Marvel is
infamous for this, as you will see, to the point even they lampshade it often.
- Spider-Man:
- Spider-Man's second comic appearance ever (after his Origin Story) in The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee & Ditko) was a misunderstanding with the Fantastic Four, who were almost the only other superheroes in Marvel Comics at the time.
- Spider-Men: As might be expected, Peter Parker from the mainstream universe picks a fight with Miles Morales because he doesn't trust anyone in a Spidey suit (not after that "clone" thing). Miles fights him off, however, because only a freaked out and off his game Spider-Man would ever pick a fight with a thirteen year old boy. And mostly because Miles can instantly incapacitate anyone by touch.
- Subverted and lampshaded in Peter David's Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man one-shot. Due to some time-traveling experiments, Peter Parker (Spider-Man c. 1995) and Miguel O'Hara (Spider-Man 2099) switch places. After some running around, the two meet while pursuing a time-traveling Hobgoblin from 2211. Peter Parker/Spidey 1995 promptly quips "I know this is the part where we're supposed to be confused about each other, get into a fight, then settle our differences and chase the bad guy — but we're short on time, so let's just skip all that, okay?" Miguel, dumbfounded, simply agrees.
- In one arc of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man fights the White Tiger after he is framed for theft, only relenting when he realizes Hector Ayala had no reason to steal the Erskine manuscripts.
- Spider-Man and Medusa of the Inhumans fight over an antidote to a toxic compound, each to save innocent lives, with Black Bolt ultimately negotiating a compromise.
- Spider-Man mistakes Moon Knight for a supervillain after coming across him beating up a Maggia thug and attacks him, only setting aside their differences when the thug calls for backup in the form of the supervillain Cyclone.
- After coming across some murdered drug addicts, Spider-Man attacks Cloak and Dagger assuming they must be responsible, though upon clearing up the misunderstanding they team up to take down the real killer.
- Lampshaded in The Spectacular Spider-Man #13 where, before teaming up, Razorback attacks Spiderman because "Isn't that what superheroes do when they first meet?"
- When Spider-Man met Daredevil for the very second time, the Masked Marauder deliberately engineered it so they would come to blows. He did this by having guys in Daredevil costumes taunt Spidey until he hunted down the real one. Why, you ask? So the only two threats to his plans would be too tied up dealing with each other to stop him.
- It happens the very first time the two meet as well, thanks to C-list supervillain the Ringmaster hypnotizing Spidey into fighting Daredevil when he's trying to stop him.
- In the early years of his solo book, Peter's jerkassery tends to get dialed up a few notches whenever other heroes show up in his mag, even if they did nothing to antagonize him. To an extent, this was an Enforced Trope; any peaceful meeting would probably end with him joining The Avengers or the Fantastic Four, in which case money and/or publicity worries (the bread and butter of the typical Spider-Man comic) would go right down the drain.
- Spidey himself shows an awareness of this trait in Marvel Knights Spider-Man, where he breaks into Avengers Tower for help finding his Aunt May and, in his stress, inadvertently insults many of them and eventually leaves without getting anywhere. While leaving, he thinks to himself how being around other (often more powerful and accomplished) super heroes subconsciously reminds him of the bullied nerd he was before he got his powers.
Spider-Man:
Mary Jane says I've got a really bad attitude when I'm around other superheroes [...] The truth is that being around super-jocks just makes me feel like I'm back in high school again and looking at everyone through thick glass lenses.
- Nate Grey was no stranger to this thanks to an uneasy mixture of his vast raw power, Power Incontinence, a confused idea of who the good guys and bad guys were in the 616 universe (having grown up in the Age of Apocalypse), a Hair-Trigger Temper, a significant and justified degree of paranoia about being used and manipulated (it was attempted often enough), and a general complete lack of life experience. As a result, most of his first encounters with heroes from Xavier to his half brother Cable, his mother Jean Grey note While technically the Jean Grey of Earth-295 was his mother/gene donor, he met her exactly once, briefly, whereas he built a strong relationship with 616 Jean from the start and always referred to her as his mother. , and to the Hulk involved coming to blows.
