History JokerImmunity / ComicBooks

** For a rather shocking and ironic ''exception'' to this trope, there's the ending of ''VideoGame/{{Batman|Sunsoft}}'' for the NES. The game is based (more or less) on the movie, where, as mentioned earlier, ComicBook/TheJoker plummets to his death. The surprising part is that Batman himself throws Joker out of a building. Nevertheless, this didn't stop Sunsoft from making a sequel to said game called ''Batman: Return of the Joker''.

* In an interview Grant Morrison [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpreted]] that [[spoiler:Batman ''did'' kill The Joker at the end of ComicBook/TheKillingJoke.]]

* Explored multiple times in the webcomic Shortpacked http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=132

* Jigsaw of ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' stands out because his enemy usually kills any adversary he comes across -- ''very'' few Punisher villains are recurring, and nobody's taken more swings at the Punisher than Jigsaw. Frank ''did'' clearly and explicitly kill Jigsaw at one point -- and he was revived in the next issue with voodoo.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'' plays with this concept. Though Robotnik Prime (the BigBad from the main universe) died, he was succeeeded by another, roboticized version of himself from an alternate timeline... one who was originally capable of surviving death for a period in the series. However, he is human again. And continuity tends to treat them as the same character, more or less.

--->'''Punisher''':[[WhatTheHellHero ...You two deserve each other.]]

** ComicBook/DoctorDoom is almost built on this trope, as it has become nearly a certainty that we are never witnessing the man himself in battle. His character dies in most engagements, turning out to be ActuallyADoombot, programmed to impersonate him. Which happens so often that fans have half-jokingly theorized that ''the real Doom has never actually appeared on-panel''. It took damnation to Hell itself to keep the character down, and even then, he escaped.

** The Hobgoblin was originally a LegacyCharacter identity taken up by a succession of villains, but after Roderick Kingsley decisively claimed the mantle (or reclaimed, according to {{Retcon}}s), he acquired the full VIP Joker Immunity package along with generous helpings of ActuallyADoombot to wave away any of his defeats. Notably, he was outright killed by the Phil Urich Hobgoblin as part of that character's JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, only for it to be retconned later that the beheaded Hobgoblin was in fact just another physically identical relative. Eventually Kingsley's going to run out of relations and readers will be treated to a Hobgoblin that's actually Roderick Kingsley's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

** ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} beats even Mystique's example on this one. There's this sword, right? It's basically magical, and can cut through anything and no HealingFactor can do anything with the wounds it makes. An arc of Wolverine's solo comic ends with him relieving archnemesis Sabretooth of his head using this blade. We see him again soon enough... ''in {{Hell}}.'' In a battle in hell, Sabretooth gets his head lopped off ''again.'' (It could happen to anyone once, but twice and you're just being careless.) With a magic hell sword ''SPECIALLY CRAFTED TO DESTROY SOULS.'' Farewell, Sabes. You were a great villain, and you'll be mi-'''''what do you mean he's back alive and well in less than a year?'''''[[note]]He was cloned, if you care. Apparently cloning someone regenerates the soul too, it seems. Despite not even [[Characters/XMenVillains Mr. Sinister]]'s super-technology doing anything of the sort when he created Sabertooth clones in the past. Oh wait, no, Wolverine killed the ''clone''. The real Sabretooth is alive and well. So clones get souls too. In the words of Futurama, "THAT JUST RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS!!!"[[/note]]
* ComicBook/CaptainAmerica's enemy Baron Zemo must have been somewhat popular to constantly return from certain death time and again, always having some barely-acceptable excuse at the ready. He'd fall into boiling-hot glue... but come back to reveal that there had been an escape trap in the vat just in case of an accident. He'd fall off a mansion roof to the concrete waiting below... only to return with a neckbrace, but other than that doing pretty good. Even Zemo once compared one of his deaths to a comic book "demise" and narrated it thusly for Spider-Man.

* Doctor Doom is almost built on this trope, as it has become nearly a certainty that we are never witnessing the man himself in battle. His character dies in most engagements, turning out to be ActuallyADoombot, programmed to impersonate him. Which happens so often that fans have half-jokingly theorized that ''the real Doom has never actually appeared on-panel''. It took damnation to Hell itself to keep the character down, and even then, he escaped.
* Another poster child for this trope would be ComicBook/{{Galactus}}, who has slaughtered untold trillions of seintient aliens in his hunger for planetary energy. As Galactus laid dying during John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four, Mr. Fantastic saved the villains life with NO conditions attached (i.e. staying away from planets with sentient life, stupidity beyond belief).

