History Main / MadeOfIron

** WordOfGod states that O-Chul's Constitution score is in the ''mid-twenties''. In comparison, the average Constitution (health) score is ten. 18 is the normal 1st level human ''maximum''. With normal rules and without magic items you'll need to be around level 8 to reach constitution score of 20, level 16 to reach score 22 and level 20 to reach score 25. All this sacrificing all the others abilities. This means he probably has the Hit Points of an average character ''twice his level''. Also, paladins are traditionally loaded down with class features and abilities that make them rather hard to kill — but O-Chul has mostly fighter levels. Hinjo even remarks that he is the "toughest" Sapphire guardsman.

This trope also our hero to take a bullet in some critical area (chest, shoulder, etc) and [[JustAFleshWound continue to fight as though nothing had happened]], even if they should be OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank.

The polar opposite of this is MadeOfPlasticine. When the character doesn't just shrug off extreme damage but doesn't sustain any damage at all is MadeOfDiamond, a subset of NighInvulnerability. Characters who are Made of Iron, if they die at all, often die {{Rasputinian Death}}s. If two Made of Iron characters go up against each other, it often leads to HowMuchMoreCanHeTake fights. Not to be confused with [[RobotMaid Maid of Iron]].

* O-Chul from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' has survived being in an exploding castle whilst paralyzed, fighting a shark in a tank of acid, and (offscreen) having a staring contest with a basilisk. WordOfGod states that he has a constitution score in the mid twenties -- for reference, fourteen is average and nineteen is the border for superhuman. The villains have taken to placing him in psychotically dangerous situations simply to bet on his survival. This is a man who has ChuckNorris jerky for breakfast.

* ProfessionalWrestling can wander into this when things go wrong and sometimes even when they go right, generally missed completely by the tendency for people to think "knowing how to fall" equates to "falls don't hurt." See [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qFWaCoe78k Hell in the Cell,]] where MickFoley suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a ''dislocated shoulder'' after falling from a twenty-foot height ''twice,'' and still finished the match.
* Another great example is KurtAngle. For the uninitiated, he was in the summer Olympics with a broken neck. No, he didn't get it during the wrestling tournament, he had it before the tryouts. Not only did he convince them to let him compete, he won the gold medal. While he's at times injury prone, his neck at least is made of titanium. This is an understandably large point of pride both for his character and in real life.

* TheUndertaker. At Elimination Chamber 2010, Taker was making his way to the ring in his usual grand fashion (Smoke, fireballs, really slow walk, etc.). Undertaker did his usual pause at the top of the ramp, and was engulfed in flames by an errant fireball. Playing it off as being [[IncrediblyLamePun fired up]], he ran to the ring, and proceeded to wrestle an entire Elimination Chamber match. He then lost his World Heavyweight Championship to ChrisJericho, but nobody's perfect.
* {{Kayfabe}} example: StoneColdSteveAustin uses a forklift to drop a car with TripleH inside from a great height to end Survivor Series 2000. Triple H returns the next week with a bandage.
* Wouldn't you believe it but Zack Ryder has become one. In the month of January 2012, he's been assaulted by Kane in ways that other wrestlers his size would be dead by now. He's been dropped from ten feet in the air, had three powerbombs on his cracked ribs, got chokeslammed through the stage before ''finally'' having to be put away with a Tombstone Piledriver by Kane at the Royal Rumble before he has to be put out for a while.

* '''DEAR GOD''', Terry Funk. The amount of stuff he's went through, it's amazing.
* CodyRhodes is one of those WWE wrestlers who doesn't get injured very often. Case in point, during the November 14, 2012 episode of {{WWE Main Event}}, Rhodes suffered a strained shoulder. Miraculously, Rhodes returned on the December 10, 2012 episode of {{WWE RAW}} (sporting a mustache, nonetheless).

* Grif from WebVideoRedVSBlue. He is repeatedly shot and killed by Sarge and others, o the point of almost being a RunningGag, but always appears alive and fine later on. He's even survived a shot from a tank with no ill effects.

This isn't SuperToughness or NighInvulnerability, where the character ''is'' supernaturally protected from harm. This is the ability to shrug off blows that would disintegrate a human body when you technically shouldn't be able to so Robots, Mutants, Mages, [[KiAttacks Ki using Martial Artists]], etc. ''do not count.'' Having a story-enabled reason for not being a bloody smear immediately takes one out of the running for this trope.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]

* Grif from "Red VS Blue". He is repeatedly shot and killed by Sarge and others, but always appears alive and fine later on.

* Pretty much all members of Mirage squadron in Fanfic/AceCombatEquestriaChronicles.

->''"It'll take more than being tied to a lit keg of explosives and tossed into a pit of acid filled with mutant, acid-resistant flying piranhas equipped with flamethrowers and battle axes while venomous, mechanical, missile-launching [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Morris dancers]] armed with liquid nitrogen harpoon guns are overhead; riding giant rabid killer bees with side-mounted death rays to kill Othar Tryggvassen!"''

->''"It'll take more than being tied to a lit keg of explosives and tossed into a pit of acid filled with mutant, acid-resistant flying piranhas equipped with flamethrowers and battle axes while venomous, mechanical, missile-launching [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Morris dancers]] armed with liquid hydrogen harpoon guns are overhead; riding giant rabid killer bees with side-mounted death rays to kill Othar Tryggvassen!"''

Punch-drunk boxers are the classic real-life example of what happens to someone who takes repeated pummeling damage in many fights year after year. However, the American National Football League presents a better sampling. To survive more than a couple of seasons in the league is a guarantee of a lifetime of painful, lingering damage to battered joints, bones, and connective tissues. That life is also going to be about ten years shorter than that of the average adult American. The heart and body organs build up scar tissue likely to fail when the athlete is in his fifties and sixties. This condition known is as DentedIron.

* O-Chul from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' has survived being in an exploding castle whilst paralyzed, fighting a shark in a tank of acid, and (offscreen) having a staring contest with a basilisk. WordOfGod states that he has a constitution score in the mid twenties. The villains have taken to placing him in psychotically dangerous situations simply to bet on his survival. This is a man who has ChuckNorris jerky for breakfast.

* CodyRhodes is one of those WWE wrestlers who doesn't get injured very often. Case in point, during the November 14, 2012 episode of [[WWE Main Event]], Rhodes suffered a strained shoulder. Miraculously, Rhodes returned on the December 10, 2012 episode of [[WWE RAW]] (sporting a mustache, nonetheless).

Simply put, damage is frequently done to characters that really, really should hurt or incapacitate them, but is easily shaken off. Nobody ever breaks a rib or other bones unless [[ChekhovsGun that specific broken bone becomes important later on]].

Note, this isn't SuperToughness or NighInvulnerability, where the character actually ''is'' supernaturally protected from harm. This is the ability to shrug off blows that would disintegrate a human body when you technically shouldn't be able to. So Robots, Mutants, [[AWizardDidIt Mages]], [[KiAttacks Ki using Martial Artists]], etc. ''do not count.'' Having a story-enabled reason for not being a bloody smear immediately takes one out of the running for this trope.

It can also be argued that certain RequiredSecondaryPowers may also induce this. It is particularly true for SuperHero characters to have "increased strength and endurance" in their portfolio, even if never outright explained or stated. How else can someone whose sole power is [[PlayingWithFire throwing flame]] take being thrown off a multi-story building as no big deal? The line really gets fuzzy between BadassNormal and CharlesAtlasSuperpower where somehow a "normal" person has become invulnerable to the effects of RealLife by apparently just [[HeroicWillpower willing themselves uninjured]]. Modern special effects are somewhat to blame for this, as they frequently up the forces involved to look more dramatic. This sometimes approaches cartoon-esque extremes, such as a person getting [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom smashed through concrete or brick walls]] and being able to get right back up again with only negligible injury.

By extension, blunt damage, [[HardHead concussions]], and other side effects of "non-lethal" fights or a TapOnTheHead never have unintended fatal consequences -- death can only happen with intentionally-lethal weapons, like swords or guns. And even with [[SetSwordsToStun normally-lethal weapons]], the hero may intentionally inflict [[OnlyAFleshWound flesh wounds]] instead of shooting to kill.

This trope also allows our hero to take a bullet in some critical area (chest, shoulder, etc) and [[JustAFleshWound continue to fight as though nothing had happened]], even if they should be OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank.

It also makes you wonder why, for all the supposed beatings they have received themselves over the course of a show, the hero/heroine never suffers any long-term scarring or [[HollywoodHealing lasting physical injury]]. One especially tenacious example is the lack of punch drunkenness, with Nancy Drew and Jimmy Olsen getting knocked out several times in each of any of hundreds of adventures with no long-term brain damage to show for it. Indeed, unrealistic lack of damage from head injuries leads to the widely prevalent subtrope: HardHead.

Punch-drunk boxers are the classic real-life example of what happens to someone who takes repeated pummeling damage in many fights year after year. However, the American National Football League presents a better sampling. To survive more than a couple of seasons in the league is a guarantee of a lifetime of painful, lingering damage to battered joints, bones, and connective tissues. That life is also going to be about ten years shorter than that of the average adult American. The heart and body organs build up scar tissue likely to fail when the athlete is in his fifties and sixties. A condition known as DentedIron.