- Actually subverted and lampshaded when he first meets Spider-Man, during his New York street messiah period. Nate, an immensely powerful telepath, immediately picks out Peter, walks up to him, and, having identified a certain trend by this point and become thoroughly bored with it, just walks straight up to him and asks if they can "pass on the gratuitous fight." Peter, also very familiar with this, agreed in bemusement.
- Namor the Sub-Mariner decided to take revenge on the surface world, starting with the city of New York. The Human Torch arrived to stop him and the Marvel Universe was born. They later teamed up with Captain America when it was revealed the Axis was the true enemy, a plot Marvel still homages to this day.
- Civil War (2006) marked the start of events based around superheroes fighting each other as, following a tragedy, the heroes divided into pro or anti sides of the Superhero Registration Act and came to blows over it. This was followed by Civil War II, where they clashed over the ability to predict crimes before they happened, and Civil War (2015) explored a world where the original event ended in millions dead and the war still ongoing.
- The Avengers:
- The original Avengers team is actually created this way: their members met when Loki attempted to trick Thor and Hulk into fighting each other and accidentally brought Iron Man, Ant-Man and The Wasp into the fight as well. Thor ends up finding out the truth, and the five heroes, after defeating Loki, decided to keep teaming up together.
- Loki has since repeated the trick with the second Young Avengers team, and the 2018 Avengers team. As he quips after the former, "putting together the Avengers - it's Loki's greatest hit." Though it should be said that the first time was part of a complicated scheme to hijack Wiccan's vast Reality Warper powers in their infancy, while the second was more genuine, when he apparently acted as point man for the Celestials in scourging Earth - actually cleaning it of an infestation by the Horde and creating an immensely powerful team to fight the War of the Realms.
- And then the second issue has it happen again, thanks to the Space Phantom. Hulk gets so hurt by how easily the others turned on him he quit. For some time after the team went after the Hulk mainly out of concern or because he was on a rampage. Despite several changes in personality, none of the Hulks or Bruce Banner would return to the Avengers for nearly sixty years.
- The first meeting between The Avengers and Squadron Supreme lampshaded this way back in 1971, with Goliath stating that it felt weird to meet another team of superheroes they didn't immediately have to start fighting. Of course, they had already fought this time. A group of Avengers had wound up in another universe, and found some people in what looked like their mansion headquarters. The Squadron were a little confused, but one of them instantly assumed the Avengers were filthy commies and attacked. After that, every other time the Avengers and the Squadron have met, they've fought anyway, either because the Squadron have been duped or just brainwashed.
- Lampshaded when, about ten or twelve years ago in real time, The Avengers (actually, robot impostors) arrived in Germany to claim jurisdiction over the Red Skull and take him away in the middle of his trial by the German government. Hauptmann Deutschland wondered if protocol required that he should fight Captain America.
- It was lampshaded just a few years into the original book, when (during their first crossover with the X-Men) Hawkeye, Goliath, and Black Panther deliberately staged a clash-of-egos with each other to throw Magneto off-guard. Of course, the fact they expected Magneto (not to mention the readers) to swallow this without question is telling in itself...
- The Incredible Hulk: The series can usually pull these off repeatedly due to the Hulk's unstable mental nature. One day he's a giant with the mind of Bruce Banner, the next an unthinking ball of green rage. Getting these fights to stop usually involves a Cooldown Hug and the inevitable Interrupted Cooldown Hug to avoid a change in the Status Quo. Various heroes have been unlucky enough to cross the Hulk's path, including Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man and the heroes who make up part of his regular rogues' gallery (see below). It's not an experience any of the other guys would care to repeat.
- Lampshaded by the Hulk (in Smart/Banner/Merged Hulk form at the time) during the Marvel Knights crossover storyline, when he accidentally bumps into Ghost Rider while strolling through the park at knight. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the reader, Ghost Rider, currently fully possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and only seeing the (accidental, collateral) pain Hulk has caused, is not having any of it and doesn't go along with the plan.
