History BodyHorror / ComicBooks

* In the Warrior mini-series, titular character Ultimate Warrior rips the skin off his opponents' chests, which he turns into armbands to wrap around his arms. Lightning then strikes the Warrior, giving him face-paint, and new pants. One video blog reviewer states [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2oFfo8SNg "There are only so many ways that I can say, what the [expletive] people!"]]

* In the two-parter ''Ruins'', Warren Ellis writes about a MarvelUniverse where everything goes wrong. Gamma radiation turns [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk Bruce Banner]] into a green pile of tumors, [[Comicbook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] develops a deadly viral rash from his spider bite, Wolverine is allergic to adamantium, and [[Comicbook/FantasticFour Johnny Storm]] incinerates himself.

* [BeeBeeGun Swarm the Nazi-Made-Of-Bees]] was a Nazi scientist studying bees who [[ILoveNuclearPower exposed them to radiation]], only for them to mutate and [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath devour him down to his bones.]] These bees apparently had a HiveMind, which he became, and lived on as a man made of bees, sometimes wrapped around his human skeleton, sometimes not. This has never really been explored, perhaps because of the absurdity of a colony of telepathic bees with Nazi sympathies, but being devoured and becoming a colony of bees sounds like it would be pretty damn traumatic.

* Similar is the the Basilik's cult cyber-zombie virus from Suicide Squad (the New 52, volume 4). One unfortunately cursed woman was turned into a giant, tentacled blob was thankfully killed (as she requested).

* Cla$$War: " ''Uh ... it appears my left leg has just '''eaten''' your dog''."

* Doppelganger, a villainess introduced in Issue 1 of ''GreenArrow: The Midas Touch'' (Volume 5 of his solo line and the first of the {{New 52}} reboot), is presumably a shapeshifter. Within panels of her first appearance, she [[HulkOut hulks out]], [[GrowingMusclesSequence bulking up]] and [[ClothingDamage shredding a good portion of her]] [[LittleBlackDress slinky black dress]]. Any {{fanservice}} this might have been played for is immediately thrown out the window as she not only grows [[MultiArmedAndDangerous an extra set of arms]], but ''[[MultipleHeadCase a second face]]'' (still stuck to the first one as if it were a conjoined twin) and breaks out into warts. Appropriately so, Ollie quips that she's making him nauseated and her accomplice Supercharge refers to her as a freak when Dynamix (the third member of their villainous trio) wonders where she's been taken after they've all been incarcerated.

* ''JudgeDredd'':

* In the ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}'' comics, this is how the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil evil]] alien Brood reproduce. They were pretty obviously, ah, ''inspired'' by ''Film/{{Alien}}''.
** Oddly enough, the Brood had a HiveMind ''first''.
** The ''X-Men'' comics in general feature many cases of BodyHorror. For every two mutants, one of the two is deformed in some shape or form due to their powers. Making things worse was the notion of when these deformities would manifest themselves; while some mutants are born deformed, others are born normal looking until they reach their teenage years, at which point their mutant powers kick in and they find their bodies warping, turning them from being handsome/beautiful to being hideously disfigured freaks. Even then, it's a crapshoot towards the extent of one's body horror: Angel and Wolverine, for instance, only suffered minor deformities, whereas mutants like Marrow (bones growing out of her body, which had to be broken off at regular intervals like one might cut one's hair), Husk (ability to develop and shed layers of skin of various biological compositions), or Mercury (body turning into a liquid metal substance) manifest far more grotesque variations. This led to Chris Claremont conceiving "The Morlocks": an underground community of homeless mutants, most of which were mutants that were too deformed to fit in with normal society.

* The alien symbiotes from ''{{Spider-Man}}''.
* And ''{{Spider-Man}}'' himself. All the mutations he's undergone, from gaining more arms, to transforming into a giant spider (with a description of his feelings in the process) and what happened to him when he was killed.

* In the two-parter ''Ruins'', Warren Ellis writes about a MarvelUniverse where everything goes wrong. Gamma radiation turns [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk Bruce Banner]] into a green pile of tumors, [[Comicbook/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] develops a deadly viral rash from his spider bite, and [[Comicbook/FantasticFour Johnny Storm]] incinerates himself.
** You forgot to mention Wolverine's allergic reaction to adamantium.

** In Marvel's ''Mutopia X'', Agent Popova (after a failed assassination attempt on Daniel Kaufman) was blackmailed into performing favors for Kaufman by having her surgically altered into what many might consider a hideous (or beautiful) mutant appearance.