Between them, MadeOfIron and HollywoodHealing cover the two main varieties of action hero -- the [[ImplacableMan Terminator-type]] that can walk unscathed through a bomb-blast, and the hero who ''does'' get hurt badly but somehow always manages to come back and triumph in the end.

If a person has this kind of durability as a superpower, it's SuperToughness. When the character ''does'' sustain grisly, incapacitating injuries but somehow manages to keep going anyway, it's NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow.

* [[TheAce Ms. Jones]] from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''. Trick one: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=380 a sword bounces from her face]]. Trick two: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=721 place a palm on a wall.]] Close the fist, excavating what concrete happened to fit under the fingers. Who she is wasn't revealed yet, only that she's ''not'' a robot and [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=515 probably]] not a "normal" magic-user either. We already saw one god and one valkyrie at the Court, though... And remember, androids aren't robots, and golems don't count as robots either.
** Ms. Jones probably belongs on {{Complete Immortality}}. [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1113 Latest page]] shows her standing in the magma of the FORMING Earth.

* MadeOfIron/FilmsLiveAction

* Pretty much all members of Mirage squadron in [[Fanfic/AceCombatEquestriaChronicles]].

* Pretty much all members of Mirage squadron in [[Fanfic/AceCombatTheEquestrianWar Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles]].

