Ruins follows former Daily Bugle reporter Phil Sheldon as he explores a dystopian alternate Marvel Universe where, in his words, "everything that can go wrong will go wrong"; a world where the myriad experiments and accidents which led to the creation of superheroes in the mainstream Marvel Universe instead resulted in horrible deformities and painful deaths. The narrative follows Sheldon as he tours the country investigating the after-effects of these events, researching a book about the strange phenomena in order to prove that the world has taken a wrong turn somewhere and hoping to complete it before he dies. As he journeys across America, the nature of the world is gradually revealed in the form of both interviews and cameo appearances from various figures from the Marvel Universe.
