Comic book movies and TV shows often have strange endings that get forgotten over time, but some of them are so bizarre that they’re hard to forget even years later. Just like the comic books they’re based on, superhero movies and TV shows sometimes struggle to cap off their stories with satisfying endings. Occasionally, their attempts to do so can produce quite odd results, competing with some of the worst movie endings of all time.
In many cases, these bizarre final scenes capping off weighty superhero blockbusters come about from an attempt to sow the seeds of future sequels, with every comic book franchise hoping to chase the longevity of a franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This can mean awkward cliffhangers that seem hilarious in retrospect is how many superhero films from the past end. In other instances, these finales are strange for totally absurd reasons, continuing to confuse and confound even years later.
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Daredevil’s Ending Didn’t Fully Work Until Years Later
It’s a good thing the series was born again after all
Occasionally, big gambles can pay off in the world of superhero adaptations, but that doesn’t make their set-up finales any less confusing. The original Netflix run of Daredevil seemingly concluded by wrapping up most of its loose ends, with Matt, Foggy, and Karen starting a new practice together and Kingpin finally imprisoned once again. However, there is one glaring cliffhanger left unresolved by the end of the third season that seemed to certainly promise a continuation in the form of one Benjamin Poindexter, now known as Bullseye.
Throughout his appearances in the third season, Poindexter was a powerful assassin who impersonated Daredevil, never taking up his comic moniker. It’s only in one of the very last scenes of the series that this fate is promised for him, waking up from experiments with special crosshair eyes. Not only does this produce some whiplash in terms of Daredevil‘s more grounded reality, but it left an awkward cliffhanger that would go unresolved for years until Poindexter finally returned in Daredevil: Born Again.
9
Joker 2’s Ending Feels Even Wilder The More Time That Passes
The definition of burning goodwill from fans
Joker: Folie à Deux has been one of the most bizarre sudden pivots of any comic book franchise, seemingly made out of spite for those who enjoyed the first film for what director Todd Phillips saw as the wrong reasons. Though Joker ended on the implication that downtrodden comedian Arthur Fleck was finally on his path to becoming the Batman villain of legend, the sequel decided to course correct to make it clear to the audience that this wasn’t a good thing. As a result, Fleck ends up resenting his status as a martyr figure by the end.
But things truly go off the deep end when Arthur is unceremoniously stabbed to death by another Arkham inmate, who is then heavily implied to take up the mantle of the Joker himself and become the actual villain this universe’s version of Bruce Wayne might grow up to fight. Making a film about Joker’s origin story only for a random, unnamed background character to suddenly steal the title at the last second was certainly a bold choice by Phillips. While the intention is almost understandable, it comes off as too much of a sudden shock to work.
8
Doctor Strange 2 Has A Truly Maddening Ending
Sam Raimi and subtlety don’t exactly go together
Part of what made Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness so special was the fact that it gave horror director Sam Raimi the rare chance to actually leave his own signature imprint on the typical MCU formula. The Doctor Strange sequel didn’t force Raimi to reign in his cheesier proclivities, with Dutch angles, sweeping zoomed camera perspectives, and goofy slapstick comedy all coming into play. However, the ending may have hit a critical mass of Sam Raimi camp that led to bizarre results when paired with the need to set up a sequel.
The film seemingly ends twice, with a brief aside showing Doctor Strange walking down a crosswalk only to suddenly double over in pain as a mysterious third eye opens from his forehead. It would be jarring enough if the film ended on this sudden jumpscare tease, but even stranger, it abruptly cuts to yet another scene seemingly months later. Here, Doctor Strange is approached by Clea, who recruits him on another adventure, only for Strange to accept and flex his seemingly newfound control over his new eye. To call this sequence of events weird would be a massive understatement.
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The Ending To The 2015 Fantastic Four Is Still Joked About To This Day
A delightfully awkward end to a film that never found its footing
The Fantastic Four reboot of 2015, better known as Fanf4stic Four, was an attempt by Fox to inject some edgy new life into the fading memory of the early 2000s films. The movie had a litany of problems, not the least of which being its bizarre ending that has since become enshrined in meme ubiquity for its awkward charm. Throughout the film, the actual words “Fantastic Four” are never said, with the film supposing that every little name or phrase from the comics needs an arduous explanation.
By the time the credits are about to pull up, the titular four are simply standing around, wondering what to call themselves. The Thing mentions something as being “fantastic”, prompting Miles Teller’s Reed Richards to slowly turn and ask “Say that again?” with a cheeky smile. This scene is so amazingly weird, from the audacious attempt to naturally introduce the superhero team’s name to Johnny and Ben’s uncomfortably harsh bickering just beforehand. It’s no wonder Fant4stic Four‘s ending has been memed into oblivion.
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The Eternals Left For Space And Never Came Back
Mahershala Ali’s Blade notwithstanding
One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest misses was easily 2021’s Eternals. While the franchise is usually able to recover the elements of even poorly-received films for later use, the Eternals just might be the only new characters introduced only to never be seen again, as evidenced by their absence in the recent announcement of Avengers: Doomsday’s cast. This only makes the out-of-left-field ending of the film feel all the more bizarre.
