It's Always Darkest...

If there's anything that knows how to pile on the hopelessness of a situation, you can bet it's a comic book. So let's check out some of the times in various Marvel titles when all seemed lost, and there was nothing left for our favorite hero(es) to do but to march toward their inevitable fate.

In other words, it's... IT'S....

DUN dun DUNNNNNNHHHHH!!

First up, Iron Man has to take the cake for the most times anyone's faced the beginning of the end. Makes you wonder if it's worth going to business school so that you can head up a multi-billion dollar corporation, when you know it's going to put a big fat bulls-eye on your corporate butt:

And leave it to the wise guys behind Iron Man to give us a play on words:

S.H.I.E.L.D. has certainly faced the end often enough, though this time it looks like it's curtains:

I don't know what's up with the New Mutants, but the beginning of their end gets a two-page vertical spread:

(Though I guess we're talking about the end of New Mutants and the beginning of X-Force.)

The beginning of Excalibur's end looks like they have their own Dark Phoenix to worry about, which would certainly qualify:

While Captain Marvel and Moondragon seem to be taking the beginning of their end nonchalantly--are they stopping in for tea at Avengers Mansion or something?

Now the Asgardians--THEY know a little something about the beginning of the end, and how to respond to it.  Which is to say, RIGHT BACK ATCHA:

The X-Men have gone down the path toward their end a few times, and, like the Asgardians, often giving as good as they get:

(Jeez, facing the beginning of the end and the twilight of the gods. The X-Men really do it the hard way, don't they.)

I don't know what the Soviet Super Soldiers are worried about. They seem to have enough members on their team to handle anything:

For the Fantastic Four, the beginning of the end probably started when they began being called "imaginauts"--while Dr. Doom would be pleased to bring about their end, if only they'd pay attention to his timetable:

And the Avengers, not to be outdone, sometimes end up disbanding. THANKS A LOT, DR. DRUID:

Naturally, our favorite characters survived their march toward certain doom, and lived to dread another day.