Between them, MadeofIron and HollywoodHealing cover the two main varieties of action hero -- the [[ImplacableMan Terminator-type]] that can walk unscathed through a bomb-blast, and the hero who ''does'' get hurt badly but somehow always manages to come back and triumph in the end.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Everyone from Anime/{{Redline}} qualifies for just surviving in their cars, but JP and Sonoshee deserve props. JP for surviving at least 4 car crashes (One was at 300 km/h. JP was miraculously unharmed.) that we know of over the course of the movie, 3 without any sort of bodily harm. Sonoshee was in his car in the final crash, both of them with no noticeable harm. [[IncendiaryExponent Oh, and they were both on fire at the time.]]
** Also, Tetsujin. He swallowed not one, but TWO steamlights and survived.
* Russia from ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia''. England who is greatly annoyed with America [[spoiler: decides to take a Busby's Chair (a chair cursed to give whoever sits in it a quick and painful death which has also sent at least 60 men to death) and put it so that America may sit in it and die, however Russia shows up and accidentally sits in the chair, however instead of dying the spell rebounds off Russia and the chair is broken with a disappointed England taping it back together. It's implied that Russia being TOO evil for the chair had something to do with it]]
** The Nations in general can be described as this trope, though Sealand in particular takes the cake for being ''literally'' Made Of Iron (its territory being an old British sea fort).
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}''
** Towards the end of the manga, Integra gets [[spoiler: ''shot in the eye'', nearly point blank]]. She barely even falters and moves forward to finish her task. She also got shot in the shoulder when she was twelve and it barely seemed to bother her. She was even able to pick up a gun and shoot it.
** [[BadassNormal Pip Bernadotte]] gets attacked again and again by Zorin and her mooks, including getting a load of shrapnel in the stomach. It takes [[spoiler: a few shots into his torso and being ''stabbed through the back'' by Zorin's scythe to finally bring him down]], and even then he's able to light a cigarette and give [[spoiler: one last RousingSpeech before he kicks the bucket.]].
* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': ButtMonkey and LethalJokeCharacter Boss had to be to endure the punishment he received and come out of alive.
** ''Anime/GreatMazinger'': TheHero Tetsuya Tsurugi, withstood an incredible punishment throughout the series, being wounded and harmed constantly, and still pushing himself beyond his limits and forcing himself to battle even if the pain was tearing him apart. Several times his adoptive father -TheProfessor Kenzo Kabuto- had to command him to go back to the HomeBase. In the first episode one of the BridgeBunnies marvel at his physical endurance, and Kenzo states it is his strong and sturdy body what lets him pilot Great Mazinger.
* Kibagami Jubei of ''Anime/NinjaScroll'' seems to have a delightful tendency to be put in situations where he is ''repeatedly'' '''smashed''' in the '''solar plexus''' by giants of men, and then still be well enough to kick their asses after a nice glob of [[BloodFromTheMouth vomited blood.]]
* Subverted with Kazuma of ''Anime/{{S-Cry-ed}}'': his right side is unusable outside of battle, and his glove is always on just to hide the scarring from using his Alter.
* ''Manga/{{Trigun}}''
** Vash the Stampede always shoots only to cause [[OnlyAFleshWound flesh wounds]]. The trope was subverted at one point, however, when he inflicted just such a wound... and then panicked and rushed to stop the bleeding -- the wound was far more serious than he'd intended.
** Not to mention Vash himself has taken ungodly amounts of damage, presumably due to his reluctance to kill aggressors. In two separate episodes, we are given a look at Vash's upper body, and he is patchwork of scars and metal.
* Almost every character in ''Manga/ChaosicRune'' can count. Each character fights with creatures that give them sympathy damage of equal magnitude whenever harmed. Since the battles between the creatures usually involve dismemberment, crushing, eating, and acid attacks, most fights end with the characters covered in the most terrifying wounds ever seen in a manga. Since the winner of the battle gets fully healed afterward, the damage usually doesn't stick, though they still have to feel ''all of the pain every time it happens''. The loser usually leaves a horrifying corpse, if they leave one at all. Oddly enough, crosses over with MadeOfPlasticine.
* Spike Spiegel from ''Anime/CowboyBebop''. Over the course of the series, he's taken considerable amounts of pain, among other things he was thrown out of the tower window of an old-style cathedral after a gutshot and then stabbed through the shoulder with a sword. In fact, this, coupled with the demonstrated and implied effectiveness of futuristic medicine in the series, is one of the reasons why some fans believe [[spoiler:he survived the final episode]].
* Most of the cast of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' can have their survival after ridiculous injuries justified by their practice of SupernaturalMartialArts (which is also the generally accepted excuse for them having a HealingFactor or for those who are outright NighInvulnerable).
** Ranma Saotome, specifically, hovers somewhere on the border between this and NighInvulnerable. He has survived massive KamehameHadoken KiAttacks, falls from fantastic heights, being blown up, and enough general physical abuse to turn a battleship into worthless scrap metal, and always manages to shrug it off and keep on going -- even before [[HealingFactor simply healing the damage]]. Fans have theorized, after seeing him survive with mere fleshwounds against Ryû Kumon's [[RazorWind Vacuum Blade]] attacks (which, for comparison, cut a 10 meter tall solid bronze Buddha statue into pieces), that he is, for all practical purposes, bulletproof. Perhaps one of the best examples might be the Golden Pair story arc: when Ranma [[DisproportionateRetribution attacks]] [[HandsomeLech Mikado Sanzen'in]] for stealing [[GenderBender his]] FirstKiss, the resultant "battle" has Ranma headbutt the ice-rink so hard he buries himself in it up to his shoulders, pull himself out without even being fazed (which startles the hell out of his opponent), trip over when making an attack and skid across the length of the rink, ''on his face'', at such speed that he smashes through the rink-wall when he crashes into it, and finally getting pulled into Mikado's "Dance of Death", in which he is repeatedly pummeled on for several minutes straight before being ejected out at high speed and landing hard on his head. He still manages to somersault back onto his feet when asked to stand up, only to slip and fall back down again. By the time he's gotten home, he's fine save for an assortment of scrapes and bruises, needing just a bit of disinfectant and a few bandaids.
** When he first enters the series, Ryôga doesn't really seem to be much tougher then Ranma (though he does evidently have more stamina, courtesy of always having to spend days doing nothing but walk to [[NoSenseOfDirection get to the fight]]), but then he learns the [[NighInvulnerable Bakusai Tenketsu technique]]... in his first battle with it, Ranma's strongest punches have no effect on him, and it takes a focused burst of RapidFireFisticuffs to be able to hurt him at all. Though Ranma does subsequently train himself to be able to punch hard enough to get through Ryôga's defense, he remains the hardest opponent for Ranma to lay out with physical attacks afterward.
** It does not, however, explain [[KidSamurai Tatewaki]] [[LordErrorProne Kunô]].
** This is lampshaded with the BigBad Lord Saffron: the main characters are so used to getting three-ton boulders thrown at them all the time, they are surprised when this is genuinely dangerous to Saffron, being a prince and never having gone through their training. In fact, while he can fend off almost any energy attacks, him NOT being MadeOfIron turns out to be his weakness.
* Another Rumiko Takahashi example: ''Manga/InuYasha'', where even the ordinary humans survive fifty-foot drops and deadly poison with little to no adverse effects.
** The three "ordinary" members of the group, Kagome, Sango and Miroku, have had their fair share of falls, off cliffs or otherwise. They have been poisoned and then trapped in a burning temple, only to recover within minutes after Myoga [[SuckOutThePoison sucks the poison out]].
** When Inuyasha himself [[ShapeshifterModeLock turns human]], he's more vulnerable to damage than in his standard form. This means ''[[NighInvulnerable almost]] [[GoodThingYouCanHeal nothing]]''. Things like blood loss and broken bones only slow him down, if that; and he still displays better-than-average fighting ability, even after (for example) spending several hours being slowly drained of his blood. This could be simple [[{{Determinator}} determinatorism]], but several of the injuries he sustains over the course of the moonless nights are not physically survivable.
* ''Anime/BlackLagoon''. One of the main characters takes an RPG at point blank (not the ''explosion'', but getting hit by the physical object) and escapes with lightly burned skin and a concussion. At a later date, another character survives getting shot in the gut, falling from a second story window and then having the building she fell from collapse on top of her ''while it's on fire'', though she admits that the injuries are more or less fatal and she was lucky to be alive long enough for help to show up. And then there's [[ImplacableMan Roberta]], who isn't Made of Iron so much as [[NighInvulnerable diamond on a solid titanium-tungsten alloy base]].
* Every character from ''Manga/OnePiece''; characters seem only to die in flashbacks (or if you watch the [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] [[{{Macekre}} dub]], [[NeverSayDie never]]).
** One can mention Luffy, who was gored with a hook, thrown into a pit of quicksand and buried there for hours, but was still able to fight Sir Crocodile the next day. Only to have all the water in his body absorbed -- at least momentarily. Then he was poisoned.
** Let's not forget Zoro. He's taken a giant sword-slash to the chest, tried to ''cut off his own feet to escape some chains'', and, during Thriller Bark, [[spoiler:shows his badassery by taking all of Luffy's pain in attack form]]- with the bloody result shown in the page picture (not shown is the blood covered ground spread out several feet around him). Although all he needs to do to recover is put on a few bandages and take a nap. [[spoiler:This is averted after the aforementioned incident with Luffy's pain as Zoro still suffered from those injuries for several battles following it. ]]
*** Spoofed in [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=226 this strip]] of the {{webcomic}} ''VG Cats''.
** Early on, Luffy tells Zoro not to pick up a heavy cage when injured because, according to Luffy, Zoro's guts would spill out. Zoro merely says that he'll stuff them back in. Later on, there's a fight where the opponent keeps going for Zoro's wound. Zoro decides to cut HIMSELF there when he gets tired of this. No wonder Nami won't let Luffy wake up Zoro later on, when he's resting after this fight. Face it, if there weren't laws against death in ''One Piece'', and if Zoro weren't made of iron, he'd be the deadest thing in the universe.
** Every character has done this. BadassNormal Usopp took a four ton bat to the head after being run through some buildings and blown up several times, with the only effect after winning the battle being that he had to run around in a cast for the rest of the day. On the same day, ActionGirl Nami had her foot pierced through by a round spike about an inch in diameter, without even a limp after about a half hour. These are people without powers, considered almost as weak as regular humans. Most legendary, however, was Pell, who [[spoiler:carried a bomb with a two and a half kilometer blast radius, that's roughly a one megaton nuke, high up in the sky to save everyone]] and survived. At one point, a totally random {{mook}} gets an [[{{Flash}} infinite mass kick]] ''to the face'' and survives with only comic relief injuries. ''Every single person'' in ''One Piece'' is Made of Iron.
