10 Disturbing Times Superheroes Lost It
9. Peter Parker Breaks Down, Makes Out With A Corpse - Spider-Man: Reign
Reign is a real curio of a comic book: an Old Man Spider-Man storyline set in the not-too distant future, with almost no original ideas.
The basic concept is a carbon copy of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, with an elderly Peter Parker coming out of retirement to fight a new breed of criminal. The villains are just a Marvel-ised version of the Suicide Squad: the Sinister Six but with bombs implanted in their necks. Spider-Man gives up the superhero life after his wife Mary Jane dies of radiation poisoning from exposure to his spider-semen - actually, in fairness, we suppose that is one completely original idea.
The scene in which this is revealed to us is one of the strangest sequences in Spider-Man history, which is saying something. After Doctor Octopus (who at this point is just a corpse attached to four sentient robot limbs) exumes the long dead Mary Jane and tips her body out of her coffin, Peter has a complete breakdown. He mourns her loss aloud, shouting for all to hear that it's his fault she died. He then pulls her rotting body close for one last hot-and-heavy make-out sesh.
It's as weird as it sounds and although it's slightly implied that Peter imagined the whole thing, it's a truly disgusting image that readers couldn't unimagine if they tried.