Hulk: Alright, I get it. This is the obligatory "good guy meets good guy, they have an obligatory fight based on misunderstanding, then team up to fight the REAL bad guy." Can we just skip it?
- Wolverine got started as a character created to be a Canadian hero sent to fight the Hulk.
- World War Hulk revolved around the Hulk heading to Earth after his adventure on Planet Sakaar and wrecking anyone, hero or villain, that stood in his way.
- Sleepwalker's lack of understanding about the human world and its heroes led him to end up fighting with Spider-Man, Deathlok and Ghost Rider at different points in his short-lived series. Thankfully, both of the comic's regular readers were spared Wolverine and The Punisher guest starring.
- Used twice in Marvel 1602. Peter Parquagh is sent by Sir Nicholas Fury to deliver a message to Carlos Javier. Before he can even reach the gate, Hal McCoy pins him to the ground and accuses him of being a spy. Earlier, Parquagh is sent to bring Virginia Dare to visit the queen and is waylaid by her bodyguard Rojhaz. Rojhaz (who later turns out to be Steven "Captain America" Rogers) protests his exclusion from the meeting by lifting Peter up by his shirt.
- Subverted in Spider-Girl, when she runs into Araña
(Grown up version of the 616 Araña, who currently is the mainstream Spider-Girl, to boot), who wants to fight her. May absolutely refuses, since she refuses to turn "the hero biz" into some sort of "who's stronger" contest and runs away. But Araña chases her and goads her into fighting. From the start of the sequence:May: I don't do "tests", "misunderstanding battles", or "grudge matches".
- Lampshaded in Exiles and played straight dozens of times. Case in point, the team running into the Squadron Supreme. Having been duped by Proteus that they'd ditched Beak, the Squadron attack the Exiles and then put them on trial, while Proteus runs off to commit havoc. It takes Heather intervening to get the Squadron to calm down.
- Deadpool once explained the real reason heroes do this: It's fun.
Citizen V: This fight is completely unnecessary.
Deadpool: BLASPHEMY! All fights are necessary!
- In the Soviet Super Soldiers oneshot, the Crimson Dynamo laments that "a prerequisite to every visit I make to the United States seems to be a completely gratuitous battle against people I don't even know."
- Occurs in Death's Head #10, when an Upper-Class Twit manipulates Death's Head and Iron Man 2020 to fight each other while he bets on the outcome.
- Black Panther in his first appearance in Fantastic Four attacks the Four to prove his worthiness to defend his kingdom and the usefulness of the team to help him. After making that point, he stops the fight to explain himself to the team and makes it up to them for the incident.
- Happens between the Avengers Academy Students and The Avengers in Issue #21 then again between the students and the X-Men in the next issue! Previously, they also got in a fight with the Runaways, because the Academy staff was planning to get Molly and Klara away from their team. Thankfully, both groups came to understand each other thanks to a spell from Nico Minoru.
- Runaways:
- Most of the team versus Cloak and Dagger, who think they're criminals holding Molly hostage. Alex tries to point out how old the routine is, but the more experienced heroes make short work of them. (According to Dagger, Stilt-Man took longer to beat - ouch.)
- The Runaways also ended up fighting Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men over a misunderstanding. While the two teams traded blows, Kitty Pryde and Gert sat it out and ended up resolving the issue over a nice conversation.
- Somewhat lampshaded in a Marvel Team-Up miniseries a few years back. Wolverine is searching for a potentially dangerous teen mutant that happens to be talking with Spider-Man. When Wolverine attacks Spider-man, he dodges the berserking attacks and asks why do they keep having to fight every time they meet.
- This is a very popular device across the various incarnations of the Marvel Team-Up series, often with slight justifications. In Marvel Two-in-One #15, the Thing and Morbius are constantly coming to blows because the Living Vampire is trying to slake his thirst throughout the issue — to the point that they all but ignore the villain of the piece.
- Justice Peace and Thor in The Mighty Thor #371. This one has consequences: the fight delays Justice Peace's pursuit of the serial killer Zaniac, who kills several more people before they catch up with him.
