These Superheroes' Lives Would Actually Be Miserable
Most superheroes and supervillains are born by tragedy, but the mark of a hero is the ability to turn that tragedy into greatness instead of just being a jerk about it. Superhuman powers seem like the answer to all of life's problems, but many heroes are continually haunted. Here are ten superheroes whose lives really suck, no matter how they're written.
Batman
Insane millionaire Bruce Wayne became Batman after witnessing his parents' murder, but his heroism is unappreciated by the dirty, horrible city that he's sworn to protect. Seriously, Gotham is the worst place on Earth. Worse than anyplace in New Jersey, including Newark. Batman's psychotic obsession with justice keeps him in his horrible toilet of a town, so he'll never know real joy.
The Thing
Ben Grimm was turned into a rock monster by his best friend Reed Richards, and because there are few career options for living boulders, he resigned himself to helping Reed fight his college arch-nemesis for the rest of their lives. Thanks to his rocky exterior, Thing can't feel the touch of a woman, so that cuts down on having a meaningful relationship, and he's constantly bullied by the anonymous Yancy Street Gang, who also killed his beloved brother.
Nightcrawler
Kurt Wagner was born with three fingers on each hand, cursing him to a life of never being able to use regular scissors. He was orphaned by his evil mother and demon father before being adopted by a circus. Nightcrawler can teleport from one place to another instantly... leaving a sulfuric smell behind him. It's hard to make friends when you have powers that smell like a broken toilet.
The Flash
When you live life at incredibly high speeds, everything around you seems to be going in slow motion. The Flash needs an incredibly high patience level for just about everything, including the lines at Comic Con, which already feel like a deodorant-free eternity. On top of being asphyxiated by slow-moving crowds, you might accidentally run too fast and travel through time or destroy the universe.
Silver Surfer
Sure, Norrin Radd has cosmic powers and flawless skin, but he also sacrificed his freedom to be an errand boy for a planet-eating alien. His job description has only one task: give entire planets the worst news ever. Surfer was eventually fired, leaving him trapped on Earth with a bunch of dumb humans. Still, he's occasionally rehired by Galactus to be a total space jerk, whether he likes it or not.
Animal Man
Buddy Baker has the ability to use the powers of any animal, for whatever that's worth. Aware that his life is a comic book story told for the amusement of nerds, Buddy has also died multiple times and has even been a zombie. After his son was killed by rotten monsters, the creatures that gave him his animal powers refused to let him just be a normal guy again. Once you go quack, you never go back.
Spawn
After his death, Al Simmons made a deal with the devil so that he could see his wife again, which is never a great idea. As the hamburger-faced Spawn, Simmons had to drag around a ridiculous cape, literally through hell and back. And if you thought Nightcrawler's wormy name was bad, "Spawn" literally means "to lay eggs in water." Try living that one down, egg boy.
Black Bolt
Blackagar Boltagon is an Inhuman with a ridiculous name and the ability to destroy things with his voice. It's a power that he can't turn off, so he spent his youth trapped in a box learning how to shut up. Because Inhumans don't have a lot of options, he married his cousin, who has the power of having lots of hair. His city, Attilan, is constantly discovered and destroyed, and eventually had to be moved to the Moon in order to escape human pollution and ignorance.
Plastic Man
Reformed criminal "Eel" O'Brien has the ability to stretch his body into any form, but that doesn't help his tortured psyche. After being sent back in time and shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, his elastic physiology forced him to stay conscious for 3000 years at the bottom of the ocean, waiting to be re-assembled, permanently screwing up his mental health. Immortality isn't what it's cracked up to be, literally.
The Sentry
The Sentry's powers are mighty, but within him also dwells an enormous evil. In order to keep that evil hidden, Sentry was erased from the minds of every other Marvel superhero, negating decades of heroism, and leaving him as a chunky old man watching TV in a lonely apartment. He eventually became a hero again, but remains entangled with the evil Void, often separating him from polite hero society, more of a threat than a friend.