YMMV / "Heroes" Series

• Complete Monster:
  • "Heroes from two worlds" & "Heroes stand united": Morgoth Bauglir, the first Dark Lord of Arda, continues his monstrous reign of terror upon his release. Pretending to be loyal to Thanos's cause, Morgoth seeks the Infinity Stones for his own ends, spreading runes around the Earth to increase his power for the coming battles. Leading his forces against the heroes, Morgoth has his dragon kill dozens of Wakandan defenders before personally intervening, helping Thanos gain the Stones to wipe out half of the Multiverse. Convincing him to resurrect hundreds of former villains for when the heroes return, Morgoth later leaves Thanos to die in the final battle, grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet and coming within a finger snap of destroying the entire Multiverse out of spite towards Llúvatar.
  • "Heroes in Middle-earth" & "Heroes stand united": Saruman the White, despite surviving the events of the film trilogy, continues to reject any chance of redemption offered to him. After escaping Arda and wandering the cosmos, Saruman aligns with Thanos, also seeking the Stones for himself. Participating in the massacre of the Asgardian people, Saruman convinces Thanos to resurrect Morgoth, knowing full well the Dark Lord will destroy everything in sight when released and throwing Middle-earth into chaos in the process. Helping Morgoth regain his strength, Saruman personally participates in the following battles, spitefully crushing Theoden's chest with his staff and intending to eventually take Middle-earth for himself.
  • "Heroes, Magicians, and Luthors": The Lex Luthor of Earth-50, unlike his two counterparts, is a raving madman who seeks to watch the world burn. Allying with his doppelgängers to brainwash Supermen into causing damage, Lex tricks his Superman into participating, intending to destroy cities across the Multiverse for maximum casualties. After the Supermen cause a horrendous amount of damage, Lex decides this isn't enough and releases a new and improved Doomsday, intending for him to rampage across the Earth and kill everyone he possibly can.
  • Dormammu, the Great Demon of the Dark Dimension, seeks to assimilate all of the Multiverse into his own dimension. Having attacked multiple Earths in the past, Dormammu also once attacked Arda, almost forcefully recruiting Radagast and decimating the East when he refused. Through his loyal servant Karl Mordo, Dormammu recruits the Batman Who Laughs and Carnage and has them cause as much destruction and death as they can, making his conquest of various worlds easier for him. Intending to finally destroy the dimension that has spited him so strongly, Dormammu tricks the heroes into letting him out, then plays a sadistic game of catch with SuperThor, throwing a ball of energy strong enough to destroy Earth at him to make him catch it. When he realizes he might be losing, he instead settles for destroying the entire Multiverse, then attacks New York with his minions to kill as many as he can.
  • "A Venomous Conspiracy" & "Rise of the Great Demon": Carnage is the "child" of the Venom symbiote who lacks his moral code. Originally bonded to Gwen Stacy, Carnage immediately massacred everyone in his path before being bonded to his true host, Cletus Kasady. Originally intending to just kill everyone they met, Carnage signs on to Dormammu's cause and begins a multiversal killing spree, draining people of their blood, organs, and skins. Massacring entire cities along the way, Carnage also seeks to consume his own children, knowing it will create enough energy to release his dark lord. Earning a personal kill count in the millions across his journey, Carnage remains perhaps the vilest foe the heroes ever faced.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Steve Rogers from MCU and a version of DCEU Diana Prince are one of the major couples in the series.
  • Faith Lehane from Buffyverse is paired with Marc Spector aka Moon Knight.
  • Logan from the X-Men films ends up in a relationship with Sarah Connor from the Terminator franchise.
  • Rebekah Mikaelson from the TVDverse falls for Loki, and he falls for her too as they become a couple.
  • Freya Mikaelson from the TVDverse falls in love with Erik Lensherr from the X-Men films on seeing their similarities, and he falls in love with her for the same reason. Soon enough, they become lovers.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In this fic, while Andrew's Spider-Man is still clearly hurting from the loss of Gwen, it's shown that he was able to at least put that aside to keep being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Spider-Man: No Way Home would later reveal that, instead, he was never able to fully forgive himself or move on from her, and as a result, he soon stopped pulling his punches as his grief consumed him.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In this fic, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man gets the chance to earn forgiveness from Earth-199999's Gwen Stacy for failing to save his Gwen, finally letting him move on from her. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, the same Spidey gets his own second chance when he saves MJ from falling to her death, letting him forgive himself for failing to save his Gwen.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • By pure chance, Natasha ends up on the raft with Frodo and Sam when they split up from the rest of the Fellowship, accompanying them on the rest of their adventure. By the end, she's thinking of both of them, as well as Merry and Pippin by extension, as the closest thing she'll ever have to children, a sentiment that carries their relationship throughout the entire story.
  • The friendship between all of the various Spider-Men, both older and younger, Peter Parker or otherwise. It's clear that although they don't know each other very well, all of them are already willing to stick their necks out for each other whenever they're needed, coming to aid Peter-199999 against Norman, Carnage, Dormammu, and many others purely because of their bond.
  • After Peter-2012 gets to help his fellow Spider-Men save Gwen Stacy and others from Norman Osborn's captivity, the Gwen Stacy of Earth-199999 comforts him, telling him that while he may have failed to save his version of her, she'll forever be grateful that he saved her, and she can be relatively certain that his Gwen would forgive him too. It finally allows the wound of her loss to begin healing, and he goes back to his Earth more ready for his responsibilities than ever.
  • As Willow collapses in Tara's arms, the Scooby Gang originally moves to intervene, only to be held back by Slade Wilson of all people; as he stands and watches the scene, he reflects on how the Mirakuru made him see distortions of Shado, and he can not only relate to her in that moment, but he can also be happy that someone else got the happy ending he was denied.