- Avengers vs. X-Men not only pit the two groups against each other, it had its own tie-in miniseries dedicated to just the hero vs hero fighting (AvX VS)! Mind you, in this case there isn't any misunderstanding or mistake in identity involved - the two teams simply want things that are mutually exclusive. But some fans feel that the speed at which they resort to violence is just as contrived.
- A variation in Avengers Arena, in which Arcade kidnaps a number of young mutants and heroes and forces them to fight each other for his amusement in a parody/Shout-Out to Battle Royale. The involved heroes are even aware of his plot right from the start and most of them actively try not to play it straight because they do not want to play Arcade's game and try not to kill anyone. Sadly, fights still happen because of misunderstandings.
- Nova: Both played straight and lampshaded in one issue of vol 4., when Richard and his old teammate Darkhawk fight. Darkhawk refuses to listen to Rich, on account of there being a Skrull invasion going on, having already been attacked by Skrulls disguised as other heroes. Not helping is that the source of Darkhawk's powers make him unreasonable and angry at the best of times anyway. However, Rich's little brother intervenes and determines Richard is who he says he is, before shortly mocking this trope.
Robert Rider: Isn't it traditional for super-heroes to fight before realising they're on the same side?
Darkhawk: (To Nova) Did you want to hit him a lot when you were a kid, too?
Nova: All the freaking time.
- X-Men 2099 featured the odd case of a "first-meeting misunderstanding" fight that had a lasting effect on the plot, occurring during the X-Men's first encounter with the similar group Freakshow. X-Man Metalhead was assaulted by Freakshow member Contagion, whose touch spreads a deadly disease; Metalhead survived because he was in metal form, but his body was mutated and he lost the ability to turn his powers off. Ashamed of his new monstrous appearance, he joins Freakshow (seemingly with no ill will towards Contagion) and doesn't appear again for a while.
- Averted in spectacular fashion in issue 5 of All-New Wolverine: Wolverine and the Sisters are teleported by Doctor Strange to one of Hank Pym's labs to steal an Ant-Man suit, in hopes that Laura can use it to fight the nanites killing the girls. Except Strange neglected to call ahead. Their break-in is foiled by The Wasp who...actually waits to clear up the misunderstanding and only goes so far as preventing Bellona from shooting the place up. She then calls up Strange and lays into him over sending armed people to one of her labs without letting her know first.
- Ultimate Marvel
- A spectacular pile-up of this trope occurred in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic. Peter heads out to stop an up-and-coming crime boss named The Kangaroo only to find Daredevil's already there for the same reason. Daredevil then promptly drops what he's doing to beat the crap out of Peter really for no reason other than believing a teenager is too young to be a super-hero. This is soon dropped when The Punisher arrives, also to stop (read: kill) the Kangaroo and begins riddling the building they're in with bullets. Then when Spider-Man and Daredevil are trying to stop him (while still butting heads and insulting each other) Moon Knight shows up and only adds to the fighting. The Kangaroo attempts to skulk away unnoticed during all the fighting but Daredevil slips away long enough to apprehend him.
- The Ultimates: The team get sent after Thor in Ultimates 2 because of Loki, who has done so for the funsies. The Ultimates already thought Thor was a nutcase, but Loki pretends to be a human doctor and claims Thor is an escaped mental patient. Thor's strident claims of You Have to Believe Me! go unbelieved.
- The entire point of New Ultimates vs. The Avengers. The Avengers believe Carol Danvers has gone corrupt and evil, and go after her. Carol, meanwhile, believes Nick Fury has gone corrupt and evil (well, in fairness...) The two teams fight, accidentally mortally wounding Spider-Man in the process, while discrediting Nick and Carol enough for the person who set them up to take over SHIELD.
- The Marvel What-The parodies of course take this up to eleven. Lampshading is gratis:
Team Leader 1: Everybody on the alert, this may be a hackneyed plot contrievance!
- The Punisher gets this all the time, in part due to the fact that many heroes see him as a legitimate threat (they want to arrest criminals, he wants to kill them).