* If you think about it, [[BeeBeeGun Swarm the Nazi-Made-Of-Bees]]. He was a Nazi scientist studying bees who [[ILoveNuclearPower exposed them to radiation]], only for them to mutate and [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath devour him down to his bones.]] These bees apparently had a HiveMind, which he became, and lived on as a man made of bees, sometimes wrapped around his human skeleton, sometimes not. This has never really been explored, perhaps because of the absurdity of a colony of telepathic bees with Nazi sympathies, but being devoured and becoming a colony of bees sounds like it would be pretty damn traumatic.

** His Marvel (sort of) equivalent {{Man-Thing}} is potentially even worse.
*** Well, there is virtually nothing left of Ted Sallis's mind left in Man-Thing; Man-Thing doesn't need to cope, because most of the time, he's not even sapient. The fact that all those who know fear are horrifically burned more than makes up for that in terms of BodyHorror.

* ''GlobalFrequency'' kicks off with a story about a man who has been engineered into a killing machine. His body is half gone. His cock has been connected with the parts of his brain that spark up when he kills things. He's still sentient... but just barely.

** Speaking of healing factors, Hulkling of the YoungAvengers was once [[spoiler: vivisected]] And guess what? [[spoiler: His organs move while he's unconcious to protect themselves]]
* There was an 80s (90s?) issue of CaptainAmerica vs Batroc, where the U.S. Agent side-story in the latter part featured a guy who appeared to be undergoing extreme steroid enhancement(to the point that he was paralyzed due to his muscles expanding too much to allow movement).
* Explored in "What If The ComicBook/FantasticFour All Had The Power Of The Thing?"
** Speaking of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards' stretching can cause mild body horror sometimes. Especially if you think about what stretching like that would feel like.
*** Reed doesn't seem to mind. [[CursedWithAwesome He thinks it's useful.]]

* Widespread in the nuclear war wastelands of JudgeDredd (known as the "cursed Earth") with rampant radiation-induced deformities.
* It is common in Judge Dredd's Mega City-One where people willingly inflict body horrors on themselves such as...
** The League of Fatties, whose sporting events include extreme eating and fat contests (the fattest person wins 50,000 creds and tons of endorsement deals).
** Also explored in Judge Dredd (reprinted in Complete Case Files volume 4), were the presence of "ugliness products" (i.e. skin mold cream, tooth decay gel, dead skunk aftershave etc.) that were popular in a society in which any nonmutated human could achieve beauty.
** There were two Judge Dredd stories dealing with humans being mutated into a giant spider. One was told in a tragic manner concerning a woman. The other was told in a comedic manner with the victim being a man.
* There is {{Deadpool}}, whose skin appears to be horrifically burned or surgically removed. At least he has a holographic projector to alter his appearance.
** That's cancer. All of it. He had a healing factor installed in an attempt to cure his cancer, only to have the cancer ''become'' his healing factor. Dude is a walking tumor. Definitely this trope.
*** While fans hated him mostly for his completely different character, the UltimateMarvel version of Deadpool isn't any better; his face is ''gone'', leaving his head a naked skull, with eyeballs and an exposed brain, wrapped in translucent plastic.

* Ultimate Universe RedSkull; not liking the fact that he looked like his father (Captain America), the Red Skull removed his entire face and scalp.
* Cla$$War: " ''Uh ... it appears my left leg has just '''eaten''' your dog'' "
* We learn something like this happened to Johnny Storm while he was held captive by Annihilus. He is repeatedly killed, only to be brought back to life, often times stitched back by worms... it's not very lovely.

* In the Warrior mini-series, titular character Ultimate Warrior rips the skin off his opponents' chests, which he turns into armbands to wrap around his arms. Lightning then strikes the Warrior, giving him face-paint, and new pants. One video blog reviewer states "There are only so many ways that I can say, what the [expletive] people!" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2oFfo8SNg

* Explored in "What If The FantasticFour All Had The Power Of The Thing?"

* In the Warrior mini-series, titular character Ultimate Warrior rips the skin off his opponents' chests, which he turns into armbands to wrap around his arms. Lightning then strikes the Warrior, giving him face-paint, and new pants. One video blog reviewer states "There are only so many ways that I can say, what the [expletive] people!" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2oFfo8SNg

* Eschergirls on tumblr collects unintentional examples from comics, with women posing in painful, anatomically impossible, or [[AlienGeometries non-euclidian]] ways to look sexy.

