The latest MCU moral panic has set Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey in the crosshairs, after she took some questionable actions on her mission to save her sister in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We’ve seen teeth-gnashing and outraged wailing at the very idea that Brand New Day’s ending redeemed Jean, when in actuality, it did nothing like that. Her story has barely begun.

More importantly, the idea that Jean’s willingness to apparently cross baseline ethical lines is abhorrent, despite the fact that she has no affiliation as a superhero and has been put through unthinkable trauma, is idiotic. It’s all been a ridiculously over-enthusiastic witch hunt against a character who didn’t kill anyone (according to the writers), and whose desperate acts were justified by her origin story.

And she’s far from the only “hero” in the MCU who has done terrible things. The scrutiny afforded to Jean has been hypocritically absent when the crimes of other superheroes – including the Avengers themselves – have come up for discussion (if they weren’t totally swept under the rug, that is). The MCU has repeatedly tried to take Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to task for their atrocities – mostly unfairly – because, as has been established since Phase One, heroism is a complicated thing. Sometimes you have to do bad things in the service of the greater good.

When a beloved Avenger breaks a moral code, fans frame it as a compelling character moment of a tragic trauma response, but when Jean Grey mentally tortures Spider-Man, who she believes is working with her enemy, it’s suddenly not okay.

6

Scarlet Witch Kills the Illuminati

You could probably do an entire list on Scarlet Witch’s “crimes” in the MCU, given she was literally a secondary villain in her first appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron and caused the Hulk to rampage in South Africa, and then responded to the death of her husband by enchanting an entire town of innocent people, but one thing stands above all others on her rap sheet. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in the pursuit of America Chavez (whom she planned to kill by stealing her powers), Wanda went full supervillain, breaking through the multiverse and encountering the Illuminati.

Mere moments after we’d all had a lovely chuckle at the sight of John Krasinski playing Mr Fantastic, and the return of Patrick Stewart as Professor X alongside Captain Britain, Black Bolt, and Lashana Lynch’s Captain Marvel, they were all killed off comically quickly. Even now, looking back, the supremely powerful group – who had taken down Thanos in their universe – were pawns in service of making Wanda look out of control.

They all basically suffered slapstick deaths, and yes, Wanda sacrificed herself eventually when she saw the error of her ways, but it has in no way dampened the call for her to return and be forgiven from Marvel fans. Why exactly she gets better treatment than Jean, when she quite obviously relished murdering heroes is unclear.

5

Hulk Kills Hundreds of Innocents Off-Screen in Ragnarok

When Thor lands on Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok, The Grandmaster’s gladiator arena is offered up as a vibrant, hilarious sci-fi backdrop, complete with breezy characters like Taika Waititi’s Korg. Then, Thor is thrust into a battle for his freedom (or his death), and comes face to face with the beloved champion of Sakaar – Hulk. Hilarity ensues as they fight anyway, before the Grandmaster tips the scales, calling a draw so Hulk doesn’t lose.

But think about it: how was Hulk able to maintain his position as champion of Sakaar for two whole years? He has to have killed his way to glory, having started like Thor as an enforced conscript (though how he was actually captured is a bit of a mystery). We know for certain he killed Doug, and though we don’t know how often the Games are held, we know The Grandmaster uses them as a tool of control, so there’s a good bet it’s pretty frequently.

At a conservative estimate, Hulk killed tens of gladiators, probably horribly unsuited to combat with him (as most conscripts would be), and didn’t think of the consequences. When he rampaged in Age of Ultron, he was out of his mind, and when he rampaged in Brand New Day, it was a trauma response after Banner suppressed him (and with Jean’s assistance), but in Ragnarok, the killing was for sport. And nobody ever mentions it.

4

Stark & Banner Create Ultron

Watched in the context of modern AI culture where founders gleefully admit that there’s not a 0% chance that what they’re making for all of our benefit might kill us all horribly, Avengers: Age of Ultron feels like a chillingly prescient fable. Because while Tony Stark and Bruce Banner absolutely believed that their creation of Ultron was in service of the Avengers Initiative, they marched into it without any control over what they were making, like actual mad scientists.

Stark’s ego, and Banner’s passive compliance was almost comically played off as a bit of a whoopsie, when Ultron literally broke containment, accessed the Internet and became both instantly sentient and instantly convinced that humanity was the worst thing happening to Earth. The MCU’s Science Bros operated without consulting the Avengers, and with flagrant disregard for security protocols, making themselves Dr Frankensteins on a scale that almost caused a mass extinction event.

