Before he takes the Marvel Cinematic Universe by storm, Shang-Chi is making a triumphant return to comics in another titular series. This time around he is in charge of his deceased father's criminal cult, the Five Weapons Society, and he is trying to turn it around in every way. Unfortunately, doing so is putting him at odds with just about every other hero there is in "Shang-Chi vs. the Marvel Universe."
However, this isn't the first time readers have seen one hero face off against almost everyone else, and the only way to see how it stacks up against history is to take a walk down a very bloody memory lane.
In 1995, Frank Castle took on every single other costumed vigilante he could think of in what would be one of the bloodiest stories the Marvel Universe had ever seen. The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe by Garth Ennis and Doug Braithwaite reimagined the titular antihero's origin in an even more tragic fashion that usual, with Frank Castle's family being killed in the crossfire between the Avengers and X-Men battling against a Kree/Skrull invasion. After witnessing the aftermath of the tragedy, Frank unleashed a hail of bullets on the superpowered crowd, killing several X-Men as well as Hawkeye. Though imprisoned for his crimes, Frank was broken out of his confinement by a wealthy benefactor and tasked with eliminating anyone with any claim to being superhuman, culminating in a final, fatal showdown with Daredevil from which no victor walked away.
2010's four-part limited series, Marvel Universe Vs. The Punisher by Jonathan Maberry and Goran Parlov, gave readers a glimpse at a horrifying world where almost every hero and villain on Earth had been transformed into a cannibalistic predator, and the only man left able to deal with it was none other than Frank Castle. An accidental exposure to a dangerous chemical left Frank immune to its effects, though once it found its way into the water system there was no hope for the rest of the world. What began with Spider-Man eating the Rhino on live television while the world watched quickly devolved into an all-out apocalypse lorded over by the former Kingpin of Crime and then-current King of Fear, Wilson Fisk. Once again, no number of superpowered targets could prove to be too many for the Punisher, and the Marvel Universe fell before him in short order.
Jonathan Maberry returned the following year with artist Laurence Campbell for Marvel Universe Vs. Wolverine, following the titular hero during the fall of the world that was shown in Marvel Universe Vs. The Punisher. Wolverine was in the hockey stadium where Spider-Man had consumed the Rhino, though after the Fantastic Four intervened, Logan's life returned to normal for the most part. At least, it did until Psylocke disappeared, and when she finally turned up it was as the remains of her scavenged corpse. Once it became clear that the infection had spread to the mutant homeland of Utopia, Wolverine tasked himself with culling every infected member of the X-Men that he could find, as well as any others that got in his way, including the Marvel Universe's two biggest brawlers.
2012 bore witness to one of the most brutal massacres that has ever occurred during the events of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe by Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajic. In an alternate universe eerily similar to the primary Marvel Universe, Wade Wilson was delivered by the X-Men to one Doctor Benjamin Brighton in the hopes of curing his debilitating and violent insanity. Unbeknownst to the heroes, Doctor Brighton was none other than Psycho-Man in disguise, and when he tinkered with Deadpool's mind, he eradicated all of the little voice's in Wade's head and replaced them with one. Unfortunately, all that voice wanted to do was kill, as it was very aware of Deadpool's existence as merely a work of fiction. And so, with no other voices to interrupt, Deadpool listened and went on a bloody crusade across his own universe over the course of four issues before turning his attention to the whole of fiction itself in Deadpool: Killustrated the following year.
The superpowered horror story continued in 2012's Marvel Universe Vs. The Avengers by Jonathan Maberry and Leandro Fernandez, giving readers a look at what happened to Earth's Mightiest Heroes during the cannibalistic outbreak that overtook their world. When the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. lost control of New York City after failing to find a cure for the virus, they are forced to kill one another as each former ally turns. When hope finally arrives, it is in the hands of Doctor Doom, who truly has developed a means of battling the outbreak -- though he is only willing to share it with the rest of the world once he is crowned as its emperor. Of course, it doesn't take long for Doom's benevolent facade to fade away into something much more sinister.
2016 was the year that Squirrel Girl took the entire universe by storm in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe! by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. While meeting with Tony Stark, Squirrel Girl is caught in a strange chamber after an attack by the High Evolutionary's flunkies backed up by his Evolved Humanimals. As it turns out, the chamber was a duplication device, and soon enough there are two Squirrel Girls ready to save the day. When Squirrel Girl's clone proves herself to be as unbeatable as the original, no hero in the world stands a chance at stopping her plot to replace humans at the top of the food chain. No one other than a Mjolnir-wielding original Squirrel Girl, that is.
Deadpool returned to massacre every cape he could once more in 2017's Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe Again by Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajic. The series begins with the bloody, fresh corpse of Gambit before readers witnessed Deadpool turn on his very own Avengers Unity Division team members with just a few simple words uttered by M.O.D.O.K. Soon enough, it becomes apparent that some of the world's greatest villains have brainwashed the Merc With a Mouth and turned him into their own personal assassin. Unfortunately, Wade couldn't stop himself from murdering the entire world's population of heroes at the behest of its villains, but he could turn his attention on them once the initial bloodshed had ended.
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