* {{Rat-Man}} combines this with GoryDiscretionShot. EvilAlbino Janus Valker gets hold of a device that allows travel in parallel dimensions, but that one is malfunctioning and manages to materialize ''every'' other Valker in existence ''simultaneously'' inside the body of the first one. We only get to see an arm erupting from Valker's own arm before cutting to Rat-Man and his friends witnessing it. Their horrified faces and the narration are more than enough.

* Doppelganger, a villainess introduced in Issue 1 of ''GreenArrow: The Midas Touch'' (Volume 5 of his solo line and the first of the {{New 52}} reboot), is presumably a shapeshifter. Within panels of her first appearance, she [[HulkOut hulks out]], [[GrowingMusclesSequence bulking up]] and [[ClothingDamage shredding a good portion of her]] [[LittleBlackDress slinky black dress]]. Any {{fanservice}} this might have been played for is immediately thrown out the window as she not only grows [[MultiArmedAndDangerous an extra set of arms]], but ''[[MultipleHeadCase a second face]]'' (still stuck to the first one as if it were a conjoined twin) and breaks out into warts. Appropriately so, Ollie quips that she's making him nauseated and her accomplice Supercharge refers to her as a freak when Dynamix (the third member of their villainous trio) wonders where she's been taken after they've all been incarcerated.

* In Marvel's ''District X'', one mutant can't sit anywhere for too long because his feet grow roots that break through his shoes and lash him to the ground. After being [[{{Foreshadowing}} cut away from the pavement]] in an early issue, he later [[spoiler: grows into the wall of a sewer channel and essentially becomes an underground tree]].

* ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Collapsing New Empires]]'' has Luke's [[ArtificialLimbs prosthetic right hand]] get infected by an "art virus" that makes it [[http://images.plurk.com/226a6f3f34ebf812cd4a315d1f0d756c.jpg progressively get larger and more ungainly]] until it's a mass as large as his torso and he cuts it off.

* Oftentimes characters who are effectively immortal or have "healing factors" will venture into this territory. ''The Ultimate X-Men'' version of Wolverine has been subjected to such horrors as regrowing his entire body after being decapitated and having the flesh stripped entirely off his bones but still being alive. Orson Scott Card's "Ultimate Iron Man" gives Tony Stark similar powers (for some reason) and has many creepy scenes of him regrowing his various severed limbs (which he loses so often, it becomes a running joke). In a particularly strange example, the Savage Dragon had the mood spoiled during sex when he and his girlfriend are horrified by the sight of his severed arm suddenly and unexpectedly regenerating in a gruesome fashion.
** Speaking of healing factors, Hulkling of the Young Avengers was once [[spoiler: vivisected]] And guess what? [[spoiler: His organs move while he's unconcious to protect themselves]]

* Ultimate Universe Red Skull; not liking the fact that he looked like his father (Captain America), the Red Skull removed his entire face and scalp.

** The ''X-Men'' comics in general feature many cases of BodyHorror. For every two mutants, one of the two is deformed in some shape or form due to their powers. Making things worse was the notion of when these deformities would manifest themselves; while some mutants are born deformed, others are born normal looking until they reach their teenage years, at which point their mutant powers kick in and they find their bodies warping, turning them from being handsome/beautiful to being hideously disfigured freaks. And even then, it's a crapshoot towards the extent of one's body horror: Angel and Wolverine, for instance, only suffered minor deformities, whereas mutants like Marrow (bones growing out of her body, which had to be broken off at regular intervals like one might cut one's hair), Husk (ability to develop and shed layers of skin of various biological compositions), or Mercury (body turning into a liquid metal substance) manifest far more grotesque variations. This led to Chris Claremont conceiving "The Morlocks": an underground community of homeless mutants, most of which were mutants that were too deformed to fit in with normal society.
** How about Masque? A disfigured flesh-warping mutant who got his kicks warping the flesh of anyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with him? When he took over the Morlocks, following the ''Mutant Massacre'', Masque forced the surviving Morlocks to be his playthings, changing their faces and bodies into such horrific abominations, that the bulk of the community were driven irreversibly insane. Part of this motive was based upon the fact that Masque (originally) was immune to his own powers, which drove him mad due to the fact that he could alter anyone's face except his own disfigured face. Thought killed off in the early 1990s, Masque returned in ''Xtreme X-Men'' #36-39, where he was given upgraded powers: he could now use his powers on himself, which he used to render himself genderless as far as showing the ability to warp his own flesh to go from male to female. However, he was still insane in the head and then some: he used his powers to turn Callisto (ex-Morlock leader who Masque hated) into a tentacle-limbed freak and (with help from his fellow Morlocks) assaulted a subway train full of innocent people and used his powers to disfigure each and every person on said train as an act of mutant terrorism.
** Chamber is another X-Man with quite a unique form of mutation; he has a psychic furnace where everything between his upper jaw and diaphragm would normally be. That's no lungs, ribcage, digestive system, etc. Granted, eventually he gets better, but when he loses his power to contain the energy, boom- everything south of his jaw is quite graphically vaporised. And even then, he still lives!