* The ComicBook/RedSkull practically invented this trope. He doesn't even have his original body anymore. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in issue two of Ed Brubaker's "Captain America", where Cap refuses to believe that Red Skull is truly dead after A GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE HEAD! Unsurprisingly, Cap was right - Skull had used the Cosmic Cube to transfer his mind into someone else's body at the last second.
* ComicBook/SpiderMan:

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/SergioAragonesDestroysDC https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jokerinmunity.JPG]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350: [[MoneyDearBoy Well, is that reason]] '''[[MoneyDearBoy good]]''' [[MoneyDearBoy enough?]]]]

-->'''Joker:''' ''Oh who cares? I've been blown up, thrown down smokestacks, fed to sharks; I'm the Joker! I always survive!''

** Superman deals with this trope as well. LexLuthor for example, despite being a BadassNormal, has long been so embedded into the Superman mythos, that he escapes virtually any hairy situation he gets into. Other Superman villains with varying degrees of Joker immunity might be Brainiac, Mr. Mxyzptlk, The Toyman, Zod and Metallo.
** ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] this trope in ''Comicbook/SupermanBatman'' StoryArc ''WesternAnimation/PublicEnemies''.

** Prior to ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'s death in ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis'', the villain seemed to be an apt representation of this trope. One time when the Hal Jordan Specter "killed" Darkseid, the villain was instantly resurrected. The suggested implication was that Darkseid was a universal necessity needed to represent evil (after all, you supposedly can't have good if there is no evil).

* In the ''Comicbook/{{New 52}}'' universe, heroes such as Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Superman, and Hal Jordan seem to be fine with killing alien invaders in battle. Nevertheless, human villains such as Joker and Deathstroke continue to remain at large.
* Speaking of, this is ''generally'' averted with ComicBook/WonderWoman - in the original [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] comics, she would often reform her ([[FemalesAreMoreInnocent usually-female]]) enemies, and those reformations generally stuck. In more modern times, she still tries to reform them, but if that doesn't work she has ''zero'' problem [[PragmaticHero killing them outright]].[[note]]It helps that a lot of her modern enemies [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman are mythological monsters]] who probably couldn't be put in jail even if she did bring them in alive[[/note]]. This often causes... ''friction'' with her more ThouShaltNotKill teammates in the Justice League.

[[caption-width-right:350: [[MoneyDearBoy Well, Is that reason '''good''' enough?]]]]

** Averted once again in ''Film/Batman1989'', where Joker unambiguously dies by falling off the top of Gotham Cathedral and breaking his skull on the pavement. They even have a long, rotating DiesWideOpen shot to hammer it in. [[SubvertedTrope Then again]], early [[ExecutiveMeddling producers-mandated]] plans for the sequel would have involved him actually surviving/being brought back to life. (In what most would agree is a felicitous turn of events, Creator/TimBurton flat-out refused and made ComicBook/ThePenguin the villain of ''Film/BatmanReturns'' instead.)

* Jigsaw of ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'', to the point that the story arc in ''Punisher War Journal'' by Matt Fraction about him specifically deals with this, as Jigsaw has become smart over the years and even calls the Punisher out on this... mentioning others' opinions that it's due to FoeYay. What makes this a notable example of Joker Immunity is that despite letting him go several times, Frank DID kill Jigsaw several years ago--he was brought back with voodoo or something. In general, Jigsaw is notable because his enemy is the Punisher, who usually kills any adversary he comes across -- ''very'' few Punisher villains are recurring; it's really just Jigsaw and Rapido.

** Averted once again in the 1989 ''Film/{{Batman}}'' film, where Joker unambiguously dies by falling off the top of Gotham Cathedral and breaking his skull on the pavement. They even have a long, rotating DiesWideOpen shot to hammer it in. [[SubvertedTrope Then again]], early [[ExecutiveMeddling producers-mandated]] plans for the sequel would have involved him actually surviving/being brought back to life. (In what most would agree is a felicitous turn of events, Creator/TimBurton flat-out refused and made ComicBook/ThePenguin the villain of ''Film/BatmanReturns'' instead.)

[[caption-width-right:350: [[MoneyDearBoy The real reason this trope exists.]]]]