*** To drive the point home, we have [[spoiler:Caesar Clown, the BigBad of the Punk Hazard arc. He is [[LeanAndMean a lanky, frail-looking man]], yet throughout the Arc, he takes several powerful blows from Luffy, whose SuperStrength is nothing to laugh about. The amount of vigor Luffy puts into each attack only makes you wonder [[HowMuchMoreCanHeTake how Caesar could even take so much damage]]. Sure, he'd reel over in pain, but shortly after, ''he'd recovered from those attacks like they were nothing!'']]
** In the Marineford War there's also [[spoiler:Whitebeard.]] He takes such a ridiculous amount of damage before finally dying that when he eventually does the narrations list all his injuries [[spoiler:he lost half of his face, pierced by a high-power laser, was slashed and stabbed 267 times, hit by 152 bullets, and '''46 cannonballs''']]. And he '''still''' DiedStandingUp.
** Blackbeard is a unique case of this. Because of his power, he absorbs much more pain then a normal person does, which results in him usually yelling in pain. But, as soon as he recovers, it's usually like nothing happened to him.
** ''One Piece'' sometimes [[PlayedForLaughs plays this for laughs]]. When the Straw Hats crash through a wall with a train, a little girl, her pet rabbit and grandmother all comment that they have a nosebleed. Franky points out they should be more severely injured. Luffy comments that this was nothing and tells his crew to get up and they respond by stating "there is no way for a human being to stay uninjured" but when it comes to the "uninjured" part, they all shout it, standing up, completely unharmed.
* The characters from the ''Literature/BattleRoyale'' manga went further and further into this as it went on. Kiriyama was the worst offender; over the course of the manga he gets beaten up, shot, blown up (diving inside a car to avoid the explosion), engaged in a knock-down martial arts fight, shot by a machinegun (he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, but at least one bullet goes through his arm), and blasted in the stomach with a shotgun. His hair and face stay as perfect as when he first came on the island. (This is possibly due to the tendency of characters to point out that NoOneCouldSurviveThat each time he looks like he's dead.)
* Early on, Yasutora Sado from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' fits like a glove. Even before he [[TouchedByVorlons gets his otherworldly powers]], he's able to lift things that many humans can't, and he shrugs off a blow from a falling steel girder. A good one is his telling of a story where he crossed the street and got hit dead on by a motorcyclist...he then carried the cyclist to the nearest hospital. Of course, after he gets his powers... well, [[TheWorfEffect read for yourself]].
** Rather cruelly subverted with [[spoiler: Chojiro Sasakibe]] short ago. [[spoiler: The old man takes a ''giant crossbow quarrel'' to the torso but manages to talk to Yamamoto and relay vital info to him while bleeding profusely, which gives a HopeSpot about his survival. But later we learn that he died shortly afterwards.]]
** While [[TheHeartless Hollows]] are pretty soft comparably (despite being far more heavily armored than their Shinigami enemies), their forms further down the BishounenLine, the Arrancar have iron skin that they call Hierro. Special mention goes to Nnoitra, who claims to have the strongest Hierro, and is probably right, considering that Ichigo and ''Kenpachi's'' swords scrape off of him and ''spark'' when they try to cut him.
* The title character of ''Animation/{{Pucca}}'', although it doesn't come up much. A RunningGag on the series involves a heavy object falling on her head, and her being entirely unaffected, and sometimes said object even breaking.
* ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'': The SeasonalRot envelope is pushed farther near the end, when power levels reach the DBZ scale. The human characters (who have no superhuman powers whatsoever when not in Digimon form) survive planetwrecking attacks with little more than a few bruises. DigiEggs are seen floating by and non-plot-important Digimon aren't, proving that even the highest-level Digimon (who can have at least city-wrecking power) weren't so lucky.
* You wouldn't think so, but Impmon of ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' can take a lot of pain, surviving a very brutal CurbStompBattle and being ''thrown in lava''. This gets taken UpToEleven when he digivolves into Beelzemon--aside from taking two of [[KnightInShiningArmor Gallantmon's]] strongest attacks and walking away a few minutes later, he gets [[spoiler: crucified by the D-Reaper, shot several times in the back, and thrown into a sea of deletion, all occuring within hours if not minutes of each other,]] and ''lives'', although the wounds are treated as very serious and he's unable to fight for the rest of the series.
* ''Manga/ElfenLied'' usually doesn't qualify for this trope, but does in Bandou and Nana's cases.
* Pretty much everyone in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' is able to shrug off high voltage electrical shocks and burns.
** The Team Rocket trio would definitely qualify for this. It's a big part of their JokerImmunity.
** Over the course of the anime and movies, Ash has been electrocuted, burned, had a chandelier dropped on him, [[TakenForGranite petrified]] at least once, ''eaten by a tree'' (long story), and much more. The worst he ever gets is several cuts and bruises.
** In ''Manga/PokemonSpecial'', Criminal agents see the Dex Holders and Gym Leaders as giant crosshairs during battle, so they're expected to take some huge attacks, but Gold earns the medal here. After taking loads of abuse from the Mask of Ice throughout the GSC arc, you'd think the kid would back down at some point, but no. He gets piss drunk on HeroicResolve, goes right back in, and takes some more. The kid takes punishment that would ''kill'' a normal human every time and just comes back for another helping. He may be an IdiotHero, but brute force isn't going to cure him any time soon.
** Amazingly enough, a ''villain'' beats Gold in this department. Sird took an explosion to the face, causing her to fall thousands of feet to the ground, crawled from somewhere around Viridian to Vermillion, and got her leg frozen by Lorelei's ice shackles. Despite all this and being battered and bleeding, she somehow manages to stay on her feet, break free of Lorelei's ice shackles on her own, [[spoiler: and turn five Dex Holders [[TakenForGranite to stone]]]]. '''Damn'''.
* ''Anime/PrettyCure'' in all forms. Enemy attacks are always treated as a serious threat (so it's ''probably'' not NighInvulnerability), and yet somehow nobody ever has any injuries after getting thoroughly pummeled. (Heck, even the aforementioned enemies [[CriticalExistenceFailure are perfectly fine until they eventually die]].) You can tell the {{Magical Girl}}s are losing if they and [[ClothingDamage their costumes have gotten slightly dirty]].
* ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' largely seems to be written about [[MadeOfPlasticine entirely unhealthy deformation of flesh and bones]] or the lack thereof, so it's not that surprising that its main characters are more than a little sturdy. The hero Kenshiro weathers attacks that can effortlessly shear through ''solid steel'' with little but superficial cuts to show for it. The antagonist, Raoh, completely ignores the same, and at one point, basically strangles a suicide fire-bomber AFTER he ignited himself, without being burned.
** In one of the first story arcs, one of the antagonists had the power to literally turn his skin into ''iron''. He could have stayed made of flesh for all that it worked against Kenshiro, though.
* Randel Orland from ''Anime/PumpkinScissors''. Slightly subverted in that while he can ignore injuries that would incapacitate a normal man, he often ends up bedridden in the hospital after the fight's over. (But he's almost always back on duty in time for the next episode.)
* Given the amount of [[AbuseIsOkayWhenItsFemaleOnMale abuse]] that Keitaro takes in ''Manga/LoveHina'', it's a good thing that he is seemingly [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap immortal]]. From the very day he entered Hinata-Sou, he's been at the receiving end of countless [[MegatonPunch Naru Punches]] from Naru, [[ImplausibleFencingPowers Rock-Splitting Slashes]] from Motoko, [[DynamicEntry flying kicks to the head]] from Su. Not to mention attacks from turtle-based mecha (again from Su), kicks to the shin (Sara), and a Frying Pan to the head (Shinobu). [[spoiler: The only time he suffers physical damage that laster for more than a page happens when he breaks his leg... after falling off the rooftop, which would normally kill or seriously harm anyone else.]]
* Heero Yuy of ''GundamWing'' is most definitely made of iron (well, ''Gundanium Alloy'' to be more precise...) Among his greater feats are self-detonating his Gundam ''while standing just outside the cockpit'' and surviving, and falling down a cliff just to get up once he reached the ground. If memory serves, he actually dislocated his leg in the latter, but only had to push the bone back into place afterward, which {{squick}}s the heck out of Duo.
** In an early episode, a doctor observing Heero comments that he has over 200 bruises and broken bones and yet was still walking around as a normal person would. (It should be noted that this was the same episode where he later fell down that cliff.)
** Heero didn't fall off the cliff. He ''jumped''...willingly...from the military hospital he was being held which happened to stand over the cliff (meaning add about 30 or so stories to the height)...''after'' he broke himself free from his bonds through sheer strength (meaning he was already bleeding). And while he had a parachute, he ''barely'' used it, released it, and then rolled the rest of the way to the ground. Both Duo and Sally Po (the nurse observing him) were stunned he not just survived, but essentially walked away from that landing.
** It should be noted that in ''SuperRobotWarsAlpha'', Heero is also apparently one of the few people in the universe capable of remaining conscious after one of Kushua Mizuha's [[GargleBlaster Health Drinks]], which has been known to knock out ''androids''.
* The mages of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' evoke this appearance since they're frequently smashed through walls and perform [[ItsRainingMen hard drops from helicopters]]. However, they wear Barrier Jackets which, while appearing to be made of cloth, give off magical fields for protection. The one time that a non-ArtificialHuman character's Barrier Jacket was completely penetrated, it resulted with said character being hospitalized for nearly a year. The reason she was hospitalized for so long was due to both the injury and the fact that she had overstressed her magic.
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''. Guts is superhumanly tough, able to survive being impaled, carried off several hundred feet into the air, flown at the speed of sound without any protection, than falling hundreds of feet and still be able to fight. And given what he [[TheLegionsOfHell has]] [[EldritchAbomination to]] [[TheJuggernaut face]], you better believe the guy needs it.
* Quite a few characters in ''Anime/RurouniKenshin'' can take inhuman amounts abuse with relatively little effect.
** BigBad Makoto Shishio is without a doubt, the most over the top example. During the final battle against him, he, despite having been shot in the head and burned alive, proves capable of, among other things, blocking the blows of the other superhumanly powerful swordsmen with his ''fingers'', taking a direct punch to the face from [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower superhuman]] BadassNormal Sanosuke with no effect (''Sanosuke's'' hand shatters though), shrugging off a string of sword strikes from the main character, Kenshin that ends up shooting him through a brick wall, and taking a direct blow from Kenshin's ultimate attack (and probably the most powerful attack in the series) and still being able to stand. In the end, it is not these attacks that kill him but his own inhumanly high blood temperature, which causes him to spontaneously combust when he fights for too long. The other characters even assume that he is immortal from all the abuse he takes, although the ''iron plate'' in his head may have something to do with surviving a lot of [[HardHead cranial abuse.]]
** Jinchu arc BigBad Yukishiro Enishi is also an extreme example. The characters remark that he's in such an advanced state of mind over matter that his brain doesn't even recognize pain anymore, to the point where he can even inflict massive pain upon himself and still get up for more.
* Everybody in ''Manga/ZettaiKarenChildren'' seems to be made of iron, since Kaoru likes to throw people around as if there's no tomorrow, causing massive craters everywhere, without considerably hurting anyone.
