The heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have faced some heavy losses over the years, both personally and within the Avengers’ story.

The protagonists of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have taken their share of devastating losses over the years, proving that doing superhero work is never an easy job. Marvel movies are sometimes criticized for their formula, with vocal detractors citing the inevitable triumph of the “good guys” as a recurring theme among a sea of familiar story beats. But when looking objectively at the track records of some of the MCU’s most famous heroes, their films are inevitably filled with loss, whether it be from defeat at the hands of a villain or personal trauma.

The losses many Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes have felt came in many forms. Occasionally, a villain will get the upper hand by the end of an MCU movie, leaving the likes of the Avengers scrambling to come together for a response. Other times, these losses are much more personal, with individual characters facing unbearable hardships through the deaths of their loved ones. Whatever the case, the flagship faces of Marvel Studios’ films certainly haven’t had it easy navigating their lives as public protectors throughout the MCU timeline.

10. Spider-Man: No Way Home Is The MCU’s Most Brutal Solo Movie Ending Yet

Peter Parker’s factory reset is an incredibly bleak prospect.

The ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Peter Parker return to his roots as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, stranded in a tiny apartment in New York City. The oppressive loneliness of being wiped from the minds of everyone in the main MCU timeline is instantly felt as Peter settles in to his new life, severed from his cushy connections with the late Tony Stark. So soon after the death of his beloved Aunt May, Peter Parker is forced to bear one of the most depressing fates of any solo hero in the MCU.

9. Thor Lost 3 Major Times In Thor: Ragnarok

The God of Thunder has been the MCU’s punching bag.

Few characters in the MCU have suffered from more loss than Thor. In Thor: Ragnarok alone, Thor had to come to terms with losing his father, his hammer, and his eye, all while being forced to destroy his ancestral homeland along with his long-lost sister. Even if Hela was evil, Thor was hesitant to resort to violence, having already experienced the throes of a fraught familial relationship with his adopted brother. Piling on the deaths of Loki, Frigga, and Jane Foster, Thor’s ability to endure hardship has become utterly unmatched in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

8. The MCU’s Heroes Faced Their Worst Loss In Infinity War To Thanos

The effects of The Snap are still felt throughout the MCU’s most recent stories.

After succeeding in his plan to wipe out half of all life in the universe, Thanos indisputably became the strongest MCU villain ever presented. The devastating loss suffered by the entire universe due to the Avengers’ inability to stop the Mad Titan will forever be the superhero team’s greatest failure. Even if they were able to eventually bring back the evaporated population, the disastrous consequences of the five-year “Blip” still haunt the MCU to this day, with time-displaced characters struggling to come to grips with their new place in the world.

7. Baron Zemo Successfully Broke The Avengers Apart

If it weren’t for Thanos, he likely would’ve stayed successful.

Even if his victory wasn’t as proud as Thanos’, Baron Zemo dealt the second-biggest blow to the Avengers by successfully orchestrating the superhero team’s dissolution. Manipulating Tony Stark and Steve Rogers by using Bucky’s history as The Winter Soldier against them, Baron Zemo essentially won, even if he wound up being captured, splitting the Avengers from the inside out. If it wasn’t for Thanos forcing the heroes to work together on a global scale, they likely would’ve stayed that way for good.

6. War Machine Was Injured, Then Replaced By A Skrull

Few founding MCU characters got as rough a deal as Rhodey.

Unlike most of the biggest losses heroes in the MCU have suffered at the hands of writers, War Machine’s retroactive lack of participation in the series revealed in Secret Wars did a disservice not only to the character, but to the story itself. After being paralyzed in a friendly-fire accident in Captain America: Civil War, Rhodey was revealed to be a Skrull in Secret Wars, retroactively nullifying his impact on the story since his injury. With the unspecified time frame in which Rhodey was held in a Fracking Pod, it’s unclear how much of his current character arc is actually his own.

War Machine’s retroactive lack of participation in the series revealed in Secret Wars did a disservice not only to the character, but to the story itself.

5. Star-Lord Lost His Father Figure Right After Acknowledging Him

Peter Quill’s parental figures have been an emotional roller coaster.

Many Marvel heroes are known for their absent parents or guardians, but Peter Quill may just take the cake when it comes to trauma with father figures. After already losing his mother to cancer at a young age and growing up to be abducted by aliens, Star-Lord learns that his biological father was actually a deranged Celestial bent on conquering the galaxy in his likeness. Recognizing Yondu as his actual father figure only moments before his death, the real tragedy of Peter’s relationship with Yondu is that it was acknowledged too late.

A mysterious cosmic race, the Celestials inhabit powerful roles in both the MCU and Marvel Comics canon, though only a few have appeared in movies.

4. Shuri Lost Her Entire Family In The Span Of A Few Years

Wakanda’s Princess is no stranger to hardship.

Beginning life in the MCU as a bright-eyed Q to T’Challa’s James Bond, Shuri had to grow up fast, quickly morphing into a young woman who could adopt the dual roles of Wakandan ruler and the new Black Panther. Over the course of only three years (from her own perspective, thanks to the Blip), Shuri lost her father, brother, and mother. The frequent deaths of Wakandan royalty may have led to Shuri ultimately giving up the title of the nation’s ruler, instead choosing to foster a relationship with her nephew, her last living blood relative.

Over the course of only three years, Shuri lost her father, brother, and mother.

3. Scarlet Witch Lost Her Brother, Partner, and Kids

Wanda’s recurring grief led to her turbulent MCU character arc.

Wanda Maximoff has a unique arc among the characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, going from villain to hero to villain again. Growing up in war-torn Sokovia, Wanda lost her parents, country, brother, lover, and children at a rate of nearly one-per-appearance, consistently marking her path through the series with unmitigated grief. As if to emphasize this point, Scarlet Witch’s last appearance in the franchise is the film in which she dies herself, ultimately reconciling her anger with a final act of sacrifice.

2. Captain America Became Displaced From His Time

It’s one thing to lose people, but Steve Rogers lost his entire world.

The consequences of waking up decades later after being frozen in ice took a while for the MCU to explore, but as Captain America came to grips with the strange future around him, the sheer horror of his situation slowly set in. Not only was Rogers robbed of his burgeoning love interest, Peggy Carter, but he woke up in a new world he had no frame of reference for. Even if Captain America got a rare happy retirement among the MCU’s heroes, his hallucination sequence in Avengers: Age of Ultron hinted at the true despair of his displacement in time.

Captain America has been a staple of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Phase 1, and here is his entire timeline from the beginning to the present.

1. Loki Loses Everything To Save The Multiverse

The God of Mischief marked his development into a hero with the ultimate loss.

The variant of Loki that the Avengers allowed to escape via the Tesseract went on to have one of the most significant arcs in the entire MCU, punctuated by a profound loss characteristic of a hero. Loki became the new God of Time, cutting himself off from his loved ones and cursing himself to forever only observe them while remaining isolated at the Citadel at the End of Time. Though he began the series as a villain, Loki’s sacrifice was one of the greatest losses felt by any hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.