Eternals ends with the surviving Eternals traveling to space so that Arishem the Judge can scan some of their memories to determine if humanity is worth saving, introducing jarring new characters like Pip the Troll and Harry Styles’ Eros along the way. That’s not even to mention the disastrously overambitious post-credits scene, which teases Mahershala Ali’s Blade. Between Blade being doomed to production limbo and the Eternals’ lack of presence in the MCU going forward, every anticipatory element of the film’s ending has only gotten weirder.
5
Teen Titans Ended On An Abrupt, But Metaphorical Note
An odd point to end the beloved series on
2003’s Teen Titans was one of the most beloved animated superhero shows ever made, balancing bottle episode comedy and serialized intrigue quite well. Most of the last season deals with the latter, elaborating on a multi-episode arc that sees the Teen Titans and young superheroes all over the world in a hectic battle against the Brotherhood of Evil. However, the very last episode of the entire series is actually more of a monster-of-the-week story.
Things Change ends with the Titans battling a powerful opponent, a nameless White Monster with the power to change into anything it touches. Meanwhile, Beast Boy struggles with finding ex-villain and love interest Terra alive again, though she seems to be an entirely different person. The Titans battling a simple nondescript monster might seem like a strange note to end the series on after such a climactic story wrapped up, but the finale serves as more of a metaphorical ending than a narrative one, with the White Monster and Terra both representing lasting change.
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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Ended On A Bizarre Cliffhanger
Setting up a threequel that would never come
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Sometimes, failed attempts to set up sequels can spell disaster for the ending of a superhero movie. Nowhere does this ring more true than in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, often considered to be the worst theatrical Spider-Man film ever released. Between Electro, Rhino, and the New Goblin, and the death of Gwen Stacy, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was keeping entirely too many plates spinning at once. Yet even more narrative elements are crammed in with an audacious attempt to set up a third film, teasing the Sinister Six and introducing a bizarre totally original sub-plot involving Peter Parker’s parents.
Peter’s parents are never really painted as all that important in the comics, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 asserted that they were some kind of super spies, ending with the shocking revelation that Parker’s parents were assassinated. Not only that, but their killer is seemingly eager to recruit the recovering Harry for his own Sinister Six. Add in a nonsensical fight with Paul Giamatti’s CGI Rhino mech, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has one of the weirdest attempts to develop a third film that fell completely flat.
3
Black Adam Teased A Superman Appearance Only For It To Be Henry Cavill’s Last
The hierarchy of the DCEU never had a chance to change
Black Adam was a strange film in general for the waning DCEU, gambling on the popularity of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson playing a relatively unpopular anti-hero that the franchise suddenly decided to pretend was popular all along. But the ending is a particularly sad finale to Henry Cavill’s legacy in the series, with Black Adam and Superman poised to battle one another. Of course, this promise would never come to be, as the DCEU dissolved shortly afterward.
The film ends with Amanda Waller sending Superman to negotiate with Black Adam, warning him to stay in the fictional nation of Kahndaq. The promise of Henry Cavill’s Superman crossing paths with Black Adam combined with the knowledge that this small appearance would be his last time in the blue and red costume creates some potent cognitive dissonance, making the odd ending note feel even weirder. Like Black Adam itself, this ending is an unfortunate footnote in the final stages of the DCEU.
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The Flash Brought George Clooney Back As Batman
For seemingly no reason
For all the faults there are with Black Adam‘s unresolved tease of an ending, at least it had some clear plan of where it was going. The same seemingly can’t be said for 2023’s The Flash, one of the most over-indulgent and cameo-ridden films ever conceived. Between its awkward rubbery CGI and cringeworthy reliance on nostalgia, The Flash is a strange trip through and through, right up until the nonsensical ending.
Famously, The Flash brought back Michael Keaton as Batman, but the final beat of the film makes the bizarre decision to return to yet another old Batman actor by having George Clooney’s Bruce Wayne reach out to Barry Allen. It’s one thing to bring back Michael Keaton, but returning to who was widely-considered the worst live-action Batman is a stroke of utter senselessness. It almost feels as though The Flash could see the writing on the wall of the DCEU’s imminent collapse, choosing to throw out one more surprising cameo with no real plan for where it would lead.
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The Entire DCEU Ends With Ocean Master Eating A Bug
A hilarious non-sequitur to cap off the franchise
As the DCEU wound down, bizarre endings that promised things never to come like those found in Black Adam and The Flash became commonplace. However, the ending to the entire series as a whole with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is an especially wild image to definitively end the whole series on. Suffice it to say, having an Aquaman movie be the last entry in the franchise was obviously never the plan, meaning the last sequence of the film wasn’t even attempting to go out with any sort of gravitas.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom features Arthur bonding with his half-brother and former nemesis Orm to combat a greater threat, leading to a classic buddy adventure. Orm eventually redeems himself and is banished to the surface world, leaving him to hide himself among the human race. This means that the final image of the entire DCEU is Orm sitting at a restaurant, putting a bug into his burger before taking another bite. It’s hard to imagine a more anticlimactic or strange way to cap off a whole superhero movie franchise.
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