* ''Manga/GunsmithCats''
** Bean Bandit from. Some of it can be attributed to his subversion of ArmorIsUseless, but that can only go so far. He's been rammed by cars (in ''RidingBean'' he rams one ''back''), mauled at close range with 12 gauge shotgun slugs, punched through walls, and ejected out of his car going over a hundred miles an hour on the highway. And in nearly every one of these case's he has been able to more or less shrug it off and keep fighting. In that last case he ''tried'' to go on, but quickly lost consciousness and needed medical attention. And then just kept going a couple of days later, although it's implied that he used drugs to block the pain until his job was done. He's also seen acting tough and dangerous, and then [[PostVictoryCollapse almost collapsing as soon as he's gotten away the people he wanted to intimidate]].
** Gray is another good example, also qualifying as a ScaryBlackMan. He's muscular enough that he can effectively shield his head and vitals from handgun fire by shielding them with his arms. What does he do after his arms have been shot up? Pop the rounds out by flexing his muscles, and bandage up the arm.
* In ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'', Tsuna takes an inhuman amount of punishment at the hands of Reborn and his guardians - [[ComedicSociopathy especially in the beginning]]. As the series goes on and gets more serious, the damage Tsuna takes tends to be taken a bit more seriously (though, considering that he's just a human, it's still friggin' amazing that his body can easily take heat that ''melts metal'').
* Parodied in ''Manga/DetroitMetalCity'', where the manager of the eponymous band is tough enough to stub out cigarettes on her own tongue.
* The title character in ''Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple'' could easily be the poster boy for this trope. In almost every major fight he's in, he not only takes far more damage than any normal human could even survive, but he often (though not always) goes on to win! His masters even lampshade this, stating that while he may not have any talent for martial arts, he's a genius at taking punishment. It seems to be an in-series joke that Kenichi is ''literally'' made of iron, as whenever he is lifted or thrown, it is noted that he's heavier than you'd expect of someone so short.\\\
Subverted by the fact that two of his masters have a thorough understanding of the human body, and can do things to bring back the recently deceased; and have, on more then one occasion. The one they revived, of course, being Kenichi. Curing a couple dozen broken bones is, by comparison, a trivial thing to them. (Of course, it still hurts... But he's use to pain. If not from the horrible fights, then from the TrainingFromHell.) It's also averted when Tirawit tricks Kenichi into fighting his high school's Karate Club. They are decisively ''not'' Made of Iron as he only taught them attack and not defense moves and Kenichi's attacks leave them badly injured.
* In ''Manga/{{Airmaster}}'' there's Maki. You'd think taking a literal ''bear killing'' punch to the jaw or falling from several stories onto concrete would leave you at least out of commission for a while, but she's back like nothing happened next episode. Credit must be given to the minor characters too though for being able to take a drop kick from a 6' tall muscular girl jumping off a building.
* ''Anime/ReadOrDie'''s Drake Anderson isn't supposed to have any superpowers, but getting sliced to ribbons by the paper users doesn't do anything except make him grit his teeth.
* Partially justified for Seiichirou Kitano in ''Manga/AngelDensetsu''. His inhumane reflexes allow him to move in the same direction of the blows he's receiving, considerably lessening the damage. Played straight with his father who's TheJuggernaut on top of that.
* [[VideoGame/SengokuBasara "Oyakata-sama, most people *die* from a]] [[MegatonPunch punch]] [[SengokuBasara like that."]] Not Yukimura, though -- he just pulls himself out of the wall he was embedded in and [[IdiotHero comes right back for more]].
* ''Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka'' can easily survive falling off a building or getting hit by cars with minimal injury. Perhaps the most extreme case is when he was shot three times rescuing someone from being kidnapped (and before that ran his scouter into their car when it suddenly stopped), but managed to ''walk'' all the way back to school and spend an hour taking an exam before he passed out from blood loss and went into a coma which he got out of in ''days''.
* Jack Rakan from ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' Some of the names he earned included "The Man Who Cannot Die", "The Immortal Fool" and "That damn guy who you can stab with swords all you like and it won't do a damn thing, damnit!" That's a direct quote. He takes the attacks of the title character which were shown to vaporize a 100-m-thick block of solid stone without so much to show for it as a BURN MARK. Even [[BadassInANiceSuit the tuxedo he's wearing]] is totally unharmed. [[spoiler:He does eventually get killed, but it took an opponent who was literally capable of RewritingReality to do it, and even then he put up one hell of a fight. And then came back temporarily 'cause he felt like it.]] [[spoiler:Given some extra time he gets better on his own. Asked by others he just notes that there is nothing impossible when one has strong willpower (proving it applies even to being removed from existence).]]
* The main character of the boxing manga ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'' Makunouchi Ippo is the embodiment of this trope. After almost 900 chapters he has received more hits than all of the other characters combined. During the more critical ones he has been going in and out of consciousness while still standing.
* A lot of characters in the manga ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler'' qualify, but none so well as the Yakuza boss Kaoru Hanayama who, at one point, gets force-fed bullets which explode in his mouth. All that after taking damage which, were it to be accumulated and released all at once, would end all life as we know it. And in his own short spinoff manga series he is shown as being able to withstand enormous water pressure by diving to the bottom of the ocean to release the angling hook which was stuck to a rock below prior to killing a 22 foot long shark. Underwater. Pro angler.
* In ''Manga/MiraiNikki'' Hinata Hino and Mao Kousaka, two {{Unfazed Everym|an}}en, survived multiple stab wounds, and suffered no worse than falling down. Hinata got at least six in her body, scattered around her arms and stomach, and Mao took a knife to the back. They are hospitalised after this. In the same chapter, [[spoiler:Yukiteru Amano survives being dropped two stories in a burning building and is fine after two days, and Yuno Gasai is perfectly fine a day after being stabbed in the stomach.]]
* The characters in ''Manga/SoulEater'' seem to take great amounts of physical damage without it affecting them. In Kid's case, this is justified because, as he states, he is a god. The black blood only enhances this, an example being the fight between Maka and Crona.
* Lunar's father in ''Manga/SetoNoHanayome''. The guy takes a direct hit from a KillSat without even blinking.
* Kiichi from ''ShootfighterTekken'' is essentially a Made of Iron {{Determinator}} who is able to pull off incredibly flexible grappling moves despite always getting hit first, and getting hit first hard enough to permanently incapacitate professional career wrestlers! A week or so after barely eking out a victory, he's back to normal with the standard handful of bandages.
* In the second ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'' movie, Land of Sickness, Kino is kicked '''hard''' [[GroinAttack directly in the breasts]] by a guy wearing combat boots and sent flying across the room. He then steps on her wrist to prevent her reaching her gun, and with little more than a grimace, she [[BadassAdorable still fights him off]] with one of her legs.
* Averted in ''Manga/TheLuciferAndBiscuitHammer''. It doesn't matter how much [[IKnowKarate Kung-Fu a character knows]] getting punched by a golem ''will'' [[ChunkySalsaRule liquify their internal organs]].
* [[PlayingWithFire Natsu]], [[AnIcePerson Gray]], and all the other {{determinator}}s and {{Plucky Girl}}s of ''Manga/FairyTail''. Special mention goes to Erza, who seems that she can survive nearly everything.
** Not to forget Gajeel, who is literally [[ExtraOreDinary made of iron]] to boot
* University headmaster Grant Oldman from ''BattleAthletesVictory'' qualifies. After a botched hijacking attempt means a space shuttle carrying new students is going to crash into the University (it's in space) he simply orders the main training field cleared, steps out onto it, then catches the incoming shuttle and forces it to stop. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UXoprWTD8 See this video]] at the about 4:30 mark.
* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' most characters fall off cliffs, are slammed into rock faces so hard they crack them, and land on their heads after falling or getting throw dozens of feet without getting visibly injured, even if they're not using a jutsu to augment their CharlesAtlasSuperpower.
* Characters in the ''Manga/{{Blame}}''-{{Verse}} suffer massive physical trauma on a regular basis, then opt to walk it off. Justified since a vast majority of the cast are ancient, hyper-advanced cyborgs [[FeelNoPain who view lost limbs with the same nonchalance we would a paper cut]].
* ''Anime/YuGiOh''
** [[Anime/YuGiOh5Ds Yusei Fudo]] has survived the most non-duel beatings, including being bombarded with scrap metal, numerous electrocutions, having shrapnel the size of a dinner plate lodged into his gut, surviving an explosion followed by a 10 plus story drop down a chasm, and just getting up and walking away. And if you see all of his crashes, [[BadassLongcoat Jack's]] a close second in this Title Race.
** Joey/Jonouchi from the original series also counts, as he once managed to recover from a horrible beating and ElectricTorture (before card games became the series focus). Also, he LITERALLY DIED as a result of his duel against Marik, but he recovered surprisingly quickly.
*** Joey's durability seems to extend to his monsters as well; Red Eyes Black Dragon had its wing blown off, Panther Warrior spent about two episodes of ElectricTorture, Garoozi survived being hit by missiles, etc. Yusei's monsters are no second place either; Stardust Dragon has a HealingFactor, Fortress Warrior has an effect that keeps himself from destroyed ''twice'' per turn and [[FeelsNoPain receive no damage]], and Sonic Chick can survive being attack by 1900+ ATK monsters.
* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}''
** Shizuo Heiwajima. [[spoiler:The man gets stabbed in both legs and remarks "Doesn't even hurt." Later, he is shot in the leg and side and ''thinks he slipped in the rain'' until he sees the blood. Afterwards he simply walks to Shinra's house, and is still unfazed by his normally life-threatening wounds.]] Shizuo's apparent superhuman endurance is acknowledged in canon: [[BackAlleyDoctor Shinra]] ''hates'' treating Shizuo, because he never leaves an operation without destroying at least one of his best scalpels in the process. Shizuo's body isn't Made of Iron: ''it's harder than it''.
** Also the three kidnappers from the first episode. Celty hits one of them with her motorcycle and smashes another's face into a wall which leaves behind a huge mess, yet they show up later on no worse for wear. Plus anyone who [[SuperStrength Shizuo]] hits, throws, or punches. Special mention goes to Rokujo Chikage, who takes four steel-crushing punches to the face, [[DefiantToTheEnd yet still has the energy to taunt Shizuo about his lacking sex life]].
** Mention must also be given to [[MagnificentBastard Izaya]] [[KnowledgeBroker Orihara]] who is the regular target of Shizuo's inhuman rage. In their first on-screen confrontation, Shizuo [[FreudWasRight nails Izaya]] by chucking and hitting him ''in the head'' with a vending machine so hard Izaya is thrown several feet. The [[FurAndLoathing snazzily-dressed]] KnifeNut just ''gets up like nothing happened.''
* ''LightNovel/AllisonAndLillia'': Used to absurd effect in the last episode. [[spoiler:Treize was on the roof of a train that ''crashed off a cliff into a ravine''.]] He was missing and presumed dead... then [[spoiler: he shows up a couple weeks later in good enough shape to ''dance''.]]
