Plot Twists We Never Saw Coming In Superhero TV Shows

We're living in a golden age of superhero media where our favorite characters are living far beyond the confines of their respective comic book universes. Between multiple feature films, television shows, animated material, and video games, there's a version of DC and Marvel's superheroes for everyone. No longer are characters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man bound to just one incarnation at any given time; now there can be several operating at once across different mediums — especially television.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, superhero television has only gotten more popular, with shows like "Smallville," "Daredevil," "Arrow," and "Legion," among a host of others, breaking through comic book barriers, igniting entire franchises, and tying into larger universes. It seems like, nowadays, even some of the most obscure comic book characters have their own shows. While many follow the already pre-written template of the classic comic book stories, others take their characters and worlds into completely new and interesting directions.

Whether you prefer superpowered aliens, blind vigilantes, speedsters, or time-travelers, there's a superhero show out there for just about everybody. Given some of the plot-twists that these writers come up with, they may very well keep you on your toes.

The Netflix and Marvel co-production "Daredevil" is groundbreaking superhero television that launched a wave of Marvel-Netflix shows which culminate in the four-way crossover, "The Defenders." The first Marvel-Netflix series, "Daredevil" throws a few distinct plot twists at us, keeping us engaged and interested until the end. But one plot twist that we didn't see coming was the abduction of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) by Wilson Fisk's (Vincent D'Onofrio) right-hand man James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore).

In the episode "The Path of Righteousness," Wesley kidnaps Karen after learning that she has been digging into Fisk's past. After blackmailing her by threatening her friends at Nelson & Murdock, Wesley is interrupted by his ringing cellphone. This gives Karen the time she needs to take Wesley's gun, and in the heat of the moment, she kills him. But Karen doesn't just shoot Wesley once, she puts a few rounds in his chest before cleaning up the scene and escaping to live another day. It's a brutal, emotionally charged moment that haunts Karen for years to come.

Eventually, she comes clean to Fisk in the Season 3 episode "Upstairs/Downstairs," who would've had her killed if not for Daredevil's (Charlie Cox) intervention. Upon his defeat of the Kingpin in the series finale, Daredevil secures Karen's safety in exchange for the immunity of Fisk's wife Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer). Though Karen continues to struggle with her demons, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen remains her protector.

Like "Smallville" before it, the hit Fox series "Gotham" takes the vast mythology of Batman and reinterprets the origins of the character for a new generation. Naturally, that reinterpretation extends to his supporting cast and rogues' gallery. Though not every Batman villain is well-adapted into the "Gotham" canon, Robin Lord Taylor's depiction of Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, might be the most well-rounded live action take on the character. (And that includes Colin Farrell's from "The Batman.")

In the "Pilot" episode, Penguin is a nobody working for career criminals such as Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Carmine Falcone (John Doman) until Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) are ordered to kill him. Rather than corrupt himself, Gordon lets Cobblepot go on the condition that he stay out of Gotham forever. Naturally, Penguin returns to the city and joins a rival gang, though all is not how it seems. In "Penguin's Umbrella," we learn that Cobblepot is actually a double agent for Falcone, who orchestrated the whole thing to get into his rival's camp.

Naturally, Penguin develops his own ideas about running Gotham, and by the end of Season 1 he starts a war between the rival crime families and kills Mooney in an attempt to become the biggest crime lord in Gotham. No doubt, Cobblepot's eventual role as a criminal mastermind was foreseen, but his status as Falcone's double agent came out of nowhere.

Though many consider the Marvel-Netflix crossover miniseries "The Defenders" to be somewhat underwhelming compared to the breakout seasons of three of its standalone series — "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," and "Luke Cage" — it throws us a few curveballs to keep us interested. One of these is the return of Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung). Thought dead at the end of "Daredevil" Season 2, Elektra is resurrected by the Hand to further their goals of immortality.

The series also introduces us to Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver), one of the "five fingers of the Hand" who leads the group into the 21st century. As a mentor and mother-figure to Elektra, Alexandra manipulates her into killing her old mentor Stick (Scott Glenn) and kidnapping Danny Rand, aka the Iron Fist (Finn Jones), so that the Hand can use him to retrieve a magical elixir from the bones of a dragon. (Yeah, this show is sort of out there.) Though Elektra obeys, at the end of the episode "Ashes, Ashes," she suddenly murders Alexandra and takes her place as the head of the Hand.

Though we all assumed Alexandra would die by the end of the series – Sigourney Weaver's time is very expensive, after all – her murder at Elektra's hand before the finale is surprising to say the least, especially since Elektra just continues her dead mentor's plans anyway. Although, this act leads to a final heartbreaking moment between Daredevil and Elektra, which makes the journey worth it.