  • At the end of "Never alone", Toomes begs Peter for forgiveness for selling out his identity, swearing on everything that he had to be tortured into giving up his name. Peter realizes that he wouldn't have done so of his own accord and forgives him for it, bringing a smile to the crook's face before he's taken away.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Quill first meets Gandalf, he jokingly asks him if he is Merlin. Two stories later, Merlin actually shows up, and he does not look as old as he is usually depicted.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Doctor Doom of Earth-10005 is the most competent adversary the heroes ever face and the only one to succeed in his goals multiple times. Seeking the power to protect his universe no matter the cost, Doom uses his intelligent mind and magical abilities to keep the heroes on their toes, keeping his motives hidden and always having a backup plan to escape. Even in his alliance with Lex Luthor, Doom simultaneously engineers his own success and his partner's downfall, briefly gaining control of the Phoenix Force thanks to a plan he set in motion decades prior. Later on tricking Morgana into giving him her powers, Doom also singlehandedly destroys the Seed of Wonder, trapping the Senior Partners in their dimension. Even when he is trapped in a cell by the Grandmaster using the Cosmic Cube, he is the only one to escape his cell unaided, and the first one to get past the defensive shield that Grandmaster conjured with the Cosmic Cube, managing to brutally injure the Grandmaster. With genuine respect for his adversaries and destructive yet will-intentioned methods, Doom is the heroes' most dangerous foe and the only one they genuinely fear.
  • Moon Knight is simultaneously a billionaire philanthropist, a brilliant detective, and a brutal vigilante. Called in by Daredevil to investigate Gwen Stacy's disappearance, Moon Knight tracks down Rhino and tortures him for her location, even threatening Rhino's mother to make him sell out Norman Osborn. Using a business meeting to plant a bug on him and later defeating Silver Sable in one-on-one combat, Moon Knight then holds off Osborn long enough for the other heroes to defeat him. Later repeating his brutal techniques on Lindsey McDonald, Moon Knight gathers information on the entire Circle of the Black Thorn, proving instrumental to its downfall in the process. Despite his eccentric nature, Moon Knight is a dangerous man to cross, both intellectually and physically.
• Moment of Awesome: In "Heroes from Infinite Earths", Thor deliberately provokes himself to Warrior's Madness to engage Annihilus in a destructive battle to give the other heroes time to evacuate Earth-167.
• Narm Charm: A few of the scenes from "When heroes live their lives", but the scene with Warren in Hell takes the cake. It's blatant wish-fulfillment that features Warren Mears getting stabbed in the groin for no real reason while other characters comment on how useless and hatable he is, but on the other hand, it's Warren Mears getting stabbed in the dick and the scene doesn't try to pretend to be more than that, so it's good for a laugh if you don't look for more.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Carnage is easily the most disturbing enemy in the entire series. With nothing but his symbiote and nothing to lose, Carnage ends up killing millions of people across the Multiverse just because he feels like it, leaving entire ghost towns in his wake along the way. He also literally sucks his victims dry before eating them whole, something that Constantine almost becomes the victim of.
  • Galactus. The heroes faced down Morgoth, Thanos, and Dormammu with less terror than they feel with Galactus. The idea that a planet-eating entity is heading towards Earth is already terrifying enough, but what makes it worse is that they know it's not out of malice - it's simply in his nature to eat planets. At least when other villains were evil about it, it created the sense that they were permeable and could be stopped, but with Galactus simply being a force of nature, nothing short of pulling out absolutely all of the stops is enough to even make him flinch.
  • Doctor Doom is a terrifyingly intelligent antagonist. Unlike many of the other villains the heroes face, Doom keeps his goals to himself and acts with ruthless efficiency, multiple times coming close to destroying the entire universe before the heroes are able to defeat him - and unlike every other villain in the series, even when he's defeated, he still gets away, always managing to come back with an even deadlier plan before the heroes face him. Even worse? He hints that he's not doing anything out of spite or a desire for destruction - he's protecting his own universe from something even worse than him.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Think that the ending of Avengers: Infinity War was bad enough? This fic ups the casualties to those from other universes as well, causing infinitely more heartache along the way. Most notably, Natasha has to watch several of the Hobbits, whom she's come to consider the closest she'll ever have to children, fade away into nothingness in front of her eyes.
  • Helen Stacy is put through the absolute wringer in "A Venomous Conspiracy" thanks to Norman Osborn. First, her daughter Gwen disappears from her hospital bed and only her husband seems to remember her ever being there, only for George to then be hospitalized in a car accident and left unconscious. Several hours later, she herself is almost kidnapped by Rhino. It's little wonder that she spends most of the final chapters crying from stress and relief once Gwen comes back.
  • Following the destruction of the Seed of Wonder, Buffy can only watch helplessly as Dawn disappears right in front of her, ultimately left a traumatized shell barely able to leave her room in her grief.
  • Tara's resurrection should be an unambiguously happy moment, except that Willow is so traumatized that she originally believes it's simply a malevolent spirit taking her form to punish her. When it finally clicks that Tara is real and she breaks down in her arms, the Scoobies realize that in trying to avoid mentioning Tara to avoid another spiral, they instead left her to grieve alone and hurt their friend even more.
  • In chapter 17 of "When heroes live their lives", as the group talks about Andrew's betrayal, Xander angrily asks why he got to live while Anya had to die. The scene might be rather Narmy, but it quickly takes a turn for the serious as Willow and Dawn comfort him, with the narration noting that his pain might be healed but it's still there.
  • When Klaus is reunited with his family after being saved by Thor, a God he is familiar with due to having been part of Viking culture, he breaks down in tears, wondering if this is a sign he has been forgiven of his sins, with a voice like Camille's in his head telling him he is.

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