* ''Manga/DragonBall''. Even characters like Yajirobe and Mr. Satan that never throw a ki-blast survive things that should turn most tanks into smears.
* {{Averted|Trope}}, and almost {{subverted|Trope}} in the {{manhwa}} ''{{Veritas}}''. Through 14 issues, the main character has already suffered at least 5 broken arms, three broken legs and a concussion or two. Oddly, he seems to have done all of that on purpose.
* Everyone in the ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'' universe appears to be indestructible, all the better to enable the slapstick and ComedicSociopathy.
* ''Manga/{{Yaiba}}'': The title character too is quite resilient for his age. Though usually he rarely gets slashed in vital parts, he has also suffered many vicious wounds and he always managed to survive.
* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven'' watchers may wonder why the hell isn't the freaking goal net destroyed as many of the shooting moves are at least half powerful as those in ''Manga/DragonBall Z''.
* {{Deconstructed}} in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. [[spoiler: The reason why magical girls are made of iron is because they are really {{Empty Shell}}s. The true weak spot is their Soul Gems, which are more [[SoulJar meaningful in name]].]] This is also {{Invoked}} by Kyubey, the person who forms the contracts with the girls and knows full well what will happen [[spoiler: if their souls weren't in compact objects and are in their person at the time of their death.]]
* ''Anime/ToAruMajutsuNoIndex'' has Touma, who's odd ability to keep going after taking wounds that would likely kill most people actually ''scares an enemy into insanity'' (of course there was a bit of acting involved with an epic EvilLaugh.) Also to an extent Tsuchimikaido Motoharu, who, since he is somewhat of an esper, essentially starts self-destructing when he uses magic, yet can still stay alive since his esper power is level 0 auto-regeneration; just enough to keep him alive.
* ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler''
** Hinagiku hasn't been shown to be able to withstand things like some of the others on this page, but she was described by one of her friends as a Gundam, and there's no evidence to counter this belief, given that she has the strength and endurance to knock out title character Hayate, continually, who himself doesn't qualify for this trope because of CharlesAtlasSuperpower.
** Luca herself might lack the same physical strength of Hina, but having a serious head injury and still putting on a full show as a IdolSinger, shows she has the endurance, also without the background to explain it away.
* ''Manga/SilverDiamond'': Chigusa takes most of the damage for the team, usually to such extremes that would kill a normal man- and all of his wounds heal in ''seconds''. In his case, though, it's more being made of ''plant'' than being made of iron.
* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': Kamina is tough enough that he can survive [[spoiler:being killed for long enough to avenge his own death]]
* ''Anime/MawaruPenguindrum'' gives us Shouma Takakura. The guy gets [[spoiler:hit by a car at full speed to [[DivingSave save his friend Ringo]]'s life]] and ''barely suffers more than few bumps''.
** His brother Kanba survived being dragged several miles by a speeding truck along asphalt, returning with only [[ClothingDamage ripped clothes]] and some scrapes and bruises. [[spoiler: It's not a genetic trait, actually: Kanba is adopted.]]
* Here's a fun DrinkingGame for those up for it: Watch ''GuiltyCrown'' and take a shot every time a character is inside the 'near-miss' zone (i.e. about five feet away from the impact site) of an explosion and comes out of it untouched. You'll be drunk after five minutes. You'll be pickled after two hours if you marathon episodes. At one point, someone ([[spoiler:it's Shuu, for those interested]]) gets their arm severed at the elbow without medical attention and doesn't even start bleeding, much less bleed out.
* In ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'', the [[BlueBlood Armstrong]] Secrets of Durability have been passed down the family line for '''[[RunningGag GENERATIONS!!!]]''' With the amount of punishment [[MajorlyAwesome Major]] [[LargeHam Alex]] [[CampGay Louise]] [[HeroicBuild Armstrong]] withstands, you'd think he was a Homunculus. But he's not.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* It's actually pretty common that when comic book characters fight, characters with superpowers take superpowered hits without serious injury, ''even though their superpowers have nothing to do with superhuman strength or endurance''. I.E. a character whose ability is to shoot EyeBeams can be punched through a concrete wall, pick themselves back up, and continue fighting as though nothing happened.
* In one of the earlier issues of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'', Superman literally ''punches'' LexLuthor through a ''three-foot thick brick wall''. Lex's only reply? "You can hit!" He was electrically charged at the time, so he had superhuman attributes (though not to the extent of Superman).
* Many characters in FrankMiller's ''SinCity'' exhibit this trait to an incredible degree. Made of Iron is probably Miller's all-time favorite character trope for male protagonists. He just loves guys who can take an appalling level of punishment from vastly superior opponents through force of will, strength of character, or just innate badassery.
** Two characters who seem particularly adept at shrugging off damage are Manute and Marv, who require really extreme trauma to [[spoiler:be eventually killed: Manute in a hail of bullets courtesy of an army of prostitutes; Marv by being electrocuted in the electric chair - although notably, Marv doesn't die until the ''second time in a row'' he's electrocuted.]]
-->'''Marv:''' Is that the best you can do, you pansies?
** The animalistic Kevin is so good at ''avoiding'' damage that he doesn't get a chance to display his durability much, but the fact that he can survive being [[spoiler:dismembered, eaten alive by a wolf, and eventually disemboweled, without even making a sound, until he's finally killed by decapitation]] indicates that he's got a lot of iron in him as well.
* {{Batman}}
** This is sometimes subverted, as several older incarnations (''TheDarkKnightReturns'', ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'', ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'') are noticeably battered by the years of combat. ''Kingdom's'' Bats must use a full-body exoskeleton just to get around.
** The more recent comic books (i.e. ''Hush'') tend to show Batman's upper body as pretty much a mass of scar tissue by this point.
** [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2000}} Cassandra Cain]] is at least as bad about this. She usually gets out of the way, but when obliged to take a bullet she can do so and not even flinch. It's mainly [[TrainingFromHell practice]].
--->'''Robin:''' Are those... exit wounds? But they're so big.\\
'''Batgirl:''' I... grew.
* Subverted to tragic effect in an issue of ''ElfQuest'', where a couple of boys from a human tribe throw a stone from a sling to knock an elf off of a high tree branch, believing that elves are indestructible. They're not. The elf breaks his back. [[spoiler:The elves ''do'' have magical healers, but the injured elf is found and killed by the boys' grown-up relatives.]]
* {{Daredevil}}. One of the more memorable examples would be the time when he not only survives taking casual slaps from the [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Hulk]], but [[UpToEleven keeps getting back up to confront the not-so-jolly-green giant again]]. Not surprisingly, this trait was one of the things that Frank Miller left as his legacy with the character.
* Often prominent with ''ThePunisher'', particularly as written by GarthEnnis.
** At one point, the title character was seen walking upright with a stabbed liver. The irony of this is that Ennis claims to hate powered superheroes, while constantly [[BadassNormal playing up all-human characters]] with [[CharlesAtlasSuperPower superhuman feats]].
** It remains to be seen what future authors will do with the character in terms of this, since Ennis is leaving the character after eight years, his current story arc being the final one, and other writers have already started. In the two thus far published stories, the ''Punisher MAX Annual'' #1 and ''Punisher MAX: Force of Nature'', he doesn't take so much damage as to invoke this trope.
** In one of the Ennis ''Punisher MAX'' stories Frank takes a shotgun blast to the side that removes a big chunk, including an entire rib bone. One would expect Frank to stumble off and let himself heal in the manner that an ''extremely'' well-trained and diligent former Marine would do. But with the shotgun wound, Frank continues to fight on... not even bleeding. In the same story TheDragon gets impaled, shot, beaten, further impaled, his face quite literally blown off and lives several moments past that, before finally snuffing it.
** It's implied in ''Punisher: Born'' that Castle's near-inhuman ability to survive damage that would kill anyone else is that he made an unconscious pact with [[TheGrimReaper death]] during TheVietnamWar that would let him continue to fight a war that never ended - for a price.
** In Jason Aaron's Punisher MAX run, the continuation of Ennis' run, Frank's years of injuries are finally starting to catch up to him. A doctor flat out tells him that his body is a wreck and will only get worse. However, in the same series Frank takes an extraordinary amount of damage. In one night he gets stabbed several times with a sai (including one through his forearm) and takes several gunshots (including one self-inflicted one through the left chest-shoulder area to hit someone behind him). Then he walks across town and is met with no less than six more gunshots, gets his head smashed both through a car window and against a fire hydrant. He remains conscious long enough to walk back into the city then back into the suburbs before passing out. [[spoiler:The trope is ultimate averted when Frank succumbs to his injuries.]]
** And '''OH GOD''', all the shit it took to kill Max! Bullseye, The Menonite and Barracuda, think Pittsy, TheDragon mentioned above, times five. And The Menonite was a Amish guy! Okay, he used to be a mob enforcer before turning Amish, but still!
* ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'' subteam ''[[NewMutants The New Mutants]]''. Roberto [=DaCosta=] has super-strength, but not super-durability. He's explicitly just as vulnerable as any Joe [=SixPack=]... but somehow still survives nonsense like getting tackled through a brick wall. A degree of superhuman durability is pretty much a RequiredSecondaryPower for any character possessing superhuman strength, as super-durable muscle fibers would necessarily result in super-durable muscle tissue, protecting most everything but the eyes.
* In both the comic and movie versions of ''VForVendetta'' this trope enables V to pull off a subversion of the InstantDeathBullet and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome, no less:
-->'''V:''' Did you think to kill me? There's no flesh and blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bullet-proof.
* Tallulah Black from ''JonahHex'' has survived things like being shot in the head, being horribly mutilated, and [[spoiler:having a baby cut out of her]]. And of course, Hex himself has gone through all of the above (except the last bit) and more ''many'' times, and with only 19th century frontier medicine (sometimes!) available to bring him back.
* ComicBook/SgtRock often takes a hell of a beating. This trope also applies, unsurprisingly, to his ArchEnemy, "The Iron Major".
* {{Taskmaster}}. Neither getting rammed by a speeding car, nor shot repeatedly, nor being kicked in the face by an enraged {{Spider-Man}} so hard that his body punches an economy-sized hole through the (in all likelihood heavily armoured) wall of the armoury in his hideout/gym will do more than slow him down momentarily.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Cruelty}}'', Reis Northcotte is bloodied by a punch and [[GroinAttack kneed in the groin]], but just shrugs it off and kicks his attackers' asses. [[spoiler:This tips off the school nurse that Reis is [[FunctionalAddict drugged to the gills.]]]]

