more police funding before writing the story arc.
Issue 34 of Mar-Vell's solo series marked the debut of Nitro and boasted that he'd be "the man who killed Captain Marvel". While Mar-Vell didn't die in that exact issue, he was exposed to a deadly gas as the result of fighting Nitro, thus starting the chain of events that would lead to The Death of Captain Marvel, meaning the cover was right about Nitro, but didn't specify when Mar-Vell would die.
During the events of Civil War II, Carol chose to disregard Habeas Corpus, Actus Reus, and Mens Rea, as well as the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. This among concerns that the government has used 9/11 to justify eroding civil rights.
One of the many technological/medical milestones of Wakanda was the cure for cancer, unfortunately, due to the greed of the world they refuse to release the cure outside their nation. On August 28, 2020, Chadwick Boseman, the actor for T'Challa passed away from colon cancer.
In The Death of Jean DeWolff, the Kingpin expresses concern that the death of Reverend Bernard Finn, who is African-American, will lead to a chaotic New York. The Sin-Eater is ultimately revealed to be police detective Stan Carter. While his reasons for killing Finn were not racially motivated and Kingpin is more concerned about the fact that Finn was a priest, the death of a black man at the hands of a white cop causing civil unrest has become all too real in America as seen with the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and the more recent protests of the 2010s and 2020s over the deaths of African-Americans like Mike Brown, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers. The climax of Part Four of the story even features a riot outside the police station for Carter's head and some people even accuse the police of protecting Carter, an allegation often leveraged at real cops when their colleagues are involved in extrajudicial killings.
The Dallas sniper attack occurred while Nighthawk Vol. 2 was in the midst of a storyline involving a black psychotic who was killing whites for crimes against blacks. The second issue (released about two weeks before the shooting) ended with the murderer setting his sights on the police after hearing a newscast about a white officer who was found not guilty of killing an unarmed black youth.
The Ultimates 3 sees Blob threaten to eat the Wasp during the Brotherhood's siege on the Ultimates. Ultimatum turned this from mere fight banter to reality as one of the more infamous moments from that series is Blob graphically making good on his threat.
In Mini Marvels, when Hulk was going on a date with Betty Ross, her father ordered a Hulkbuster robot to follow them and make sure he didn't "try anything funny." to which the robot replies with "You mean like Bill Cosby?" This was several years before the rape allegations against Cosby.
Ultimate Marvel had a borderline example in Ultimate X Men. After explaining to Beast the true nature of a project Nick Fury had him working on, Bishop says that Beast's work meant that Nick Fury wouldn't be executed for causing a mutant genocide. The "aneurysm" comes in the Ultimate Power miniseries, where Nick Fury is imprisoned on the Earth of the Squadron Supreme for the deaths of millions.
Issue #50 of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic (which came out in 1985) included the first issue of the spin-off title G.I. Joe: Special Missions. This first issue revolved around the hijacking of a jetliner by a radical Trotskyist group. Not a far-fetched premise, given the frequency of airline hijackings in the mid-1980s. They even go through the motions of claiming they'll release hostages if demands are met. Then you find out the terrorists' real plan: to use the airliner in a kamikaze attack on the Kremlin to avenge the assassination of Trotsky by Stalin...
Much of what Marvel Comics printed before 9/11/2001, because so many of their stories are based in New York City. For example, early issues of the first iteration of X-Force has the Juggernaut deciding to knock over one of the (pre-evacuated) World Trade Center towers. It made little sense, but over it went. And earlier than X-Force, an ad for Damage Control: The Series had one of the towers about thirty feet off-kilter, but it was 'good enough'. In short, so many otherwise fine stories take place in, on, or around the towers.
Juggernaut's attack on the World Trade Center towers happened little time before an actual attack on the buildings. Not the 2001 one, but the 1993 one, which was (obviously) much more contained. The creator responsible for both that and the "Death of Princess Diana" comic was John Byrne, who got a bit of a reputation for his "psychic predictions."
Excalibur, issue 20: a giant interdimensional being ports in with a flash of light outside a town. Rachel and Kitty see the light and assume that the local nuclear power plant had a meltdown, resulting in this conversation:
Linkara (With a disgusted look on his face): The people who have read Ultimatum have this same expression. And you will too when we finally get to it.
There's an early X-Men comic in which a stealth jet is going to be flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Fortunately, Wolverine gets on top of the plane, carves his way in, and pulls it up at the very last second. Reading this post 9/11 made it less of a fun action scene and more a harsh reminder that we don't have super-heroes in the real world.
The character Hazmat in Avengers Academy is an ethnically-Japanese girl with radioactivity based powers who has been described as a "walking Chernobyl". Less than a year after she was introduced, the Sendai earthquake happened, which caused radioactive material to escape from the Fukushima nuclear powerplant.
In an 80s issue of New Warriors, Speedball and Night Thrasher have this conversation about Speedball's powers. This side of Civil War (2006) and "Bleedball", his spiky, masochism-themed new identity, it's not so funny:
Night Thrasher: Robbie, the purpose of this session is to find ways of effectively using your Speedball powers in combat.