- Several stories have Daredevil or Spider-Man show up to stop Frank. Depending on whose series it is, he either incapacitates them long enough to shoot whatever mobster he was there to kill, or incapacitates them long enough to run away.
- In the "Blood And Glory" story, he's even manipulated into shooting Captain America by a corrupt Attorney General (who makes him out to be behind the US selling deliberately faulty weapons to a South American dictatorship).
- One Daredevil / Punisher crossover sees Frank and Matt believe each other to be working for the criminals due to Frank murdering an attorney Matt was friends with. Matt later learns was Frank was correct and the attorney had been taking bribes.
- One story has both the Punisher and Wolverine hunting the same poachers. Naturally, Wolverine sees Frank with a gun near a bullet-riddled dinosaur and goes for him. They only stop when they realize on of the expedition's guides is aiming at them, encouraged by the leader's wife.
- In a later story, the Punisher and Wolverine are after some bizarre mob kidnappings (and it's not Frank this time). The victims are found with their legs cut off (Wolverine thinks Frank is the kind of sick bastard to do this, Frank thinks Wolverine's claws were used). It turns out a mob of Depraved Dwarves was behind it, and believed the two would join them (Frank because he kills criminals, Wolverine because he's short too).
- Secret Empire deconstructs this trope along with Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. By the time of the crossover, the heroes have spent so much time fighting each other that there's no sense of trust between them. Not only does the evil Cap take advantage of it to easily get the heroes out of his way, Ultron, who has spent his whole existence trying to wipe out mankind, ends up deciding to just kick back and wait for the superheroes to do it for him because all their conflicts have done a darn good job breaking everything.
- Star Wars: Doctor Aphra:
- When the Imperials raid her auction, Aphra ultimately leads a group of Stormtroopers into a room full of criminals who all want to kill her for a variety of other reasons, letting them all shoot at each other. Later, she also leads the rampaging Rur crystal-powered droid into the room as Darth Vader arrives, letting them fight.
- When captured on Milvayne by Tam Polsa and a squad of local law enforcement, and facing execution, Aphra points out that Polsa is a vigilante. As she hoped, this causes the squad to deem him a renegade and turn on him, creating a distraction that lets her escape.
- Guardians of the Galaxy:
- Any time, any time the original team goes near heroes of the modern day, things inevitably turn into a fight. By the 90s, they actually get a little wise to this. On one time-travel jaunt, Starhawk (who lives his life in a Stable Time Loop and could've warned the others all those times) actually takes steps to avert this, mentioning that if they just used their time-travel machine to zap into the Fantastic Four's office, a fight would break out, but by appearing in the downstairs lobby, they actually avoid a fight for once.
- Played straight in the next chapter though, when they time-travel to a world guarded by the Silver Surfer. His friend has been sort-of possessed by a fragment of Korvac, and they need to remove it. However, Norrin's not in any mood to listen and fights them. End result, his friend ends up dead.
- In Vol 2., Starhawk transports a chunk of the team (Star-Lord, Mantis, Cosmo, Jack Flag and Bug) to her reality, where they're immediately set upon by that era's Guardians. A brawl ensues until Starhawk gets everyone to calm down.
- And they're back at it in Guardians 3000. The original Guardians travel back to 2015, and get into a fight with the modern day Guardians. Then A-Tech, rogue Stark technology from the 31st century gets involved, and everyone fights them, until the Guardians remember that A-Tech is designed for defense. Once they stop fighting, the tech stops trying to attack them.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2020), the Guardians and the Western Spiral Arm Guardians, a spin-off team Gamora's formed, get into a fight in a Beavertron facility. The Guardians are there to wreck it, because it's killing the planet it's on. The Westerns are protecting it because A; they're getting paid, B; one of them wants to kill Rocket, and C; Moondragon wants a "word" with her other-dimensional counterpart (which leads to C-and-a-half; because she and Gamora are being partially egged on by the Dragon of the Moon). Except other Moondragon knew about that part, and walked into the trap to try and help her counterpart.