From the very first season of "The Flash," Grant Gustin's Barry Allen tackles the complexities and consequences of time travel. His very first big bad, the Reverse-Flash known as Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh), hails from the future and uses his own speed ability to change Barry's history and, in turn, rewrite reality. Although Barry knows the dangers of messing with time, he chooses to go back and save his mother from the Reverse-Flash anyway, creating a split in the timeline called a "Flashpoint."

In the Season 3 premiere also called "Flashpoint," Barry lives for months in this newly created world, only to realize that the timeline he created is worse than before. After resetting the timeline, Barry discovers that it's not exactly like it was before. In this world, Iris (Candice Patton) and her father Joe (Jesse L. Martin) don't talk to each other, Cisco's (Carlos Valdes) brother was killed, and he created an evil version of himself called Savitar. But, possibly worst of all, Barry's manipulation of time erased the daughter of John Diggle (David Ramsey); in this world, Diggle has a son instead.

Barry's actions cause lots of distrust among the Arrowverse's superhero community, and pit even his best friends against him. Thankfully, many of these differences are dealt with, and following the 2019-2020 "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, a supernaturally powered Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) restores Diggle's daughter alongside his son.

In the first few seasons of "Arrow," fans assumed that Oliver Queen and Dinah Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) would end up together in the end. Their comic book counterparts, Green Arrow and Black Canary, have shared a long-standing romance and since the "Smallville" incarnation of Queen (Justin Hartley) fails to end up with his Black Canary (Alaina Huffman), many hoped that the new CW series would rectify that and stay true to the source material.

Well, after a season of teasing an impending death, in the heartbreaking Season 4 episode "Eleven-Fifty-Nine," Laurel is killed while acting as the Black Canary while trying to take down the season's big bad Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough). Though Team Arrow later avenges her death, Cassidy's departure is still a pretty big blow to the series. Having been a major part of "Arrow" since the beginning, any hopes of Oliver and Laurel ending up together are squashed by her sudden death.

As the series progresses, an alternate version of Laurel from a parallel universe makes her way onto the series, eventually taking over her doppelganger identity and helping the Green Arrow and his team in the fight to save their crime-ridden city. Though Oliver has the chance to resurrect some of his friends and family come the series finale, he chooses to keep Laurel's death intact, as it serves as a turning point in their conflict with Darhk. Plus, two Laurels might've been too confusing.

Okay, so FX's "Legion" series isn't a superhero show in the strictest sense, but it mostly fits into the timeline of Fox's "X-Men" franchise. Following the son of Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier (played by Harry Lloyd on the series), "Legion" chronicles the life of David Haller, aka Legion (Dan Stevens) as he learns to control his undefined mutant abilities, evade government capture, and battle sinister dark forces who threaten to control his power.

After David spends the majority of Season 1 confiding in and relying on his best friend Lenny Busker, played by the magnificent Aubrey Plaza, "Chapter 6" reveals that Lenny isn't his best friend after all. In fact, Lenny is actually the "Devil with Yellow Eyes" who has been after David this entire time, hoping to take his reality-warping powers for his own. Revealed to be the Marvel villain Shadow King, the evil mutant appears to David while essentially possessing Lenny on a number of occasions, hoping to convince him to give himself over.

While Lenny is eventually freed from the Shadow King's control, the villain — played primarily by Navid Negahban — continues to haunt David as he fights his own insanity. Needless to say, "Legion" is a strange show, and it only gets stranger the longer it continues.

Okay, so Loki (Tom Hiddleston) isn't exactly a superhero, nor is his series strictly a superhero series, but much like "Legion," his self-titled Marvel Studios show deserves a mention, especially considering the final twist. In the last episode, "For All Time. Always.," Loki and his female counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) arrive at the end of time where they encounter the man behind the entire Time Variants Authority — an individual known only as He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors).

As He Who Remains explains that his own variants are exponentially worse — something we'll no doubt learn about when Kang the Conqueror is introduced in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" — it becomes clear that the TVA is meant to safeguard the timeline from a multiversal war. As of the breaking of the multiverse as seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," we better understand what He Who Remains is trying to prevent. Nevertheless, Sylvie kills the time-traveling tyrant and Loki is sent back to the TVA, who no longer recognize him.

If the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is one big series, then "Loki" throws a wrench in the plan, opening up the entire franchise for more multiversal shenanigans. While we patiently await "Loki" Season 2, we can look back on this twist as the moment the Marvel Universe split open, and an endless number of possibilities — and alternate universes — are born.