We’ve all spoken down the pub about how our favorite superhero could destroy another in a fight to the death. Its only natural; it represents a part of us that longs for decisive conflict and, ultimately, for reconciliation and the end of conflict: these types of stories are as old as mankind.
It’s something often left unrealized by the ever-growing amount of comic book movie adaptations. Fear not! The multiverse’s have answered your prayers for blood-letting and offered the opportunity to slake your wroth! Eight is a lucky number to the Chinese – it signifies wealth and prosperity and they seem to be doing alright these days – so, here are eight of the most savage incidences of superhero violence.
8. Split Decisions: Wolverine vs. Hulk
In Damon Lindelof and Leinil Francis Yu‘s Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, Banner goes AWOL and becomes a murderous villain (no one saw that coming?). Everyone’s favourite indestructible mutant, Logan, is hired to take him down but he’s not as keen on the idea as he might be – you may well say he’s torn. When we see the green Goliath being worshiped as a deity by scantily-clad women in a Tibetan temple, it seemed to me like he’d finally won out. Enter Wolverine.
Needless to say, at first, it doesn’t go so well for Logan. We can easily imagine how savage The Hulk is capable of being but its something else altogether to see it with as a two-page spread (see image). The Hulk literally rips Wolverine in two. Wolverine then schleps up a mountain in order to retrieve his legs (easier said than done when you have no legs); later on in the series, he ends up as a head on a tray before being restored to full working order. Bruce, meanwhile, ends up having sex with Betty, jumps out of a plane, and in the end everybody walks away from it okay.
It’s just a shame it took three and a half years to tell the story from beginning to end. How’s that for a shot in the arm? Leg? Head?
WINNER: Hulk
7. Who’s Laughing Now? Batman vs. Joker
The Joker gets Batarang’d in the face and then wriggles himself to death…
In Frank Miller‘s seminal Batman series The Dark Knight Returns, we see a robust Mr. Wayne back from retirement to have a final crack at Gotham’s criminals. All superheroes/vigilantes in America have been outlawed except for Superman, now the government’s bitch, so Batman steps things up a notch: no mercy, no holding back. He even throws out his cardinal rule of no killing and finally finishes The Joker – by proxy… kinda. First Batman throws a Batarang in The Joker’s eye then in the ensuing fight The Joker wriggles himself to death by snapping his own aged spine, but not before he gives Batman a good stabbing. Either way, it took ’em both long enough to finally bring about a fatality.
There’s a shocking finality to it, but it doesn’t fill the void you’d think it would. It’s a sense capitalized on at end of the recent video game Arkham City, Batman carries The Joker’s corpse to the police in the rain and leaves without saying a word. It’s quite sad really; after all, what is Batman without his arch-nemesis?
WINNER: Draw. Joker dies, but still gets the last laugh.
6. Marvel Massacre: Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe
After being (not unreasonably) incarcerated in a mental health institution, Deadpool’s mind is tinkered with, leaving him with a new voice inside his head that pretty much tells him to kill everyone. He turns his tricks to blowing up The Avengers, blowing Spiderman’s brains out and beheading Bruce Banner. He even has a solution to deal with those pesky healing factors: hang ’em in a room with motion-sensor flamethrowers that burn them each time they regenerate. Pretty savage.
Eventually Deadpool decides to kill the writers and then hints that he’ll kill the reader too. I’m still standing, though – well, right now sitting, the point is I’m alive, I think at least. That’s said, Deadpool’s always been unpredictable at the best of times. Who’s to say he hasn’t been biding his time, waiting for a moment of perfect dramatic–
WINNER: Deadpool
5. No Brainer: Zombie vs. Zombie
In the first issue of Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman‘s Marvel Zombies, we see Magneto fleeing for his life before being devoured by a host of meta-human flesh-eaters. As you might quickly guess, this is because the story takes place in an alternate MCU after a zombie apocalypse has turned most of our beloved characters into the ravenous undead.
The super-zombies and super-survivors are understandably pretty much the only ones left with the rest of humanity having quickly bitten the… well, been bitten. At some point, not too long after the Master of Magnetism is munched up, there’s a tussle amongst the remaining undead. In the subsequent chaos, the zombie Red Skull reaches into Captain America’s zombie head and pulls out the last few chunks of his brain, making him go from undead to just plain dead-dead.