Speedball: Well, Dwayne... how 'bout attaching humongous spikes to my spandex? That way I could totally impale all the bad guys!
Night Thrasher: Spikes, huh? [Walks away, looking contemplative]
The one-shot parody, 101 Ways to EndThe Clone Saga is full of writers spitballing ideas to... well, end the Clone Saga. The ending in which the staff hit upon the idea to use the Green Goblin as the mastermind isn't an example, as the reveal had been published by this point. However, two ideas thrown out by Marvel's bullpen would end up being essentially merged together: The 'Greenberg Gambit' (Use Mephisto to solve everything!), and using the story's events as an excuse to remove MJ from the cast (she's retconned into being a hologram in one of the ideas). Naturally, Spidey fans know where we're going with this: The Greenberg Gambit was later used to annul Peter's and Mary Jane's wedding.
The Stan Lee MeetsSpider-Man special had a backup story featuring a comic book fan in an interdimensional convention talking to alternate versions of himself and discovering none of them know who Stan Lee is. He goes into several alternate realities, and nothing. Until finally, he bumps into the man himself, and asks him how come he can't find any counterparts of Stan Lee in the multiverse. Stan proudly proclaims that while there are plenty of talented comic creators in the various dimensions, there is only one Stan Lee. So, you know. Now there are none of him. Anywhere. Stan is survived by an alternate self who sells meats, however.
What If? had quite a few, being all about alternate realities where Anyone Can Die, but one early issue featured the Scarlet Centurion appearing to The Avengers, warning them that they must do something about the growing proliferation of superheroes. When Thor objects by saying that "a goodly portion of these beings are dedicated to fighting evil!", the Centurion replies that they will invite holocaust upon holocaust to the world with their good intentions. The Scarlet Centurion was meant to be lying then, but given Marvel's crossovers during the 2000s and 2010s involved no end of Well-Intentioned Extremist superheroes bringing untold harm to the world, one almost feels it was less 'lying' and more 'slight exaggeration'.
In the same issue, it's implied that Janet and Hank will have a happier life together without the pressure of working as superheroes getting in the way. No kidding.
In an issue of Uncanny Avengers, Wolverine goes to Tokyo to offer the Japanese hero Sunfire membership in The Avengers. When Sunfire asks why he was considered, Wolverine responds by calling him a "walking atomic bomb." Quite a few people online pointed out that the line is either incredibly dickish or very insensitive depending on whether or not the writer was aware of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Especially when you consider that in his first appearance, it's established that Sunfire's mom was an innocent child who eventually died of radiation poisoning she received at Hiroshima. This has been Retconned of course due to Comic-Book Time.
Avengers: The Initiative: It can be pretty jarring to go back and read this book featuring people mocking Hydra and dismissing them as a minor threat after reading Secret Empire, especially when considering the heroes that were killed by Hydra during the event.
Another scene has Mettle lamenting, "I feel like a black dude in a slasher movie." In Avengers Arena the first victim is Mettle.
Another X-Men example: In the 1990s, longtime couple Cyclops and Jean Grey finally tied the knot. Marvel released a one-shot special, The Wedding Album and included random autolog messages from the reception. One message comes from Shatterstar, who predicts the marriage won't last. Fast-forward about a decade, and Marvel dropping a bridge on Jean in favor of Cyclops leaving his wife for a rival out of left field, Emma Frost.
Shatterstar: Personally, I cannot think of anything less appealing than committing the rest of your air time to a single individual. I give the marriage three seasons, max. Look for early strong ratings, but an early cancellation. I do, of course, wish you two the best of luck, however. May you have many spinoffs.
An issue of X-Men, written by Matt Fraction, went on a tangent about how perfect and more accepting California was to mutants compared to the rest of the country. At this point it's clear that Fraction was using mutants as a metaphor/symbolism for homosexuality. Cue Proposition 8 being passed in that state.
In The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos using the titular gauntlet causes all sorts of earthquakes to happen all over Earth. One of those buries Japan in the ocean. Makes one cringe after a similar disaster happened to Japan in 2011.
In the Wolverine miniseries from Claremont and Miller, very early on, Wolverine catches JAL flight 007 going from New York to Anchorage to Tokyo. Almost exactly one year later, KAL flight 007, going from New York, to Anchorage to Seoul (in other words, the exact same route except for destination) was shot down in Real Life by Soviet fighters who believed that KAL 007 had strayed over the Kamchatka Peninsula, then a restricted area of the USSR.
In the last issue before Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona left Runaways, the creative team joked that in ten years, the Runaways would probably all be dead. As of 2014, almost every member of the team has been killed at least once, thanks to the decision to include the team in Anyone Can Die-style stories like Age of Ultron and Avengers Arena.
In Iron Man #231, with the fallout of the Armor Wars storyline, Stark Enterprises PR director Marcy Pearson suggests that the company should choose a less controversial spokesperson to replace Iron Man, like Bill Cosby. It's a pretty wince-inducing line with Cosby's later sexual assault charges.
◊ (bolded in the original). He would surely come to regret those words: in House of M the Scarlet Witch, mad and with reality-warping powers, turned all mutants except 192 into normal people without powers, including Magneto. The name of the near-extinction of mutants? "Decimation".