*** Well, there is virtually nothing left of Ted Sallis's mind left in Man-Thing; Man-Thing doesn't need to cope, because most of the time, he's not even sapient. Of course the fact that all those who know fear are horrifically burned more than makes up for that in terms of BodyHorror.
* ''Stone Island''. Harry's transformation into one of the creatures, which starts with him literally puking his guts out and doesn't stop until he's a seven-foot-tall monstrosity with no eyelids, a [[SlasherSmile permanent grin]] in a distorted face, and hideously lengthened skull.
* ''GlobalFrequency'' kicks off with a story about a man who has been engineered into a killing machine. Literally. His body is half gone. His cock has been connected with the parts of his brain that spark up when he kills things. He's still sentient... but just barely.

* Oftentimes characters who are effectively immortal or have "healing factors" will venture into this territory. ''The Ultimate X-Men'' version of Wolverine has been subjected to such horrors as regrowing his entire body after being decapitated and having the flesh stripped entirely off his bones but still being alive. Orson Scott Card's "Ultimate Iron Man" gives Tony Stark similar powers (for some reason) and has many creepy scenes of him regrowing his various severed limbs (which he loses so often, it basically becomes a running joke). In a particularly strange example, the Savage Dragon had the mood spoiled during sex when he and his girlfriend are horrified by the sight of his severed arm suddenly and unexpectedly regenerating in a gruesome fashion.

** That's cancer. All of it. He had a healing factor installed in an attempt to cure his cancer, only to have the cancer basically ''become'' his healing factor. Dude is a walking tumor. Definitely this trope.

* Charles Burns' ''Black Hole''. The entire graphic novel centers around teenagers who are tragically mutated and disfigured by a fictional sexually-transmitted disease.

* SwampThing. Though later retconned into "a plant who thought it was Alec Holland" (surprisingly similar to the Nazi Bee Swarm thanks to a certain infamous memory experiment involving flatworms that wasn't debunked till much later) the original story was a man turning into a strange plant monster, incapable of even speech, and having to try and cope with it.

* In GrantMorrison's first story arc for ''AnimalMan'', the super-powered (and temporarily insane) NatureHero B'wana Beast, in a series of failed attempts to rescue his kidnapped ape friend Djuba, uses his telekinetic helmet to fuse various animals together (including a homeless man and a rat). When Djuba dies from laboratory smallpox inoculation, B'wana Beast avenges her by [[spoiler: fusing her body with that of Dr. Myers, the scientist responsible. The lab technicians, not recognizing their supervisor, prepare to do ape surgery without anesthesia while their fully sentient victim, attempting to stop them, can only grunt "Ma urrs! Ma urrs!"]]

* We learn something like this happened to Johnny Storm while he was held captive by Annihilus. He is repeatedly killed, only to be brought back to life, often times stitched back by worms... it's not very lovely.

** Venom eventually ate the skeleton, but because you can't keep a good Bee-Nazi down, Swarm can now create new bodies by possessing a queen bee and using her hive. He's gone from HighOctaneNightmareFuel to ParanoiaFuel, a rather impressive feat for a fairly lame villain.

* A particularly chilling example from ''Captain Britain'': a fellow named Sid managed to survive an encounter with the omnicidal LivingWeapon known as the Fury, getting away with only a scratch. Unfortunately, the Fury's scratch was infectious, and the results were ''not'' pretty. Not by a long shot.

** The League of Fatties, whose sporting events include extreme eating and fat contests (the fattest person wins 50,000 creds and tons of endorsement deals).

* Oftentimes characters who are effectively immortal of have "healing factors" will venture into this territory. ''The Ultimate X-Men''¨ version of Wolverine has been subjected to such horrors as regrowing his entire body after being decapitated and having the flesh stripped entirely off his bones but still being alive. Orson Scott Card's "Ultimate Iron Man" gives Tony Stark similar powers (for some reason) and has many creepy scenes of him regrowing his various severed limbs (which he loses so often it basically becomes a running joke). In a particularly strange example, the Savage Dragon had the mood spoiled during sex when he and his girlfriend are horrified by the sight of his severed arm suddenly and unexpectedly regenerating in a gruesome fashion.
* There was an 80s(90s?) issue of CaptainAmerica vs Batroc, where the US Agent side-story in the latter part featured a guy who appeared to be undergoing extreme steroid enhancement(to the point that he was paralysed due to his muscles expanding too much to allow movement).

