History ComicBook / Ruins

''Ruins'' is a 1995 limited series from Creator/MarvelComics, a two-issue story set in an AlternateUniverse but inspired by ''ComicBook/{{Marvels}}''. Whereas ''Marvels'' shows the history of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse through reporter Phil Sheldon's eyes, ''Ruins'' shows a world where everything went horribly wrong. It's written by Creator/WarrenEllis with art by Cliff Nielsen and Terese Nielsen.

* RequiredSecondaryPowers: An entire ''world'' where everyone is lacking the secondary powers to keep their powers from killing themselves and everyone else around them. This story is the logical extreme of every character having only their primary powers and nothing else to make those viable or safe.

* PowerIncontinence: The vast majority of mutants seem to lack any sort of control over their powers, with disastrous consequnces. Comicbook/{{Cyclops}} and Comicbook/{{Quicksilver}} had to be crippled to bring them under control, Magneto is killed in an airport when the dampening device he's wearing is damaged, causing him to be crushed by tons of metal, and Comicbook/{{Mystique}} [[ShapeShifterIdentityCrisis uncontrollably shapeshifts]] and has to be hauled away by police as her brain implodes.

* GodIsDead: Deep-space photos have discovered the corpse of Comicbook/{{Galactus}} in orbit around Jupiter, having presumably starved to death.

* MythologyGag:
** The Kree, including ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}}, have contracted cancer. Mar-Vell ended up succumbing to cancer in the regular continuity.
** Comicbook/BlackPanther was arrested alongside Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale after becoming involved with the Black Panther Party. This is presumably a reference to the period in the 70s where Marvel changed the character's codename to "Black Leopard" to avoid any association with the revolutionary group.

** Ben Grimm implies in his interview that him refusing to pilot Reed's spaceship and therefore resulting in the Fantastic Four not existing is what led to this world's [[CrapsackWorld crappy]] state. However, Nick Fury states Captain America introduced him to cannibalism, which would mean this world's wrongness went back even further.

* AGodAmI: Donald Blake leads a cult while claiming to channel the thunder god [[Comicbook/TheMightyThor Thor]]. [[ContinuitySnarl Strangely]], Thor is shown to exist in this universe as a member of the Avengers, as indicated by a soldier finding Mjolnir among the wreckage of the Quinjet.

* TransformationHorror: Mystique's ShapeshifterSwanSong features her flesh warping out of shape, discoloring in a frankly disgusting fashion as a human mouth on a stalk begins wrenching herself out of her left eye - and all the while, Mystique is screaming in horror. We don't see the end result, but her empty seat is covered in blood, and Sheldon is informed that if she'd remembered to take her medication, her brain wouldn't have imploded.

* PresidentEvil: Charles Francis Xavier is President of the United States, but he isn't a very decent person and has even imprisoned several mutants and mutilated them in order to keep their powers in check.
* PowerIncontinence: The vast majority of mutants seem to lack any sort of control over their powers, with disastrous consequnces. Comicbook/{{Cyclops}} and Comicbook/{{Quicksilver}} had to be crippled to bring them under control, Magneto is killed in an airport when the dampening device he's wearing is damaged, causing him to be crushed by tons of metal, and Comicbook/{{Mystique}} [[ShapeShifterSwanSong uncontrollably shapeshifts]] and has to be hauled away by police as her brain implodes.

* TrollingCreator: Warren Ellis insists that ''Ruins'' is a comedy. It's probably useful to note that Ellis was 27 when ''Ruins'' was released, during a period of time in his career where he took a significant amount of joy in tweaking online superhero fans' noses.

** Instead of spider powers, the radioactive spider bite gives [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] a mutant virus that eventually covers his body with a nasty and red web-shaped rash; for good measure, in the flashforward to his final moments, the floor around his is covered in blood and he's apparently naked except for a blanket, suggesting that his skin is too irritated for clothing.

* ForWantOfANail: The entire story revolves around Phil Sheldon's investigation into this trope, as he feels something has gone terribly wrong in this world and wants to know what caused it. It's heavily implied that Ben Grimm's refusal to pilot Reed Richards' spaceship to study cosmic rays, the event that would've created the ComicBook/FantasticFour (and thus the Marvel Universe as we know it), was the catalyst. This is contradicted by other details in the same story, however.
-->'''Ben''': I can't help but think it woulda been different if I'd flown her. Can't help it.

A 1995 two-issue miniseries "parody" of ''ComicBook/{{Marvels}}'' written by Creator/WarrenEllis that shows a version of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

As in ''Marvels'', the central character of this story is Daily Bugle reporter Philip Sheldon, who can't shake the feeling that everything in the world is wrong and tries to gather as many interviews and information as he can so he can publish a book before he dies.