It’s certainly disturbing; indeed, I had half a mind to stop reading it there and then… I’ll show myself out.
Winner: Zombie
4. Ares Get the Axe: Wonder Woman vs. Ares
In Wonder Woman Vol. 3 #33, we find another example of the eerie void that’s exposed when a hero or heroine finally murders their opposite number. After Ares launches an attack on Themyscira, Wonder Woman doesn’t mess about, slicing Ares’ skull in half with an axe. I imagine he got quite the splitting headache (again, I’m just… I’m sorry, I have a condition. You think it’s bad for you? For me it’s sheer punishment. Punish… Never mind). Still, Hell hath no fury like a Wonder Woman scorned. “Amazon, what have you done?”… It looks she’s f***ed you up, mate!
So the God of War was finally dead and peace ruled the world thereby ending the need for… oh, nope, mostly he just hangs out in some abstract version of the afterlife being tortured and whatnot. It does make you wonder, however, why more superheroes don’t just off their big bads. It might be a slippery slope and all that, but one life versus the life of millions, one axe blow versus years of picking up the pieces? Well played, Amazon, well played.
WINNER: Wonder Woman
3. You Can Run But You Can’t Glide: Scarlett Spider vs. Green Goblin
The Scarlet Spider was a little-known but very cool 90’s ghetto-chic clone of Spiderman. He was originally created by The Jackal to kill the web-slinger, but he failed, and due to his having all of Peter Parker’s memories the two became confused, neither of them knowing which was the original. The clone took the alias of Ben Reilly and wandered aimlessly around for a few years before making his own costume and becoming The Scarlet Spider.
He’s more stylish than Spiderman, more tenacious, and above all he has an awesome beard, unlike his more popular counterpart’s clean-shavenness. However, while assuming the mantle of Spiderman, he’s bested by the Green Goblin and skewered by his glider as he sacrifices his life to save Peter. Well, if it’s good enough the the Goblin, it’s good enough for the Spider…
My dinner went cold that night because I was in the woods. Crying.
WINNER: Green Goblin
2. Ooh, Burn
http://youtu.be/EIv9XmWXIlM
Okay, so it’s in a video game (Injustice: Gods Among Us), but it still happened in an official publication and that’s good enough for me. It happens after Shazam objects to another of evil Superman’s murderous ploys and you might say Krypton’s Last Son overreacts just a smidge: he freeze breaths Shazam’s mouth shut and then decides to laser vision quite slowly through his head. It won’t appear on the list of approved tactics for your high school debate team, but it does prove fairly effective in silencing critics.
On which note, is anyone else annoyed by the fact that they changed Captain Marvel’s name to Shazam? It’s ridiculous. You can’t just zoom around the place exclaiming your name as a catchphrase; no one can. Well, maybe Batman, maybe, and that’s only because he’s The Goddamn Batman. More to the point, Shazam (formerly known as Captain Marvel) is actually a small child imbued with powers by a wizard and who transforms into a man… when he says “Shazam.” Must make for some awkward introductions. At any rate, the point is that Superman straight-up killed a kid.
And to think people were bitching about Zod…
WINNER: Superman
1. Face Off: Spawn vs. Thamuz
Last but not least, Spawn punches off Thamuz’s face.
Thamuz is a villain from the Spawniverse and the master torturer of hell. During one of the many Armageddons he’s endured, Spawn decides he’s had enough of the guy and punches Thamuz’s face so hard it literally comes off. You probably never heard of Thamuz – frankly neither had I until I started researching this article – but any man who’s had his distinguishing features obliterated, fictional or otherwise, is worthy of our sympathy or at least our intrigue.
You can’t lose much more badly than having your face removed off by a demonic anti-hero; I mean, he’s not even a real honest-to-goodness hero, this is just another day-in-the-life-of for him. Spawn often exacts bloody vengeance on his enemies – being set on fire and damned to Hell tends to shorten one’s capacity for dealing with bulls**t – and violence is certainly common place in the Spawniverse; nonetheless, full facial relocation is always worth making a note of.
Whats your favouritist bloodiest comic book moment ever? Sound off below!