10 Worst Fakeout Endings In Comics
4. Iron Maniac And The Titannus War
The third volume of Marvel Team-Up brought a couple of supposedly huge revelations with it.
Firstly, the crazed Doctor Doom who was running rampant and besting the Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and a slew of other Avengers... was shockingly shown to be Tony Stark!
This moment felt massive at the time, with the final panel of The Golden Child #3 showing Stark revealing himself to be the masked figure who had been causing chaos. That villainous spin on Tony was in itself a fakeout, with the very next issue detailing this was the Stark of another world.
If that wasn't a big enough fakeout, this Team-Up tale also had Tony - eventually being known as Iron Maniac - ominously explain to our heroes of the day that the Titannus War was on its way. The way that alt-Stark talked about all of this, combined with the caution and fear shown by Earth's Mightiest Heroes, suggested that the Titannus War was going to be the next huge, blood-spilling, carnage-creating crossover event for Marvel Comics.
Instead, when Titannus War did arrive, it was merely a three-issue story where the titular Titannus eventually committed suicide.