"Nobody stays dead in comics" is an adage that comic book fans have been throwing around for decades. Superman, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Flash, and even Batman have all died in mainstream comics continuity only to be resurrected by plot contrivances, alternate universe justifications, or time travel.

Related: 10 Shocking DC Character Resurrections Fans Didn't See Coming

But the immortality of comic book characters does not hold true for those who operate outside the DC and Marvel canon. In fact, many comic book writers love killing off their characters with abandon as if they are directly subverting the tradition of superhero invincibility. Those deaths break hearts, but they remain in fans' memories for a long time.

10 Even The Narrator Isn't Safe In The Wicked + The Divine

Created By Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

Morrigan Badb unleashes powers in The Wicked + The Divine

The Wicked + The Divine was first released in 2014 and follows a group of deities called The Pantheon who return to Earth every 90 years by merging with the spirit of a mortal.

However, once The Pantheon returns, they die after two years. Moreover, when the Pantheon appears in 2014, somebody starts murdering them one-by-one. The gods may return eventually, but any mortals they inhabit are truly dead, meaning regular cast members—including, at one point, the narrator—will be dismembered on a regular basis.

9 Exiles Introduced New Marvel Heroes Only To Destroy Them

Created By Mike Marts, Mike Raicht, Judd Winick, Mike McKone & Jim Calafiore

Morph, Blink and more join Marvel Exiles

The X-Men may have gotten so good at cheating death that they actually became immortal during the Krakoa era. The spin-off series Exiles, however, has no qualms about killing off its characters en masse. In fact, at least a dozen Exiles have died and never returned, and that's not even counting the characters left dead in some of the universes they visit.

Related: 10 Best Marvel Comics That Were Cut Short

The Exiles are mostly characters from alternate Marvel continuities, so their deaths have little impact on the main 616 universe. That said, they leave a large impact on the readers who have suffered through the deaths of some truly beloved mutants.

8 Every One Of The Mighty Mutanimals Died

Created By Ryan Brown & Stephen Murphy

A collage of the death of the Mutanimals, the 90s spinoff team that included Mondo Gecko, Man Ray, and Leatherhead

In the early 90s, numerous comic book companies, animation studios, and video game developers tried to replicate the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with other hip teams composed of anthropomorphized animals. The Mighty Mutanimals ran as a nine-issue series published by Archie Comics with the intention to adapt it into an animated series. The series was canceled, but Mutanimals continued as a backup in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles Adventures.

However, Ryan Brown decided that his team of mutant animals would be better off dead than playing second fiddle to the Turtles. The entire Mutanimals team was killed by assassins in a shockingly dark ending to a lovable team of talking critters.

7 Death Was The Whole Point Of Marvel Zombies

Created By Robert Kirkman & Sean Phillips

Sentry leads a battle against Marvel zombies

Marvel Zombies began as a five-issue limited series written by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, with art by Sean Phillips. The concept proved so popular that Marvel periodically released a miniseries set in the world of the undead superheroes, as well as a crossover with Army of Darkness.

The original Kirkman series, however, ends on a bleak note that leaves little room for a sequel. The only survivors left on Earth are Black Panther, Wasp, and a handful of Magneto's acolytes. The superhero zombies eat Galactus and become a world-destroying collective that travels the cosmos, devouring planets.

6 Battle Royale Is As Bloody As It Sounds

Created By Kousun Takami & Masayuki Taguch

Battle Royale Hiroki Vs Kiriyama

Given that the book it is adapted from is the namesake for an entire genre of last-player-standing multiplayer games, it should come as no surprise that Battle Royale, the manga is packed with casualties. In fact, the manga is even more violent than the very bloody movie adaptation.

Related: 10 Ways Battle Royale Is Different In The Manga

Like the book, Battle Royale is about a class of teenagers who are dropped on an island where they must fight to the death. Much like Hunger Games, which has a similar setup, main characters, secondary characters, heroes, and villains are all killed off without distinction. Only two survivors remain.

5 100 Bullets Killed Even More Characters Than Expected

Created By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso

Agent Graves holds a gun in 100 Bullets from DC Comics

100 Bullets has a premise that lets the reader know up front that many people are going to die. A mysterious businessperson named Agent Graves approaches victims of wrongdoing and offers to kill the perpetrator of that wrongdoing with no strings attached.

But 100 Bullets ended up with an even higher body count than that premise suggested. Over the course of the series, a wide cast of characters with ties to an overarching story were introduced, but every one of these characters is dead by the final page except for three survivors. What started out as a spin on Tales From The Crypt ended as a sprawling Greek tragedy.

4 The Walking Dead Introduced And Killed Numerous Characters

Created By Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore

A zombie bites Carol's neck in Walking Dead comic

Readers going into a comic about zombies are already expecting that most of the characters won't make it out alive. Robert Kirkman still shocked his fans with many of his character deaths in The Walking Dead. His trick was to keep characters around for just long enough that the audience would expect them to survive, then kill them off suddenly and gruesomely.

The first volume of The Walking Dead makes for an overwhelming read because Kirkman introduces so many characters. Considering the number of characters who suffered grisly fates, the huge roster proved necessary.

3 Hitman Was A DC Comic Where Dead Characters Stayed Dead

Created By Garth Ennis & John McRea

Tommy Monoghan and his Friend Natt die in Hitman from DC Comics

The Hitman series had a respectable run from 1996 to 2001, and it remains a cult classic to this day. The series took place in mainline DC continuity, but it always felt like it existed in its own little pocket where the concerns of Batman and Superman were a distance away.

Ennis did not play the resurrection card with Hitman. Characters who died would stay dead, and by the end, many crucial characters had been taken down. Ennis ensured that the titular hitman, Tommy Monaghan, would not be making any more appearances in DC titles when he killed him and his best friend Natt in the final issue.

2 X-Statix Killed Off Multiple Versions Of Its Teams

Created By Mike Allred & Peter Milligan

The X-Statix team fights in artwork by Mike Allred

The cast of the X-Statix, an X-Men spinoff comic, have mostly been resurrected in the pages of the 2022 series The X-Cellent. The original run from 2001 to 2004, killed off not one but two full rosters of the fame-seeking superheroes doubling as reality TV stars.

Related: The 10 Most Obscure Marvel Superheroes With The Weirdest Powers

The first issue with the new team, originally a new incarnation of X-Force, set up an entire cast of wacky mutants obsessed with publicity, only for all but two of them to die by the final page. The series would go on to have a regularly rotating cast of characters, killing them off without remorse and ending the series with the entire team dying again.

1 Saga Breaks Its Fans' Hearts

Created By Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Hazel and Kurti talk in Saga Image comic

In Saga #39, young protagonist Hazel and her friend Kurti, who looks like a meerkat, share an adorable kiss. Three issues later, the comet that Kurti and his family live on is swallowed by an eldritch horror as Kurti begs for his life before dying in a swirling ocean of black. This is just one of many major character deaths in the "War for Phang" arc, and it's indicative of just how little writer Brian K. Vaughan cares about sparing his readers' feelings.

Saga's deaths feel so much more shocking than the deaths in most comics because artist Fiona Staples's beautiful art and Vaughan's silly and imaginative universe make the whole series feel like a children's storybook whenever something violent or sexually explicit isn't happening. Vaughan kills off beloved characters as much as George R.R. Martin or Joss Whedon, and nobody is safe.

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