** ''"Laughter After Midnight"'', a story by Creator/PaulDini in ''ComicBook/TheBatmanAdventures Annual'' #1 deconstructs this trope begining with the Joker falling out of a police blimp after a climactic fight with Batman, and proceeds to show how he spends the rest of his night getting back to one of his lairs. First he survives by falling into a park's lake. Understandably angry that his archenemy threw him from a blimp, he begins a massacre of Gotham's midnight denizens while buying donuts and a paper. He asks Harley to pick him up, but the police are with her. A RedShirt patrolman tries to arrest him and the Joker steals his patrol car. Then the FridgeHorror hits: Batman is TheOnlyOne who can stop Joker, but he believes Joker's dead because he saw him fall from a Zeppelin. So Batman will not come against Joker. For some hours, Joker is unstoppable. The comic ends in an eerie scene with the Joker trying to get home.

* ''ComicBook/{{Warrior}}'':
** An evil spirit (Rock, creator of parts unknown) possessing the Ultimate Warrior's body murders over 42 major world leaders. Apparently secret service was a joke and there was only one witness who was able to testify on television. You can see the laughable absurdity [[http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2011/10/warrior-4.html here]].
** As for the Warrior (and not his possessed body), he seems to possess the Joker immunity as well in an Ultimate Warrior Christmas Special. In that comic book, he murders numerous elves/space aliens, decimates Santa's workshop, and implicitly rapes Santa Claus. Apparently, the Warrior suffers no reprecussions for these crimes. Later on in real life, the Warrior (real name of former WWE wrestler the Ultimate Warrior) would go on to become a right-wing motivational speaker who said that "Queering doesn't make the world work."

** {{S|arcasmMode}}urprisingly, the Joker is resistant to death in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', as well. He can survive long falls and explosions that would kill just about anyone else. One would suspect that, like Team Rocket, the Joker is actually immortal, [[spoiler:if he wasn't ironically one of the few characters to [[KilledOffForReal actually die in the show]], although in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'', Tim is transformed into a clone of the Joker through a microchip, so the Joker returns once again, but is later destroyed. However, Harley falls to her "death" in the same sequence, and later turns out to be reformed and is the grandmother of Dee Dee, two of the Jokerz. And she's ''very'' disappointed in them for turning to a life of crime.]]

** Averted once again in the 1989 ''Film/{{Batman}}'' film, where Joker unambiguously dies by falling off the top of Gotham Cathedral and breaking his skull on the pavement. They even have a long, rotating DiesWideOpen shot to hammer it in.

** In one Batman/Punisher crossover, Batman stops the {{Punisher}} from killing the Joker (although Batman fails to provide a convincing reason why the Joker shouldn't be killed). At least Frank managed to wipe the smile from the Joker's face on realizing Frank really ''was'' going to pull the trigger.

** Played with in ''VideoGame/Injustice2'', where the [[PosthumousCharacter Joker is a playable character]] despite his death in the last game. His interactions with other characters in Arcade Mode provide [[MultipleChoicePast different explanations for why he's here]], including being the Joker [[AlternateUniverse from the main universe]], being this universe's Joker [[BackFromTheDead returned from the dead]], or being a [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind hallucination from Scarecrow's fear toxin]]. Canonically, [[DeadAllAlong this trope is still averted]], and his only role in the story is a fear toxin-induced nightmare from Harley Quinn.