- Secret Warps:
- When the world's supervillains begin attacking the heroes all at once, Soldier Supreme notes that Iron Hammer is the only one not being attacked, and since he's dating Madame Hel, this looks suspicious. Stephen goes to talk with him, and ask him what's going on, but Iron Hammer gets defensive. Things get worse when U.S.Archmage gets involved as well. Just as the villains anticipated.
- In the third part, Ghost Panther gets transported to 2099, where the heroes of that era are fighting a Martian invasion, and one of their own just vanished. They assume the guy with the flaming skull has done something to their comrade and attack, until the Ghost Panther of 2099 intervenes and tells them to knock it off.
- In Marvel Comics Presents #53, Silver Sable and Black Widow clash over custody of a French criminal named Yves Chevrier. Black Widow has been hired by several agencies to capture Chevier for gun-running, fraud, drug dealing and grand larceny. Silver Sable is after Chevrier for aiding a Nazi criminal named Heinrich Edelhardt who later killed Silver's agents when they tried to apprehend him. Their fight is rather brief and they immediately turn their attention back to Chevrier when he tries to escape.
- Ms. Marvel (1977):
- In an early issue, Ms. Marvel gets a premonition that something is going to happen to a Stark Industries convoy, and tries warning the Vision, who's acting as security for it. He doesn't believe her, because he can't see anything wrong, and notes that Ms. Marvel's behaviour (showing up and obstructing their path) makes her look pretty damn suspicious. So they fight. A short while later, Ms. Marvel even admits to herself that she's Not Helping Her Case.
- In issue 16, Carol needs help with the villain Tiger Shark, so she goes to Avengers Mansion for help. Unfortunately, Beast is on guard duty and the Avengers have had a few issues with break-ins lately, so he tries fighting her.
- In Annihilators: Earthfall, the titular team comes to Earth to stop a local sect of the Universal Church of Truth from unleashing a terrible evil upon the cosmos. But from the Avengers' perspective, it looks like the Annihilators are destroying a city and attacking innocent people for no reason. The existing bad blood between the Avengers and Ronan the Accuser (who is a member of the Annihilators) doesn't help matters, and a fight quickly breaks out despite Quasar trying to talk everyone down.
- Iron Fist (1975) has this happen three times. Quite impressive for a series that only ran for fifteen issues.
- Issue #2 has Danny and Misty Knight sneaking into a Stark Industries building to meet a contact of Misty's (and you can probably guess where this is going). They find the contact looking kind of dead, while Tony Stark — who just happens to be sleeping in the building that night — sees two intruders standing over a supposedly dead security guard. Brawling ensues. It turns out the security guard was a mole for the Big Bad, who was hoping to engineer a situation where either party killed the other, but Misty stops them.
- In issue #10, Danny has to break in to Avengers Mansion thanks to the Wrecking Crew holding Misty hostage. He's spotted by Jarvis, who panics and runs, and trips on a stairway. Cap sees the security footage of wanted felon Iron Fist (long story, he was framed) chasing Jarvis, and then comes upon him standing over an unconscious Jarvis (Danny saved him from falling and was just checking Edwing was alright). Cap isn't exactly in a mood to listen to Danny's pleas, until the fight nearly ends with Iron Fist being crushed by falling debris. Then Cap hears him out.
- And finally, issue #15. A weakened Danny enters Misty's apartment at the same time someone else has broken in. Namely, Wolverine, who's there to steal a photo of her roommate, one Jean Grey (no noble intent. He's just being creepy). Wolverine assumes Danny is after "his" woman and immediately leaps to murder. Danny's efforts to defend himself draw the attention of the other X-Men, who even acknowledge that Wolverine almost certainly started the fight (and would've leapt to the attack even if it had just been Jean's parents showing up). Things escalate, with Nightcrawler being accidentally knocked out by a spooked Danny, and Storm getting enraged when a stray bowl of potato salad splats her in the face. Things only calm down when Jean shows up and recognizes Danny is her roomie's BF.
