Oh Crap / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

• The Avengers: During George Perez and Kurt Busiek's run on The Avengers (Kurt Busiek), the heroes (which, at that moment, included Cap, Justice, Firestar, Hawkeye and newcomer Triathlon) were fighting a group of terrorists in an airport... A fight that was getting really, really tough for the heroes. Until, from offscreen... "I SAY THEE NAY!!!". Cue the bad guys crapping their pants so hard they switch their plan from "let's beat up the heroes!" to "let's blow up the building so that they'd be too busy protecting the civilians to catch us!".
• In Blaze of Glory, Corrupt Corporate Executive Clay Riley decides to lead his hired mercenaries into battle himself when he hears his old arch-enemy the Ghost Rider has returned. His resolve doesn't last, and the narration all but says he's wetting his pants when the haunted horseman faces him during the fight. This is his face when it happens.◊
• In Cable & Deadpool, Cable sets up a utopia called Providence and tries to change the world, though, as Professor X points out, he has no right to. Cable's efforts are meant to be sympathetic, and the rest of the world, especially America, is corrupt and wrong. A group of people involving SHIELD, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men try to warn Cable that his heavy-handed antics will not be tolerated and have to be toned down (though not completely abandoned; after all, he is trying to help people). Cable wipes the floor with them, declaring that he is much too powerful for all of them. And then they call in the Silver Surfer. Cable stoically comments that he did not see that coming, but he clearly didn't consider that someone even more powerful than him may be called to smack him down. Cable puts up a tough fight, even breaking the Surfer's board, but the Surfer beats him down, warning him that "hunger consumes worlds", comparing Cable to his former master Galactus.
• Captain America is having an underwater battle with one of his villains Zaran, when he notices a herd of sharks coming for them, attracted by the blood spilled during the fight. Cap points out this to Zaran, whose reaction is textbook worthy◊
• In Avengers: The Children's Crusade, Wiccan has this reaction when he goes up against Doctor Doom, because he knows that he's utterly outclassed and that Doom is most likely going to kill him. This happens in tandem with him having fanboy moment over the fact that he's actually fighting Doctor Doom.
• One Daredevil arc had a new gang making a lot of trouble, leading to Daredevil busting in the door to the warehouse they are using as a headquarters. The head bad guy laughs as he points out that he has over a hundred men armed with guns and swords in the room. He then notices that Daredevil has brought along Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Spider-Man.
• In The Dark Phoenix Saga, the Dark Phoenix's awakening causes many of Marvel's heroes to collectively panic — Reed Richards notices all of his cosmic devices going off and realizes that it's the same kind of power as Galactus, it sets off Spider-Man's Spider Sense, catches Dr. Strange by surprise and causes him to worry over what kind of being could have such power and force the Silver Surfer to try to catch her, which he sadly fails to do.
• In Vol. 4, issue #12, Deadpool is driving a monster truck down a highway (don't ask). When his foe, Bullseye (dressed as Hawkeye) launches a missile from a stinger straight at him. Deadpool gives an "oh shit" moment, before turning it into a Crowning Moment of Awesome, when he simply rolls down both windows, brakes hard, slides to the left, and lets the missile pass through the cabin, and out the other side! Then he drives back, crushes Bullseye's leg under one tire, and then pulls out a chainsaw. Chainsaw! FOR THE WIN!!!
  • Even Bullseye gets a minor one, though one would imagine that it's covered up by him muttering "OK, yeah, I admit... That was pretty awesome." Deadpool did counter this when, after stopping on Bullseye's leg, he gets out and asks "cool to park here?" before firing up his chainsaw. That was the point where Bullseye had a REALLY "oh crap" moment, and started thinking fast. Very fast.
    • Probably not as big as the one he suffered when he had Deadpool with a chainsaw, laughing like a maniac no less, about to take his leg off...◊
• In Go Down Swinging, Spidey's horrified reaction upon seeing Norman Osborn with the Carnage symbiote? A Heroic BSoD followed by a poignant "%#$& me."
• The inhabitants of Knowhere have this reaction in Marvel 100th Anniversary Special, when Silver Galactus ^note Galactus merged with the Silver Surfer and with a greater hunger than before appears to eat them.
• When Gwenpool learns that she hasn't been hired to take out a vampire, but a dhampir, given she has extensive comics knowledge, panic ensues.
  Oh no no no. A dhampir is a half-vampire. And here there's only one of them. And you want me to stop him? To stop Blade?!
• The Incredible Hulk: Is the Hulk coming your way? Is he angry? Then it's too late to run. Let's just save some time and say damn near everyone who's ever made [[Bruce Banner]] angry. has had this reaction.
