10 Stupid Attempts At Rebranding Famous Comic Characters

7. Speedball Becomes Penance

Robbie Baldwin aka Speedball's powers involve kinetic energy which take the form of bubbles. Baldwin is basically the SpongeBob of Marvel Comics €“ he went on to appear in The New Warriors and his own short-lived series. For some reason, writers grew to hate the kid and put him through humiliations such as being tortured and being called a "washed up second stringer" by a fellow hero. All of the New Warriors faded into obscurity until the crossover "Civil War", where Marvel editors did the team a solid by having them kick off the series by accidentally causing an explosion that destroyed an entire town. The lone survivor, Baldwin believed it was his fault, leading him to become Penance. Why the new name? His new outfit was lined with spikes that cut him as 'penance' for his actions. Conveniently, his powers became pain-fuelled. Needless to say, this was an extreme change. While Speedball should take death hard as a superhero, turning him into a 'cutter' is a bit much. Robbie was never portrayed as 'angsty.' Marvel being Marvel, I presume the goal was to give him the classic 'fatal flaw' common to the company. This might be too fatal in this case; the spiked outfit looks like he could kill someone with a mild hug. His macabre nature was exacerbated by self-destructive behavior: he habitually beat his head into walls after every failure. Which begs the question of how all this self-harm didn't actually kill him, but whatever.