** Galvatron in the UK comic. Simon Furman brought in Galvatron from the Transformers movie, thanks to the magic of time travel, and used him as his principal villain (since the US comics weren't going to use the movie characters at all, meaning Furman didn't have to worry about contradicting the US continuity). Galvatron was used for two years, in which time he got shot, blown up, blasted with missiles and trapped inside a volcano which then exploded with ten times its normal force (due to his own dubious plan to tap the volcano with an energy-siphoning device), but survived each time due to reader popularity. For his final appearance, Galvatron had half his face blown off by an energy weapon so powerful its recoil killed its wielder (Roadbuster) and was then attacked by just about ever single still-breathing character in the comic. He finally died when a rip in the fabric of space/time tore him down to a robotic skeleton and finally consumed him, causing most of the comic readership to breathe a massive sigh of relief.\\
\\
Furman then took over the US comic and decided it was a shame that the US readership had missed out on the Adventures of Insane Unkillable Uber Galvatron, so brought a new version of Galvatron into the comic from a parallel timeline. This Galvatron was somewhat saner than the previous one and wasn't the primary antagonist of the entire series, but him coming back in a new form seemed a bit cheesy given the lengths needed to kill his predecessor.\\
\\
That wasn't even the first time Furman resurrected Galvatron: The UK comic storyline continued with the Autobots from the movie-era future who had helped destroy Galvatron returning to their own time...only to run into Galvatron. It turns out that their intervention in the past had changed history so Galvatron never went back in time and never died.
** An even more and extreme example is Galvatron's creator (sort of) Unicron. Unicron appears in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'' and dies. His head survived as Cybertron's new moon and is revealed to still be functional in several cartoon episodes. The comics set after the movie, which follow a different continuity than the cartoon, also depict him surviving and nearly having a new body built before his head gets blown up, but his essence gets absorbed by the Matrix and occasionally emerges in a demonic spiritual form to wreak havoc. To then confuse things, Furman then proclaimed that a ton of time travel in the comics had changed the timeline so that the movie never happens, allowing the Unicron of the present (1990, in that case) to show up and attack Cybertron before getting killed. Unicron then makes a cameo appearance in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' before going on to be a primary antagonist in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the]] [[Anime/TransformersArmada Uni]][[Anime/TransformersEnergon cron]] [[Anime/TransformersCybertron Trilogy]]. Furman later ruled that Unicron (and his enemy, Primus) exists in every single dimension, timeline and reality of the Transformers Multiverse, and his destruction in one reality has no impact on the others, giving him carte blanche to resurrect Unicron at will no matter how many times or completely he dies.
** Another ''Transformers'' example should surely include Starscream, who repeatedly came back in the cartoon, even after he was killed for real in the movie, as a ghost mind. Heck, he even came back in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars''. Also his most recent incarnation in Animated came back after being killed, thanks to an All Spark fragment, which allowed him to repeatedly come back from then on. There's even a Montage of him being killed by Megatron, his body dumped, and him coming back again. Usually (in G1 materials and some others) it's rationalised by the fact that [[spoiler:his spark is mutated and can't rejoin the Transformer equivalent of the afterlife.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' also had another example in Waspinator, though, unusually for this trope, he was the ButtMonkey of the series. Still, not only did he get blown to bits only to come back again afterwards (to be blown to bits again), but in a very true sense of this trope, he was supposed to be KilledOffForReal at the end of one season, but his Popularity among fans meant they decided against it. Similarly, Inferno was shown to be destroyed - hell, vaporized - at the end of one season, but at the beginning of the next season he was just shown to be extra scorched, though that one was more that the writers hadn't been expecting to get another season...
** Megatron himself should count, given his longevity on the series and repeated monstrous acts.

* The 2001 crossover Joker's Last Laugh was originally intended to have the Joker kill the Elongated Man. Out of disgust, Superman would kill the Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime would then be replaced by a psychic who could help bring out people's worst fears.

* In John Ostrander's writing of ''Comicbook/TheSpectre'', his human host (Jim Coorigan) asks Father Cramer why the Spectre never responded to the murder of Coastal City. Father Cramer suggested that the Spectre was designed by God only to respond to certain cries for vengeance.

** That said, there ''is'' one straight example (barring outright [[JerkassGods Gods]] like Ares or Circe, who are usually ''above'' her weight-class; a "victory" against them usually consists of convincing them to leave humanity alone for a few months) among her villains: the DepravedDwarf Dr. Psycho. This is a guy with ''zero'' interest in reforming, ''very'' deadly PsychicPowers, and an [[SquishyWizard oh-so-breakable human body]]; he's survived so long mostly because he's usually TheHeavy in someone other BigBad's scheme, and is smart enough to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get the hell out of dodge]] before or shortly after Wonder Woman discovers his involvement.

* Speaking of, this is ''generally'' averted with ComicBook/WonderWoman - in the original [[GoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] comics, she would often reform her ([[FemalesAreMoreInnocent usually-female]]) enemies, and those reformations generally stuck. In more modern times, she still tries to reform them, but if that doesn't work she has ''zero'' problem [[PragmaticHero killing them outright]].[[note]]It helps that a lot of her modern enemies [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman are mythological monsters]] who probably couldn't be put in jail even if she did bring them in alive[[/note]]. This often causes... ''friction'' with her more ThouShaltNotKill teammates in the Justice League.