• Iron Man has a few in the original Armor Wars storyline alone:
  • The discovery of Tony's Iron Man technology in Force's battlesuit that sets off the whole affair.
  • When Tony realizes that Stingray's battlesuit doesn't contain Iron Man tech.
  • When Tony runs out of weapons in his Stealth armor against the Titanium Man.
    Iron Man: "No weapons? No negator packs? I'm in trouble..."
    • Averted with Dmitri Bhukarin in that issue, as he was (reluctantly) willing to die for his country as the Crimson Dynamo (he doesn't), but played straight with the Gremlin when his Titanium Man armor ignites (providing horrific imagery for Tony, and some readers as well).
  • When Tony gets savagely beaten by Firepower, right before his armor gets nuked.
  • Conversely, Firepower pilot Jack Taggert, when the "new" Iron Man hands him his butt, particularly when Iron Man has to disable the nuclear missile trapped in Firepower's backpack.
    Taggert: [after Iron Man stops the Terminax and rips the Firepower armor apart] I thought you said you couldn't get me out!
    Iron Man: I lied.
  • Well after the Armor Wars, there was the look on Tony's face when ex-girlfriend Kathy Dare pulled a gun on him.
• Sabertooth invokes this trope in Marvel Adventures: The Avengers by attacking the entire Avengers team.
  Sabertooth: Aw, crud.
  The Avengers: Zzapp! Smash! Thwip! Krak! Smash! HULK LIKE TEAMWORK!
• The discovery in New Avengers that Elektra is a Skrull and that Wolverine, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange weren't able to tell, leading to the possibility that anyone could be a Skrull and kicking off the entire Secret Invasion saga.
• The Punisher:
  • Frank Castle gets this quite often from the criminals he hunts down. One notable instance was in "The Slavers" arc of the MAX series, where Castle walks up behind a group of goons attempting to rape a woman in an alley. One of the thugs is so completely horrified that he drops to his knees and starts praying for forgiveness.
  • The Punisher is also one of a very small number of people to have made The Joker practically brown his pants on-panel.
• In the original Runaways series, the kids encounter Old Lace, a deinonychus, in Gert's basement. Chase is convinced she's just a hologram, and to demonstrate, swings a broom at her, convinced it'll go through. It... doesn't. The next panel shows an Oh, Crap! expression from Chase.
• During her term as a Magistratus She-Hulk defeated the villain Trycko Slatterus and made it impossible for him to use his gem of infinite power again. So he gave it to her arch-enemy Titania, making her capable of lifting small mountains over her head. This turned out to be a bad idea:
  Titania: [while holding a small mountain over her head] So, even though I've got the gem now, if you really wanted to you could take it back?
  Trycko:: Yes. Why do you ask? Oh no.(Gets crushed under a small mountain)
• In the Marvel event Siege, Taskmaster warns Norman Osborn to turn around, which he does to find Captain America's shield about to hit him in the face. Though his face is hidden behind his armor, you can imagine his expression when the comic dedicates four entire panels just to show the shield edging closer and closer to his face.
• Spider-Man:
  • You're fighting Spider-Man. You've just realized he hasn't made a joke or a quip. It's time to panic.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #230 features an epic battle between Spidey and the Juggernaut. Webs does everything he can to stop Juggs, and finally steers a gasoline truck straight at the unstoppable one. An ENORMOUS boom results. Spidey has his Oh Crap moment as a figure slowly appears in the flames and Juggernaut continues advancing, completely unharmed...
• In Spider-Man Family Vol. 2 #9, Some thugs discover that they're not just fighting Spider-Man and Jean Grey, but that Spidey and Jean are looking after "the guy who turns into the Hulk".
  Male Robber: So where is this guy... [realization] Oh crap. You? You do the — the— Hulk thing?
  Bruce: I do the Hulk thing.
  Female Robber: We'd like to go very quietly into custody, please.
  • Kingpin had one of these moments in Back in Black. To elaborate, Kigpin always believed that he was at the same strength-level as Spiderman. At least until he made the huge mistake of hurting Aunt May, which provoked that Spider-Man invaded the prison where Fisk lived as a king, effortlessly and brutally kick the ever-living shit out of the Fat-Man, making it crystal clear to everyone watching the fight that the Kingpin never had a chance at all of winning against Spider-Man.
    • A subtle, background example occurs for everyone else in that issue as well; during the fight, the other prisoners are watching from the sidelines, taunting and sneering at Spidey and cheering on the Kingpin... until it becomes abundantly clear just how out of his depth the Kingpin is, at which point everyone goes quiet. And from the horrified looks on their faces as they keep watching the fight, it's clearly dawning that if Kingpin is utterly screwed in a one-on-one fight against Spider-Man, then every time they've gone up against him he could have easily torn them apart had he not been holding back out of mercy. Needless to say, when Spidey notes that his warning to the Kingpin to never target anyone he cares about again is equally applied to everyone else present, absolutely no one is in a mood to argue.