* We learn something like this happened to Johnny Storm while he was held captive by Annihilus. He is repeatedly killed, only to be brought back to life, often times stitched back by worms...It's not very lovely.

** The ''X-Men'' comics in general feature many cases of BodyHorror. For every two mutants, one of the two is deformed in some shape or form due to their powers. Making things worse was the notion of when these deformities would manifest themselves; while some mutants are born deformed, others are born normal looking until they reach their teenage years, at which point their mutant powers kick in and they find their bodies warping, turning them from being handsome/beautiful to being hideously disfigured freaks. And even then, it's a crapshoot towards the extent of one's body horror: Angel and Wolverine for instance only suffered minor deformities, whereas people like Marrow (bones growing out of her body, which had to be broken off at regular intervals like one might cut one's hair), Husk (ability to develop and shed layers of skin of various biological compositions), or Mercury (body turning into a liquid metal substance) manifest far more grotesque variations. This led to Chris Claremont conceiving "The Morlocks": an underground community of homeless mutants, most of which were mutants that were too deformed to fit in with normal society.
** How about Masque? A disfigured flesh warping mutant who got his kicks warping the flesh of anyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with him? When he took over the Morlocks, following the Mutant Massacre, Masque forced the surviving Morlocks to be his playthings, changing their faces and bodies into such horrific abominations, that the bulk of the community were driven irreversibly insane. Part of this motive was based upon the fact that Masque (originally) was immune to his own powers, which drove him mad due to the fact that he could alter anyone's face except his own disfigured face. Though killed off in the early 1990s, Masque returned in ''Xtreme X-Men'' #36-39, where he was given upgraded powers: he could now use his powers on himself, which he used to render himself genderless as far as showing the ability to warp his own flesh to go from male to female. However, he was still insane in the head and then some: he used his powers to turn Callisto (ex-Morlock leader who Masque hated) into a tentacle limbed freak and (with help from his fellow Morlocks) assaulted a Subway train full of innocent people and used his powers to disfigure each and every person on said train as an act of mutant terrorism.

* In Marvel's ''District X'', one mutant can't sit anywhere for too long because his feet grow roots that break through his shoes and lash him to the ground. After being [[{{Foreshadowing}} cut away from the pavement]] in an early issue, he later [[spoiler:grows into the wall of a sewer channel and essentially becomes an underground tree]].

** The ''X-men'' comics in general feature many cases of BodyHorror. For every two mutants, one of the two is deformed in some shape or form due to their powers. Making things worse was the notion of when these deformities would manifest themselves; while some mutants are born deformed, others are born normal looking until they reach their teenage years, at which point their mutant powers kick in and they find their bodies warping, turning them from being handsome/beautiful to being hideously disfigured freaks. And even then, it's a crapshoot towards the extent of one's body horror: Angel and Wolverine for instance only suffered minor deformities, whereas people like Marrow (bones growing out of her body, which had to be broken off at regular intervals like one might cut one's hair), Husk (ability to develop and shed layers of skin of various biological compositions), or Mercury (body turning into a liquid metal substance) manifest far more grotesque variations. This led to Chris Claremont conceiving "The Morlocks": an underground community of homeless mutants, most of which were mutants that were too deformed to fit in with normal society.

* In GrantMorrison's first story arc for ''AnimalMan'', the super-powered (and temporarily insane) NatureHero B'wana Beast, in a series of failed attempts to rescue his kidnapped ape friend Djuba, uses his telekinetic helmet to fuse various animals together (including a homeless man and a rat). When Djuba dies from laboratory smallpox inoculation, B'wana Beast avenges her by [[spoiler:fusing her body with that of Dr. Myers, the scientist responsible. The lab technicians, not recognizing their supervisor, prepare to do ape surgery without anesthesia while their fully sentient victim, attempting to stop them, can only grunt "Ma urrs! Ma urrs!"]]

* Cla$$War: " ''Uh ... it appears my left leg has just '''eaten''' your dog'' "

* Ultimate Universe Red Skull; not liking the fact that he looked like his father (Captain America), the Red Skull removed his entire face and scalp.