[[folder:Fan Fic]]
* In the JackieChanAdventures and ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' crossover fic ''Fanfic/AShadowOfTheTitans'', Jade lampshades how tough the Titans and other inhabitants of the TT world are. Subverted with Kitten, who foolishly insults Jade in the Tournament of Villainesses, hitting a BeserkButton and causing her to get blasted by the Dragon Talisman, nearly killing her and giving Jade an MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment (she lampshades the inconsistency).
* In the JackieChanAdventures fic ''Fanfic/QueenOfAllOni'' by the same author, this version of Jade has increased strength, a HealingFactor, and increased durability after her transformation, and has been thrown through walls and down hills and gotten right back up afterwards (she claims she DOES bruise, but it can't be seen against her skin).
* [[KillerRobot Shadow]] from ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'', who at one point survives [[KillItWithFire several blasts of fire]], [[MakeMeWannaShout the Scream Horn]], ''and'' [[FrickinLaserBeams several lasers]] from the heroes.
* ''FanFic/ClashOfTheElements'': Alex Whiter has a ridiculous record of getting hit with attacks that would kill any normal human, which is a bit crazy considering that in spite of his flight he only has an above-average level of strength. Of course, when one takes into considering his {{Determinator}} status...
* The two best examples of this trope in ''FanFic/YouGotHaruhiRolled'' are Haruhi surviving a blimp crashing on her, and Kyouko surviving get thrown under a trolley, [[TheCatCameBack much to Sasaki's annoyance]].