!!This comic contains examples of:

A 1995 two-issue miniseries parody of ''ComicBook/{{Marvels}}'' written by Creator/WarrenEllis that shows a version of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

A two-issue miniseries parody of ''ComicBook/{{Marvels}}'' written by Creator/WarrenEllis that shows a version of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

* WardensAreEvil: [[Comicbook/TheKingpin Wilson Fisk]] is the warden of the special superhuman prison, and regularly taunts and abuses the captive mutants.

** Instead of becoming a large muscular behemoth whenever he's enraged, exposure to gamma radiation causes this reality's version of [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk Bruce Banner]] to become a barely living mass of tumors.

** Instead of spider powers, the radioactive spider bite gives [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] a mutant virus that eventually covers his body with a nasty and red web-shaped rash; for good measure, in the flashforward to his final moments, the floor around his is covered in blood and he's apparently naked except for a blanket, suggesting that his skin is too livid for clothing.

** Instead of spider powers, the radioactive spider bite gives [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] a mutant virus that eventually covers his body with a nasty and red web-shaped rash.

* PowerIncontinence: The vast majority of mutants seem to lack any sort of control over their powers, with disastrous consequnces. Comicbook/{{Cyclops}} and Comicbook/{{Quicksilver}} had to be crippled to bring them under control, Magneto is killed in an airport when the dampening device he's wearing is damaged, causing him to be crushed by tons of metal, and Comicbook/{{Mystique}} [[ShapeShifterSwanSong uncontrollably shapeshifts]] and has to be hauled away by police.

* ForWantOfANail: The entire story revolves around Phil Sheldon's investigation into this trope, as he feels something has gone terribly wrong in this world and wants to know what caused it. It's heavily implied that Ben Grimm's refusal to pilot Reed Richards' spaceship to study cosmic rays, the event that would've created the ComicBook/FantasticFour (and thus the Marvel Universe as we know it), was the catalyst.

** The Kree, including ComicBook/CaptainMarVell, have contracted cancer. Mar-Vell ended up succumbing to cancer in the regular continuity.

* TheUnreveal: The reason why the world has gone wrong is not entirely revealed. However, Sheldon's interview with Ben Grimm implies that his refusal to take part in the space trip that would create the Fantastic Four was the cause. However, this is somewhat contradicted by Fury noting he was introduced to cannibalism by Captain America in World War II, meaning the darkness began long before Grimm’s choice was made.

* EyeScream: Scott Summers eyes have been burned out to remove his uncontrollable powers.

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: The Kree's attempt to invade Earth fails due to [[spoiler: the corpse of the Silver Surfer screwing up their sensors with it's leaking energy]], allowing Earth's combined militaries to unload their nuclear arsenal on their fleet, wiping out almost the entire population and reducing the few survivors to prisoners of war dying of cancer in internment camps.

* RealityEnsues: A lot of the comic is about what happens to people in real life when they're exposed to radiation, such as Bruce Banner becoming a mass of tumors from exposure to gamma radiation and Rick Jones having cancer from being so close to Banner during the incident.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: It's hinted that Nick Fury knows that this world was supposed to be so much better than what they got, but has been driven so far off the slippery slope that all that's left is an insane rambler who eventually decides to just end his own life.

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: The Kree's attempt to invade Earth fails due to [[spoiler: the corpse of the Silver Surfer screwing up their sensors with it's leaking energy]], allowing Earth's combined militaries to unload their nuclear arsenal on their fleet, wiping out almost the entire population and reducing the few survivors to slowly rot away from cancer in an internment camp.

* TheUnreveal: The reason why the world has gone wrong is not entirely revealed. However, Sheldon's interview with Ben Grimm implies that his refusal to take part in the space trip that would create the Fantastic Four was the cause.
** However, this is somewhat contradicted by Fury noting he was introduced to cannibalism by Captain America in World War II, meaning the darkness began long before Grimm’s choice was made.
* WardensAreEvil: [[Comicbook/TheKingpin Wilson Fisk]] is the warden of the special superhuman prison, and regularly taunts and abuses the captive mutants.

* {{Autocannibalism}}: In the second issue, Nightcrawler is seen chewing on his own tail.

** Wolverine appears, albeit addressed as "Canuck", with the toxicity of his adamantium skeleton causing his flesh to slowly decay off his bones.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Sheldon pleads God to let him live long enough to finish his book, but he ends up dying as his photos and notes fly away in the wind.

** However, this is somewhat contradicted by Fury noting he was introduced to cannibalism by Captain America in World War II, meaning the darkness began long before Grimm’s choice was made.