10 Dumbest Changes Made To Iconic Comic Characters

We are lucky to live in an age where comic books are now a more respected medium, offering opportunities to tell complex stories with nuanced characters. The downside of this though (apart from the lack of "biff" and "zapp" sound effects) is that sometimes publishers and writers will feel the need to overcompensate to prove that their comics are serious grown-up books for adults.

That brings us to the superhero Speedball. Robert Baldwin was a happy go-lucky member of the New Warriors with the power to generate force fields and was part of the team that kicked off the events of 'Civil War'. The comic started with Robbie and his friends apparently forgetting that they had been fighting crime since the 90's as they idiotically tried to rush Nitro, a living bomb. To the surprise of no-one, the exploding man did an explosion, seemingly killing the New Warriors and a bus full of school children.

Robbie survived thanks to his force field, but the experience changed him. His powers would now only work when he was in pain and so he changed his name to Penance and started wearing a suit full of spikes.

Yes, Marvel's big idea to make a character more edgy was to literally have him be covered in spikes. It's a cringe-inducing attempt to be dark and the sort of thing most of us realised wasn't cool once we were over 15.