Marvel Movie Moments That Outraged Fans

Marvel movie fans have been a pretty patient bunch. They've suffered through way too many Fantastic Four debacles, punishing prequels, a universe divided between multiple studios, and even the fact that the first Marvel hero to really make it to the big screen was none other than Howard the Duck. Even the most patient nerds can't suspend their disbelief forever, and MCU canon or not, we still bear the unforgettable scars from some terrible Marvel movie missteps. Continue reading to open up those wounds again.

Spider-Man 3's adaptation of the famous "Alien Costume" saga that gave rise to Venom seemed like it was designed to make fans angry. Rather than standing on its own, it was lumped in as part of a bloated, confusing mess that also included a sad-sack version of the Sandman, a sudden face turn by the second Green Goblin, and a love triangle that tossed Gwen Stacy into the mix and made Mary Jane Watson seem like a petulant, grating nag. That said, there's only one thing that comes to mind when you think of Spider-Man 3's excesses: the dance number.

In the context of the film, it actually makes perfect sense: Thanks to the alien symbiote's influence, Peter Parker has given in to his darkest impulses and become an arrogant jerk, and since Peter himself is a huge nerd, that manifests as a huge nerd's idea of what a "cool guy" is like. He struts through the streets of Manhattan, pointing finger-guns at hot ladies who react in what could charitably be called disgust, and punctuates his sneering with sassy emo hair flips.

The whole point of the sequence is that we're actually supposed to think that Peter's an off-putting, unlikeable dweeb, but there's a problem with that: it worked too well. Audiences found the entire thing to be ridiculous in a way that went way past the intended comedy and wound up being genuinely annoying. To be fair to Sam Raimi, though, nobody could've seen this coming. Who would've thought that anyone coming to see a movie called Spider-Man 3 would want to actually see a version of Spider-Man they could like?

Whether it's the comics or the films, the Marvel version of Asgard exists as this strange intersection of advanced technology and godly magic, where actual Frost Giants and enchanted hammers can exist alongside elves with spaceships and towering laser cannons. The best part of that is that it lets those stories get away with a whole lot without the audience having to question how it all happens. The worst part, though, is that sometimes they try to get away with a little too much and we end up having to ask those questions anyway.

Example: the climax of the first Thor movie, where the God of Thunder is nearly beaten to death by the armored, laser-faced Asgardian dreadnaught known as the Destroyer. This is apparently enough of a sacrifice to fulfill Odin's requirement of worthiness, so the Allfather decides to go ahead and give Thor his hammer back ... which instantly puts him back to full HP, fills up his Limit Break gauge, and throws in a costume change for good measure.

Listen, we're willing to accept that getting his godly power back fixes up his relatively fragile human form, but throwing in a shave and a haircut without skipping a beat is the kind of one-step-too-far plot contrivance that starts to unravel the whole thing. Of course, in the canon of the comics, Mjolnir was able to transform disabled doctor Don Blake into a lightning-throwing athlete wizard, but in the movie, he's already in the body of the hunkiest Hemsworth. It probably would've been more satisfying to see Thor taking on the bad guys in jeans and a T-shirt, if only because all this is just a little too convenient.

The first Fantastic Four movie sucked, but they still made a sequel because if you have a dozen eggs that are about to go bad, you might as well use 'em to make an omelet no one wants. This time around, Fan2stic promised the arrival of the Silver Surfer, and with him came something that should've been huge. See, the Surfer isn't just a fan-favorite character in his own right — he's also the Herald of Galactus. The Surfer's appearance on a planet is quickly followed by the arrival of the unfathomable, unstoppable Devourer of Worlds.

In the comics, the original Galactus story from 1966 was a groundbreaking game-changer, ramping up the scope of the Marvel Universe and providing the blueprint for major events that's still in use today. It's a masterpiece from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and established the Fantastic Four as the kind of team that can deal with the threats that other heroes can barely even imagine. In the movie, though, it might be the dumbest and most laughable thing to ever appear in a superhero movie — and yes, we're including the playground fight from Daredevil in that statement.

Rather than going with the classic depiction of Galactus as a gigantic humanoid decked out in cosmic armor, director Tim Story decided to lose the comic booky silliness of that design. Instead, the Devourer was ... a big hungry cloud. That's not exactly an upgrade, even with the fleeting moments where it vaguely resembles the iconic bad guy, but if you know your comics, it actually gets worse. See, in Marvel canon, Galactus isn't actually a humanoid — he's so far beyond our understanding that every species just interprets him as an incomprehensibly big version of themselves. So what does it say about us here in the real world that we had to see Galactus as a gigantic space fart?

Most comic book movie moments that enraged the fans sparked their controversies by deviating from the comics. For Captain America: The First Avenger, though, it's because they did exactly what happens on the page. We already knew going in that Cap had to wind up being frozen in suspended animation for a few decades so he could show up to lead the Avengers without having to dump a ton of old-man makeup onto Chris Evans to make him the world's sexiest octogenarian. It's the way that it happens.