  • The Avengers get one during the Alpha storyline, when Spidey reluctantly calls in the titular teen hero to help fight Terminus... then gawk in shock as the kid makes Terminus panic.
  • Doctor Octopus has one when he was possessing Peter's body and punched Scorpion's jaw off his body with a single punch. Poor Doc realized that Spiderman was very capable of killing him every time they fight.
• A Star Wars Legends example occurs after Darth Wyyrlok has concealed his murder of Darth Krayt for many issues, tricking everyone into believing he's just in stasis. Darth Nihl and Darth Talon go to the stasis chamber and find Krayt's empty armor levitating, with his body utterly vanished. Wyyrlok, a cold, calculating and infallible schemer for the entire series, goes completely twitchy-eyed, flat-out dumbstruck◊ when Darth Nihl reports this.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • In The Ultimates, Smug Snake Herr Kleiser seems to react this way every time he's caught flat-footed when something unexpected disrupts his plans. Which they do, spectacularly. Claiming to be the universal embodiment of order isn't always an advantage.
  • Ultimate X Men:
    • Magneto gets a really good one while he's taunting Colossus about how vulnerable his metal body is to his magnetic powers, Colossus is slowly breaking free, and though his taunts continue on, he still has this look in his eyes...
    • One of the Arab soldiers in Kuwait told his friend to take care, one of the Americans must still be alive. He does not answer. When he turns to check on his friend, Wolverine had just killed him.
    • Being the team's youngest member (until Rogue and Shadowcat joined), Iceman was somewhat prone to panicking early on, especially when he first saw the Sentinels and when he thought Cyclops had been shot dead.
  • Ultimate Fantastic Four: The Skrull leader gains his powers by copying the abilities of any other mutant/metahuman in the area. At the end of an alternate universe arc, he gloats to a powerless Ben Grimm that the last Earthling aside from himself just died and Ben is now the last man alive. Ben responds by slowly taking off his coat and cracking his knuckles. Then, the Skrull realizes how screwed he is.
  • Ultimate FF: When they first get into the alien dome, Tony throws up inside his helmet.
  • At the end of Age of Ultron, the skies over Ultimate Marvel New York go wonky and Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales goes to check it out... and finds the main universe Galactus looming overhead
  • Ultimate Vision: Vision finds that those humans are keeping a Gah Lak Tus unit in storage. She goes nuts.
• Venom: Three punks were riding a New York subway very late at night and spotted an unshaven, grungy looking man sleeping on one of the seats. After mocking him for being "unemployed, drunken, homeless toe-jam", they decide it would be fun to douse him in lighter fluid and throw a lit match on him. Eddie Brock wakes up screaming, and then his clothes start moving by themselves and snuff out the flames. Eddie looks at the three punks, an absolutely demented Slasher Smile on his face, and the three punks just about shit themselves as Eddie transforms into Venom.
• In an issue of What If? centering around Reed and Sue Richards' second child living, Henry Peter Gyrich finds out that Captain America really doesn't like it when you stab teenage girls while dressed like him.
  Gyrich: Oh god no...no no no...
  Captain America: Don't bother getting up.
• Wolverine: In "Get Mystique", Logan is stalking Mystique, who has armed herself with a truckload of weapons stolen from the US Army. She shoots him in the shoulder, and he drops, rolls to his left, and encounters an obstruction. Turning, he sees the words "Front Towards Enemy", and recognises the object as a Claymore Mine. "Awwwwwww Fu....."
• In World War Hulk, this is the default expression of pretty much anyone unfortunate enough to go up against the Hulk in full Worldbreaker mode. Doctor Strange, of all people, is driven to an "Oh, dear" that speaks volumes.
• X-Force (Milligan & Allred): In the first issue, the team tries to rescue boy band 'Boyz R Us' from the gunmen holding them hostage in a skyscraper. They make short work of the gunmen... and then X-Force's leader Zeitgeist sees the helicopter gunship hovering outside, ready to fire. His expression shows he knows what's coming, but he freezes and doesn't react before it slaughters the X-Force team and leaves him Half the Man He Used to Be.
• X-Men: When the Shi'ar were first introduced, a Shi'ar warship was pursuing the rebel Princess Lilandra when she fled to Earth. The ship's captain is informed about the recent activities of various other alien empires (such as the Kree and Skrulls) on Earth and is unconcerned, but then his subordinate tells him that the people of Earth have fought Galactus several times and won. The captain immediately issued a panicked order to retreat before the humans have a chance to notice them.