What are the best and worst moments for your favorite characters?

[QuinnFillory]

The characters in Marvel have stood the test of time for nearly 100 years. We grew up with them, and we have our favorites. However, each character has a great moment, followed by a not-so-great moment.

Ex: Spiderman beating the crap out of the Kingpin was great for him. However, he also had OMD.

[your_name_here]

Daredevil pushing his friends away and joining The Hand, with a plan to turn them around from the inside.
The whole “Shadowland” saga that followed wasn’t quite the good story I was hoping to see come from where Brubaker left things.

[Huntsman Spider]

Since Spider-Man has already been mentioned, I'll go with his clone, Ben Reilly, the Scarlet Spider and (for a time) Sensational Spider-Man.

Best: Beating Venom in his introduction as the Scarlet Spider and generally being more emotionally stable than Peter was at the time despite having lost his very identity and sense of self.

Worst: His villainous turn as the Jackal in The Clone Conspiracy and then the fallout from that in his following solo series. That said, if it had to be narrowed down to a moment instead of an era . . . I'd say deciding to kill Peter after Peter invoked Uncle Ben (the very man Ben named himself after) to call him out on what he was doing and then nearly wiping out the human race so he could "reanimate" everyone would count.

As long as we're on the subject of Spider-Man and clones, though, let's also say Peter Parker's immediate reaction to being told that he was the clone all along and not Ben was probably the worst moment for him if we don't count One More Day.

[XPac]

Worst Spider-Man moment for me was undoubtedly when he slapped MJ. Thank god that didn't come back to haunt him the way it did Hank Pym.

Best moment is tough. There are so many. Him standing up to the Juggernaut is a classic.

[Huntsman Spider]

Worst Spider-Man moment for me was undoubtedly when he slapped MJ. Thank god that didn't come back to haunt him the way it did Hank Pym.

Best moment is tough. There are so many. Him standing up to the Juggernaut is a classic.

Agreed. Best moment classically is him standing up to the Juggernaut, just to protect a friend. As for worst, to be purely technical about it, he was trying to kill Ben Reilly at the time out of the deranged belief that Ben was trying to steal his life, and when Mary Jane tried to reach out to him and get him to stop before he did something he'd regret for the rest of his life, he knocked her across the room, so it was even worse than Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, as he had super-strength and Pym didn't. In that regard, he could have easily turned MJ into red mist, and it was only by a miracle that she, along with their baby, was still alive and physically intact. Of course, since that was then followed by a despairing Peter joining with his alleged creator the Jackal to wipe out human life and replace it with clones . . . well, that was very much the lowest point in the comics and no wonder Marvel tried to strike the whole thing from the record for the longest time.

That said, Spider-Man had 30+ years (at the time) of enough goodwill and fan and creator favoritism behind him that everyone was willing to move past it for the sake of not tarnishing a great character/brand. Hank Pym? Not so much.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That said, Spider-Man had 30+ years (at the time) of enough goodwill and fan and creator favoritism behind him that everyone was willing to move past it for the sake of not tarnishing a great character/brand. Hank Pym? Not so much.

It's not comparable for a lot of reasons.

1) When Hank slapped Janet, he didn't apologize or walk back or anything. After he slapped her, he forced her to pick up, and then forced her to participate in his crazy scheme and didn't realize he had done something wrong until it went bust. Whereas Peter immediately apologized and reacted with horror and backed out and so on. So it's not equivalent.

2) Clone Saga is a terrible story so people didn't accept it. Unfortunately for Hank Pym, Avengers #211-230 is a great story and the best story Hank Pym ever appeared in and it is his defining moment as a character and on the title as a whole (end of Shooter's and start of Stern's run with some fill-ins by Michelinie).

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Surprised nobody's mentioned Hank Pym, a character who is permanently etched and defined by the fact that the best story he ever appeared in happens to feature him at his very worst before reaching his very best.

Hank: "I did a pretty good job of screwing up my life recently. You just about finished the job for me! You used me, egghead...and you tried to make me a criminal! But you couldn't, you see. I've come to terms with myself in the past month. I know who I am, and who I'm not! I'm not Ant-Man anymore, I'm not Giant-Man...or Goliath...or Yellow-Jacket! I am Henry Pym! And it was Henry Pym who beat the Masters of Evil!"
- Avengers #229 by Roger Stern.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

For Spider-Man, I'll also add Amazing Spider-Man #122 by Gerry Conway. It's a comic that shows him at his best and worst. Gwen Stacy as died, but Spider-Man in grief and anger...gets scary and you literally see a new modern Bronze Age peter, who is practically a proto-Punisher (created 7 issues later by the same team in the same magazine), as he goes into a kind of cold rage, lashing out at friends and enemies, but also being effective, capable, competent and magnificent.

There's also Iron Man where his best stories (Demon in a Bottle, Armor Wars, World's Most Wanted) features him at his lowest point and weakest moments and so on.