Ultron caused the deaths of 177 people in Sokovia, including those of Zemo’s family, and indirectly led to the advancement of Thano’s conquest of Earth. And it was all because the Science Bros couldn’t resist playing with alien tech that proved instantly beyond their capabilities. Literally no consequences, other than Tony’s guilt leading to the adoption of the Sokovia Accords, which didn’t exactly punish him anyway.

3

Nick Fury Steals the Avengers’ DNA

He might have kicked off the Avengers Initiative, but you’d be forgiven for questioning Nick Fury’s moral alignment for most of his time in the MCU. But then, he was part of SHIELD’s management while had been infiltrated by HYDRA, and the villains never questioned whether having him so close to them might be problematic. So maybe the signs were always there.

Fury was, obviously, a cog in the machine, and a company man, so his part in the secret development of weapons of mass destruction as part of Phase 2 (a confusing name now, but not when it was revealed in The Avengers in 2012) wasn’t all that shocking. But by the time Avengers: Endgame rolled around, Fury was part of a completely different organization, with his own army of embedded Skrulls. He was, of course, dusted by Thanos, but almost immediately after returning, his first act was to order to secret retrieval of the Avengers’ DNA (and that of the Guardians of the Galaxy and several villains) from the New York battlefield.

He had precisely no time to plan this, so he must have already had some sort of existing contingency for harvesting blood, confirming that he only ever saw the Avengers for their potential as weapons. That is not a good guy, even if his motive was always the protection of Earth

2

Ronin’s Entire Rampage

There’s a pretty strong narrative strain in the MCU that essentially boils down to “hurt people hurt people,” with villains as notable as Loki, Killmonger, and Zemo all taking extreme action as revenge for personal trauma, and many more perceiving their motives justified for similar reasons. Jon Bernthal’s Punisher is essentially the poster boy for the entire movement, but he was never and would never be an Avenger, and he makes no attempt to pretend he’s not a brutal psychopath.

Hawkeye, on the other hand, is the MCU’s Daddy Avenger, a family man who put heroism aside to raise his family (admittedly before unretiring a couple of times), and who was always the most human of all of Earths’ Mightiest Heroes. But then Thanos snapped, and so did Clint, rebranding himself as a one-man killing spree for 5 years, taking out international criminals permanently. That’s not an illogical response to losing your family, but it’s also not exactly befitting the Avengers’ noble cause.

And then, the worst of it is that the Avengers all just accepted Clint back as if nothing had happened. Scarlet Witch was imprisoned for accidentally killing hundreds in Africa, and Punisher is essentially a war criminal, but Clint can take justice into his own blood-soaked hands without consideration for due process, and he’s fine to rejoin the fight? No Avenger should act as judge, jury, and executioner, no matter who the targets.

1

Black Widow Left Dreykov’s Daughter For Dead

Now, to get right to it, this has absolutely nothing to do with most of what Natasha Romanoff called the “red in her ledger,” because as an agent of the Red Room, she was under the brutal control of General Dreykov (Ray Winstone). She had no control, just as blaming Bucky for the crimes he was forced to commit as the Winter Soldier would be unfair (yeah, TONY!).

But she isn’t completely without fault, because in the Budapest mission she undertakes with Clint Barton, and to prove her loyalty to SHIELD while defecting from the Red Room, Natasha’s attempt to assassinate Dreykov came with what she identified as acceptable collateral damage. Dreykov’s young daughter. Knowing full-well that Antonia was inside the building, Natasha gave the order to detonate the explosives in order to secure her own freedom.

Considering her own backstory, lumping Antonia in with her father as acceptable collateral damage was unforgivable, and while this was likely something Natasha struggled to reconcile herself with, it’s the red in her ledger that shouldn’t have been wiped out quite as easily.

Movie(s)

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, ​The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever , Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, Deadpool & Wolverine, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, Werewolf by Night , The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, The Punisher: One Last Kill

TV Show(s)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Inhumans, WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, What If…?, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Secret Invasion, Agatha All Along, Ironheart, Daredevil: Born Again, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Wonder Man, Echo, Marvel Zombies, Eyes of Wakanda