When people watch The Boys, they can’t wrap their heads around how horrible superheroes can be. But here’s the thing. The Boys is a deconstruction of the genre. The actual source material is pretty messed up to begin with. Trust me, Homelander doesn’t have crap on Marvel and DC heroes. 

1. Tony Stark’s armour basically tries to force itself on him. 

In 2000’s Iron Man #26, Tony Stark‘s new armour gains consciousness and soon falls in love with its creator. When Stark tries to get on an older suit to fight it after it gets violent, the armour feels betrayed because he feels Stark was cheating on him. So he takes him to a deserted island, ties him to a tree naked and basically beats him up to admit his love for it. 

2. Green Lantern first hooks up with a 13-year-old girl and then dates her for at least 2 years. 

The girl in question is Arisia, a 13-year-old alien who was helping save the Earth but also happens to have a crush on Hal Jordan. She then transforms herself into the body of a grown woman so that Hal Jordan won’t refuse her. The two of them get caught by the other Lanterns who definitely have a problem with this but Hal doesn’t really budge. What’s worse is that Hal acknowledges her age even when they are in the middle of it. 

3. Blob eats The Wasp just because…

You might know him as the fat dude from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Well, in 2009’s Ultimatum, Blob stumbles upon the carcasses left behind by the Tsunami. This is where he finds The Wasp’s body and just because it’s his superpower to be fat, he starts eating her corpse and then tries to compliment it by claiming that it tasted like chicken. 

4. Superman becomes a pornstar!

Well, technically he wasn’t of sound mind and this was not his doing, I mean, not entirely. 

In Action Comics No. 593, Superman and Big Barda get mind-controlled by a character called Sleez who makes them do porn. Oh, and also, Darkseid hands over the videotape to Big Barda’s husband. In case you are wondering why, well, this was done to reinvent the character, Superman. 

5. Kitty Pride phases through things when she orgasms.

During the time Joss Whedon was at the helm of Astonishing X-Men, he resurrected Colossus and made him a couple with Kitty Pryde. The duo naturally makes love after Kitty seduces Colossus. However, when she climaxes, she falls through the floor shouting ‘OMG’ the entire time. Now, imagine, being a kid watching a naked person shouting ‘Oh my god’ falling from the roof. 

6. Batman burns criminals with bleach as he has sex with the Black Canary. 

The Dark Knight catches a bunch of criminals stealing bleach and then decides to teach them a lesson. While the thieves are burnt by bleach canisters, Batman also decides to have sex with The Black Canary!

7. Hulk commits incest and then eats the Wolverine. 

In Old Man Logan, the Hulk decides he wants a family and the only person who could survive his gamma radiation genes was his cousin, the She-Hulk. So they have sex and a bunch of hillbilly Hulk kids, who all grow up and kill Logan’s wife and kids. When Logan reaches Hulk’s house to exact revenge, the Hulk straight up eats him! But the incest one is definitely weirder. 

8. Ant-Man tries till The Wasp and then bug sprays her and laughs as she burns. Then he sends a legion of ants to murder her.

In the comics, Ant-Man aka Hank Pym is a wife-beater. In this particular series, this escalates into a full-blown fight with weapons and everything. The Wasp then shrinks to escape her husband but he uses insect killer spray on her and then follows it up by sending a legion of ants to get the job done. 

9. Some of the first editions of the Batman saw him throwing criminals into acid saying that they deserve it. 

It turns out burning people is one of Bruce Wayne’s recurring habits. During his first two years in Detective Comics, he killed villains in a lot of very creative ways, one of them was punching them into a vat of acid. 

10. Wanda and her brother Pietro have a lot of sex in the comics. It’s weird how much sex they have, even for a normal couple that are not siblings! It has nothing to do with their powers. It’s just weird. 

If only Magneto knew what his kids were up to. Everybody else does and it really uncomfortable by it. But Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver just don’t stop. It has also been implied that Wolverine is their actual dad and he still watches them do it. 

11. Aviax has a dinosaur fetish. 

TW: Animal Cruelty, Rape

If you haven’t heard of this character, that’s fine. Because you’re about to know the most interesting piece of information about him. In The Wanderers #12, his team come across a planet where dinosaurs are dying due to a radioactive fog. So he uses his power of turning into any bird at will and rapes a dinosaur to be able to give them his bird DNA and feathers!

12. Logan kills his own son in cold blood. 

At the end of  Uncanny X-Force (Uncanny X-Force Vol 1, The Wolverine kills his son, Daken, by drowning him in a puddle while thinking about how life could have been, had he stayed and raised Daken. His son’s last words continue to run through his head as he accepts the worst kill he’s ever made. 

13. Though neither of them are actual superheroes, what Lois Lane and Lana Lang did here was truly messed up. Like Homelander level of messed up.  

In Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #57, Superman turns into a toddler by experimenting on himself. So the two of them brainwash the baby into marrying them. This included making the baby propose, kiss and allowing each of them turns to spank him. 

14. Marcus rapes his own mother, Carol Danvers and impregnates her with himself. 

TW: Rape, Incest

Yup! In one of the most screwed up events of all time, in The Avengers #200, Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers gets raped by her own son. One fine morning she wakes up pregnant. Three days later baby Marcus is born who gets fully grown in a matter of a few days and tells his mother that the only reason she had him was because it was him who impregnated her, to begin with.

15. Wolverine tries to seduce teenagers. A Lot. He also tried to sleep with a 15-year-old Mary Jane Watson. 

The Wolverine from the comics is far removed from the one Hugh Jackman portrayed on screen. In Ultimate Spider-Man” #66-#67, Jean Grey does a Freaky Friday on Peter Parker and Logan, making them swap their bodies because Logan wouldn’t stop flirting with her. She was a teenager at the time. 

Later, as Peter struggles in Logan’s body, Logan goes to school in Peter’s body and tries his best to convince Mary Jane Watson, another teenager to lose her virginity to him. 

16. Ant-Man uses his powers to spy on women he picks up. 

Ant-Man has time and again used his power to get tiny to stay hidden and spy on unsuspecting women. In Irredeemable Ant-Man #1, he scams the women into paying for the food and then goes to her apartment for a tea. After she calls it a night, he sneaks back in and watches her shower. This is not the first time he’s done this BTW. 

He also once hid in Carol Danvers’ purse and then watched her shower. He even wanted to take pictures of her and sell them for money. 

17. Plastic Man is so creepy, he once became Barda’s dress. 

Plastic Man is a certified creep. He had once previously been caught peeing on Wonder Woman. If that wasn’t bad enough, he pretended to be a dress and presented himself to Barda, who of course unaware of it, wore it. It’s beyond creepy. 

Now you know why all nerds are becoming super-villains instead of heroes. We’ll got seriously messed up!