10 Powerful Marvel Comics Endings That Gave You Chills
3. The Villains Make The Ultimate Sacrifice - Axis
Tony Stark was once accused of 'not being the one to make the sacrifice play', but he was far more likely to bite the bullet for the sake of the world compared to the likes of Carnage, Sabretooth and Loki.
This is not the case in the Axis event, in which the Avengers, X-Men and a selection of the world’s deadliest villains have their morals inverted, turning hero to villain and vice-versa.
The Avengers decide to fight for themselves, while the X-Men turn straight to trying to blow up humanity. To stop this, an aged Steve Rogers puts together a new team of Spider-Man and Nova (who weren’t affected by the inversion) and the inverted villains to make the best line up of the Avengers ever.
The first gutpunch comes from Carnage, who was known as the most sadistic Marvel villain, who sacrifices his life to absorb the brunt of the Gene-Bomb to save people who he would have happily murdered only a few weeks ago.
However, the real tearjerker comes after the inversion is cured by magic shenanigans, as the inverted villains released footage claiming they had controlled all the heroes, protecting the legacies of the heroes at the expense of their own reputations. A noble sacrifice for a bunch of killers.