For the film, it's not enough for Cap to sacrifice his life to save America from being bombed by Hydra. He also has to suffer a very personal loss that turns the whole scene into a weapons-grade tearjerker. His promise to meet Peggy Carter for a dance, made while they both know that he's flying to his death, is heart-wrenching, and — hey, wait a second. They had autopilot in 1945, right? And even if they didn't, couldn't he just use his belt to tie down the control stick? Or maybe use his super-strength to smash up the instruments and crash the plane that way? Or any of a dozen other ways that would've given him time to bail out?

Even if you weren't wondering that during the scene in question, Cap's final line of the film — "I had a date." — is so brutally emotional that we're angry that he didn't figure out a better way to save the world. Sure, it was necessary, and we appreciate Steve's heroic sacrifice, but Peggy waited so long and ... and ... and we just don't know what to do with these emotions!

Everyone knows that death in a comic book or fantasy or sci-fi franchise is not necessarily final. There always seems to be some technology or magic or time-travel thingie that can bring a beloved character back from the grave, so there's really no point in grieving until we've watched the cremation or ... something. Pepper Potts, for example, fell to her death at the end of Iron Man 3, but actually wasn't really dead, probably because of some magical jade egg thing from Goop or something (actually it was the Extremis serum, but that's almost as dumb as a jade egg from Goop). And then Loki died but didn't die and Agent Coulson died but didn't die, but none of those "deaths" were quite as lame as the "death" of Nick Fury, who faked his own death because reasons.

According to the Huffington Post, Fury's fake death in Captain America: The Winter Soldier was supposed to root out disloyalties within SHIELD and therefore preserve the organization, which frankly seems more like something an evil villain would do than something a brilliant and charismatic leader would have to do, but whatever. Fury achieved the deception with the help of Tetrodotoxin B, a substance Bruce Banner developed to help him control the Hulk. Fury took the drug and his heart slowed down and everyone went "oh no he's dead," and moviegoers went "lame," and that's just about the whole dumb story.

Speaking of dumb scenes that involve everyone's favorite Asgardian, there was that one totally nonsensical scene in Age of Ultron in which Thor goes into a cave and gets all sexy and shirtless and then emerges with Knowledge. Basically, he attends the University of Cave Pools and comes out with a master's degree in awesomeness.

So what is the deal with this weird scene? On an episode of The Empire Film podcast, Director Joss Whedon said there was more to it before the scene got edited down to its final confusing form. According to Polygon, an early cut of Avengers: Age of Ultron was 3 hours and 15 minutes long, which by the way is also the length of Titanic, and everyone knows how too-long that movie was. Before the final cuts were made, Thor's weird little cave pond storyline also included some stuff with the Norns, female entities from Norse mythology. In the original cut, the Norns possessed Thor and Thor said some stuff to Erik Selvig, and then test audiences were all, "What the heck is all this weird Norse mythology stuff that doesn't belong in an Avengers movie," and then the editors dutifully cut all that out, thus leaving us all with a super-confusing version of the weird little cave pond storyline. So there you go, mystery solved. Sort of.

No one can deny that it would be sucky to be frozen in the Arctic for decades only to be unfrozen and discover that everyone you ever cared about is either dead or way, way older than you are. So can anyone really blame Captain America for putting the moves on Sharon Carter just days after the death of former flame Peggy Carter? Because Peggy was, like, old.

As it turns out, yes, there were people who could really blame Captain America for his gross act of questionable yuck. According to the Hollywood Reporter, there were a lot of outraged fans who were not cool with the onscreen kiss between Sharon and Steve Rogers. The actor who played Peggy was not really cool with it either — she told IGN that Peggy would not just "be turning over in her grave," she would also "inject herself with the blue serum and become a super villain. She'd break out of her coffin and ground [Sharon]. ... Then she'd kick Steve's ass as well." So no super-strong feelings or anything.

Fans echoed the sentiment with a whole social media movement #GiveCapABoyfriend because at least that would be romance that made sense. Alas, it probably won't happen.

Comic book fans were thrilled to learn that Marvel cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, but they weren't especially thrilled to learn that Marvel had also decided to take some gender and ethnicity liberties with one of the comics' most iconic actors. In the comics, the Ancient One is a Tibetan male, but in the movie she's a white female, albeit a strange-looking bald one.

Anyone who did not know about Marvel's casting decision was a bit taken aback the moment the character first appeared on screen, and some fans even expressed outrage at what they perceived to be whitewashing. But Marvel actually had a perfectly rational reason for not sticking with the original. According to Geeks, the film's co-writer, C. Robert Cargill called the character a "racist stereotype." Okay, but that could be fixed in other ways than just making the character white. He also explained that his Tibetan origins would have almost certainly upset the Chinese government, which still doesn't acknowledge the independence of the much-smaller nation. That might have led to a boycott from "one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world," and you can't have that. So the Ancient One was reinvented as a Celtic female because Celt power and also girl power. It doesn't really explain the whole bald thing but you can't have it all.