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* Gru from ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe''. He was able to survive the rockets and missiles from Vector's base, with the exception that he's completly covers with ash.
* Nigel from ''{{WesternAnimation/Rio}}''. Although he survived the turbines of the smuggler's plane, he lost most of his feathers and was made fun by the marmosets.
* Kent Mansley of ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'' is always getting bashed into things but manages to pop back up again. Maybe he's just that serious about stopping the robot.
* Jack Skellington of ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'' manages to get shot down by ''anti-aircraft flak guns'' without being blown to pieces. This could be justified, however, by the coffin sleigh taking most of the blow. However, this does not explain how at least a ''mile-high fall onto a stone angel'' didn't break any of his bones (the impact from the fall ''did'' seem to be strong enough to knock off his jawbone, however). This all still could be justified by the fact that Jack's undead, so he would not feel pain, if it weren't for an earlier scene where [[StalkerWithACrush Sally]] accidentally pokes Jack's finger with a needle, and he yelps in pain. [[MindScrew It's a little confusing]].

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Franchise/IndianaJones. [[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuke%20the%20fridge Frigidaire should use him as a celebrity spokesman]].
* [[spoiler:Luz]] from ''Film/{{Machete}}''.
** [[spoiler:"What eye?"]]
* The ''Film/DieHard'' movies:
** John [=McClane=] fits the get-badly-hurt type to a tee. In the fourth film, he keeps taking enough damage to kill a man 3 or 4 times, yet he still wipes out an entire assault squad occupying a building, destroys a chopper with a police cruiser and a ramp, kills an enemy ActionGirl with a Ford Explorer and an elevator pit, takes out a fighter plane with a big truck and an elevated highway, and [[spoiler:shoots himself in the shoulder to kill the BigBad that was holding a gun against him]]. And all he needs to get patched up after all this is a calm ride in the ambulance.
** The ActionGirl is also absurdly Made of Iron -- she survives being hit by the Explorer, being smashed through a few walls, and even being slammed between the Explorer and a solid concrete wall. She was still beating the crap out of John after all this.
** Although the first film was mainly designed as a subversion of the trope (so... [[{{Sequelitis}} yeah]]), and got a lot of attention for how unlike a lot of popular action movies at the time, the hero picked up several injuries over the course of the film and looked like he'd been through a warzone at the end.
* Subversion: Matt Murdock in ''Film/{{Daredevil}}'' is shown spitting out a broken/dislodged tooth after his first on-screen fight, and it might take less time to show how much of his body ''isn't'' scarred. His medicine cabinet is also shown to be absolutely stuffed full of painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin, suggesting that he could teach Dr. Series/{{House}} a thing or two about living with pain.
* {{Deconstruct|ion}}ed in the movie ''{{Unbreakable}}''. The character in question is the sole survivor of a wild train wreck. His super-fortitude is the basis for the plot.
* ''Film/JamesBond''
** The villain Jaws takes massive amounts of punishment in his appearances in ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' and ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' and still survives. (His ''teeth'' and ''balls'' are literally made of iron -or steel, more accurately.)
** In ''Film/GoldenEye'', somehow, some way, Janus is not killed by being inside a chemical weapons plant when it exploded... even though ''he is standing right next to the gas tanks with the explosives on them''. The worst he walked away with was slight scarring on the side of his face. Then he survived [[spoiler:what seems to be a ''1-mile-fall'' from a giant parabolic antenna and into an empty, concrete dam. Granted, he wasn't in great shape, but he was still alive.]] How a regular human could survive this is a downright impossibility. It took [[spoiler:the entire antenna collapsing on top of his head]] to finally kill him.
** Much of the plot of ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough'' revolves around the fact that Bond gets a tough-to-heal-from injury early in the film. Doesn't stop him from kicking butt, he just winces manfully when the injury is smacked around.
** Mild LampshadeHanging in the unofficial film ''Film/NeverSayNeverAgain''. Bond visits a health spa in the opening of the film and a doctor notes that his body "seems to be mainly scar tissue".
* While the blows sustained by Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the ''Film/{{Spider-Man}}'' films may be explained by his newly acquired superpowers, no such explanation is given for how Doctor Octopus -- a comparatively weak, fleshy human -- can take more than a single punch to the jaw from the super-strong hero.
* In ''Film/WildWildWest'', WillSmith's character climbs up the antagonist's giant robotic spider, only to be shot point blank in the chest with a flintlock pistol. It is explained how he survives the shot -- as it turns out, he has a chain mail vest made to stop bullets -- but there is no explanation how, after the shot knocked him off the spider, he was able to survive falling 5 stories to land on his back.
* ''Film/{{Rocky}}''
** The worst offender may be ''RockyII'', where in their climactic rematch, Apollo Creed gives him twenty consecutive, unanswered shots to the face. More than once.
** The sound of blows landing in ''RockyIII'' is dubbed in astonishingly loud, more akin to shotgun blasts than to fists; during their climactic fight, Rocky and Clubber Lang trade punches that seem like they would decapitate a normal human being.
** ''RockyIV'':
-->'''Drago:''' He's not human. He's like a piece of iron.
** Fun fact: in that last one, DolphLundgren actually broke a couple of [[SylvesterStallone Sly's]] ribs.
* [[AuthorityEqualsAssKicking Crime lord]] Bill takes this to ridiculous extremes in the film ''Beauty Investigators''. After being shot in the heart, he still manages to beat a ninja in a fight. Later, his leg is broken almost to the point of a compound fracture, and not five minutes later he's walking with a slight limp.
* ''HomeAlone'': Harry and Marv should have been dead by the end of the second movie.
* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'': Much of the plot revolves around several people [[spoiler:traveling across the city to rescue a friend they know is injured. Said friend has rebar through her upper right shoulder. Holed-Woman then runs amok with this injury, arms akimbo and ''survives'' a helicopter crash.]] More than the people, we'd say the camera is made of iron, as it survives as much and more than they do.
* The ''Franchise/EvilDead'' series. Ash is a normal human, but takes enough punishment from the dead and from the sets, [[spoiler:at one point even cutting off his own hand]], to put anyone into shock. However, this is mildly subverted in that he seems vulnerable to wood.
* JasonStatham as Chev Cellios in ''Film/{{Crank}}''. The original film was already well within RefugeInAudacity territory. [[CrankHighVoltage the sequel even more so]]! (With a healthy dose of WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs)
* Michael Myers from ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'' started out Made of Iron, but it was later {{retcon}}ned into supernatural NighInvulnerability.
* ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen''. Sam Witwicky gets dropped a few stories, tossed around by giant robots, caught in the middle of friendly fire -- only the latter actually has any effect on him. Despite having a [=Mk84=] bomb which causes lethal fragmentation up to 400 yards dropped about 100 feet behind him.
* The heroes in ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'' don't have any superpowers, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan. Still, in the movie, they take (and deal) some kicks and punches that ought to break bones and somehow don't, unless they're fighting mooks, [[MadeOfPlasticine which tend to snap much easier]].
* ''Series/CharliesAngels: Full Throttle'' is full of these moments. The DemiMoore character is thrown from a car moving 40 or 50mph and not only survives but continues to fight.
* ''Film/UrbanLegend'': [[spoiler: Brenda Bates]] is shot in a shoulder, then in the chest, falling from a third-story window. Then, she tries to axe down the good guys, only to fly through the windscreen and falling off a bridge. Seconds after, she's shown in another college, telling THE tale.
* ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' Curly is famous for his harder-than-average head. In various shorts, Moe would use a saw or a pickaxe on Curly's cranium, only to find that the points of said tools bent afterward.
* Captain Kirk in the [[Film/StarTrek new movie]] takes some pretty serious beatings: in approximately a single day, he gets the everliving crap beaten out of him by Romulans before Sulu saves his butt, nearly falls to his death on Vulcan trying to save Sulu's butt, nearly eaten by two monsters on an ice planet, Spock kicks his ass and nearly strangles him to death, then the Romulans beat the everliving crap out of him yet again. And yet he's still standing.
** One might hand-wave this away with some off-screen future medical tech (which conveniently leaves the rugged bruises and abrasions alone).
* [[NoNameGiven The Narrator]] in ''The Perfect Sleep''. Although he does get sliced and shot, mostly he just gets punched...''a lot'': He gets beaten to a bloody pulp five times during the course of one night by five different groups of highly motivated thugs, yet somehow remains functional enough to kill most of them and make it to the FinalBattle with [[TheDon Nikolai]]. In the ShirtlessScene, we see he has hundreds of horrific scars from years of abuse--as his drug-dosing doctor pal calls it, "the tapestry of pain". His ability to withstand pain and death is pretty much supernatural, as he admits himself:
-->''Walter's boys just gave me a beating that will have ''them'' waking up sore in the morning. I should be on death’s door. Walter thinks so. [[BreakingTheFourthWall And you probably think so too.]] ''
* The titular ''Film/{{Darkman}}'', who gets caught in an explosion and loses all sense of touch. His body overproduces adrenaline as a result, giving him SuperStrength and super-endurance as side effects. He ''can'' get hurt, but he tends to ignore it most of the time.
* [[ColonelBadass Colonel Quaritch]] from ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', obviously.
* FrankensteinsMonster (of course) in Universal's ''Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'' films. But then there's Ygor from ''Film/SonOfFrankenstein'', who survived [[TheManTheyCouldntHang being hanged]] prior to film's events. He is shot in the end, but survives even that, and returns for ''Film/TheGhostOfFrankenstein''. And then [[GoneHorriblyRight his brain is put into the Monster's body]].[[note]](However he goes blind from this because their blood types are incompatible)[[/note]]
* [[CatsHaveNineLives Catwoman becomes this at the end of]] ''Film/BatmanReturns''. We had previously seen her survive falls from three separate tall buildings, but two of those falls were played for dark comedy, making her an IronButtmonkey. What shifts her into this trope is her CrazyAwesome act of defiance in the movie's climax, where the BigBad shoots her four times but she ''just keeps coming'', and then uses a stun gun, an exposed fuse box and her own saliva to electrocute them both....and ''lives''.
* ''Film/IronMan''
** Obvious jokes aside, the recent movie version of Tony Stark appears to be able to shrug off blows that should render his head the consistency of [[ChunkySalsaRule chunky salsa]], both in and out of the power suit. The flight tests, for example. He also seems to ignore a [[spoiler:GAPING HOLE IN HIS RIBCAGE]], that should make it impossible for him to breathe unassisted, let alone fight. While [[spoiler:escaping from the terrorists in the first act]], he also falls in a "powered descent" (!) into a dune with enough force to destroy a solid-metal power suit, yet all his squishy meat and bones remain unharmed.
** Not to mention that Tony nails Rhodey in the head with a barbell and weights, the concussive force of which should have shattered every bone in War Machine's head even with the suit on.
* All the protagonists in Film/TheMatrix, as well as the Agents persueing them.
* Spotted Horse in ''TheQuickAndTheDead''. How many times do you have to shoot a man to kill him?
* ''Botany Bay''. This is an oldie loosely based on the sending of the First Fleet to Australia, and what the hero had to endure aboard ship should have turned him into shark-bait. Not just mercilessly flogged. but keelhauled ''twice over'', and then confined in a leaky brig with icy seawater constantly seeping in! To cap it off, the actor wasn't a big hulking man, but slightly built and delicate-featured Alan Ladd.
* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'': Before Jason Voorhees became the demon zombie killer we all know, he was just an ordinary mentally handicapped and deformed backwoods killer who could shrug off things like [[Film/FridayThe13thPart2 a machete through his collarbone]] and [[Film/FridayThe13thPartIII being hanged]].
* Marv from ''SinCity''. Hit several times by a speeding car without a single broken bone.
** Hartigan also qualifies, [[BeatStillMyHeart except for a detail]].
--> ''Hartigan'': Just one hour to go. My last day on the job. Early retirement. Not my idea. Doctor's orders. Heart condition. Angina, he calls it.
* Implied with Eric in ''MysteryTeam'', who tells [[spoiler: Jason]] to shrug off a bullet wound, stating he had been shot three times. Keep in mind that Eric is seven.
* In Act III of ''Film/ConAir'', Cameron Poe doesn't even flinch after getting shot clean through the bicep; instead, Poe effortlessly disarms the shooter and knocks him out. The wound is adequately dressed with a very thin strip of fabric, and Poe's arm retains full mobility through the rest of the movie.
* Inigo Montoya at the climax of his story in ''Film/ThePrincessBride''. He's been hit in the belly with a thrown dagger, which clearly has been embedded up to the hilt. This is a very dangerous wound in modern times, in the setting it's the kind of wound where if you're LUCKY, you bleed to death. (If you're unlucky, you die of the infection. Peritonitis is a VERY unpleasant way to go.) Within a couple of minutes, he's shrugged it off and inflicted a humiliating beat down on the man he's been hunting since he was a boy, followed by an awesome PreMortemOneLiner:
-->'''Inigo:''' Offer me everything I ask for!\\
'''Rugen:''' Anything you want!\\
'''Inigo:''' ''(stab with sword)'' I want my FATHER BACK, you son of a bitch!
* In ''{{Snatch}}'', Boris the Bullet-Dodger doesn't so much dodge bullets as absorb them. He also survives being trapped in a car trunk during an accident and being hit head-on by a van without even being noticeably slowed down.
* In ''SupermanReturns'' Lois takes quite a beating throughout the film, such as being thrown about in a plane as it plummets, and having a heavy object fall on her, but the worse injury she seems to suffer is being knocked unconscious for a few minutes, and she recovers just in time to save Superman.
* Matsu in the ''Film/JoshuuSasori'' series: Clubbed unconscious, hogtied for several days (during which time she's beaten with truncheons and has scalding soup poured on her), forced to dig holes for about 36 hours non-stop, tied up and used as a stress-relief piñata, tortured with a hot lightbulb...still watchful, alert and ready to escape at a moment's notice. And that's just the first film.
* [[spoiler:Wang Fuming]] from ''BodyguardsAndAssassin'' walks is only killed when he gets stabbed several times each by dozens of times by assassins. What really makes this made of iron is that [[spoiler:it happens ''twice'' and he walks away from it the first time]].
* In ''Film/TheAvengers'', the damage inflicted on Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk can be explained away by superpowers, but Natasha takes a ribcage-shattering backhand from the Hulk that barely stuns her, Tony is [[DestinationDefenestration hurled through a glass window]] and falls several dozen stories, and Clint [[SuperWindowJump swings through the glass window of an office]] and is still able to at least kneel upright and aim an arrow into Loki's face shortly afterwards (these last two are staples of Joss Whedon works). To be fair, Tony isn't seen standing or walking without the Iron Man armor any time in the immediate aftermath of the window fall, so it's possible he could've been more badly cut up inside the suit, and Hawkeye is later seen sitting with his leg propped up on Natasha's chair in the shawarma joint, so he may have been somewhat injured by that. However, they're all seen effortlessly walking about in a cut to a few days later, so any injuries they may have sustained are relatively minor.
* ''TheRaid'' and Mad Dog. He is literally unstoppable beaten for 5 min by Rama and Andi, but Mad Dog is the one who stands on it's own in the end. What makes him [[RasputinianDeath ultimately dead]] is... glow-tube.
* In ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra'' Storm Shadow is slammed ''through'' a wall by Ripcord wearing an Accelerator Suit, which moves at least as fast as a car, and he comes out almost unscathed.
** The Hummer from the Paris chase scene; it takes a crash against a tramway to stop it, and even then the body survives for the most part.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', because the kids can morph or demorph to heal all bodily injuries, it takes a lot to kill them. Typical battles include at least minor injuries. More commonly the kids suffer major injuries; arms being cut off, major blood loss, et cetera. The most memorable example was in the second last book, when Jake, woozy from blood loss, gets shot in the head by a human-Controller. Miraculously he survives long enough to demorph.
** Bear-Rachel getting an arm cut off and using it as a weapon also qualifies as memorable.
** Possibly Lampshaded or Didn't Do the Research. In the first book, after morphing Homer the golden lab, Homer-Jake identifies the "other dog" AKA real Homer "was neutered, just like him." The cloned DNA wouldn't have carried over the neutering process' result.
*** Applegate rectifies her mistake later in the series. When Ax morphs a neutered bull, the kids expect him to be docile. But because he absorbed unaltered DNA, Ax is very temperamental. The kids figure out why, so the dog thing could possibly be chalked up to an UnreliableNarrator, who, uh, didn't really know what a neutered dog looked like? Okay, so it doesn't make much sense, but she corrected her mistake is what I'm saying.
** Also, after reassuming the original form, the morpher's bodily injuries could theoretically be healed. In ''Megamorphs 2'', Tobias says that he should be able to heal his broken wing after morphing and demorphing. Ergo, any bodily injury sustained in the original form of the morpher should be repaired, including brain damage, amputation and the like. Age would remain unaffected as DNA degrades with age: a newborn cloned from a 27-year-old's cells will essentially start with 27-year-old DNA and cells.
** James, the leader of the Auxiliary Animorphs, is crippled due to an accident rather than a genetic disease, so after demorphing from pidgeon he finds that he can walk again. Similarly, Loren's blindness is cured by morphing. Marco also heals a dog bite by morphing then demorphing.
* In the ''SwordOfTruth'', the hero Richard ''rips out his evil half-brother's spine'', but he's [[YouCanBarelyStand still good for one last fight]]. It's played completely straight, and made even more ridiculous when it's revealed the character had no superhuman or magical abilities (though he did have some kind of funky acupuncture/acupressure technique that he somehow used on himself in order to keep going).
* In Steven Erikson's ''MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', ultra BadAss Karsa Orlong has one of these. In ''TheBonehunters'' (book 6), he gets repeatedly mauled, cut, stabbed and bitten by a giant monster, and ultimately walks away with a slight wince and the scowl he always wears. This is somewhat justified by Karsa's being far more than a mortal human.
* In ''[[TheCulture Consider Phlebas]]'' by IainBanks, the Idirans are revealed to be incredibly resilient to damage. One member of the species is apparently killed, and a fairly [[GenreSavvy sensible]] member of the protagonist's crew decides to make sure of it by putting the barrel of his laser rifle into the Idiran's eye and torching off a good portion of its head. Turns out that this isn't nearly enough to keep an Idiran down, leading to the book's eventual DownerEnding.
* Quidditch, from ''Literature/HarryPotter'', is arguably an example. It's specifically mentioned that the worst injuries players have suffered are broken bones, in a sport that involves heavy iron balls knocking people off broomsticks 50 feet in the air. Of course, some fans have in turn suggested that wizards have a (nonstated) resistance to physical injury. Note that it's the worst that's happened ''at Hogwarts'', according to Oliver Wood. When Harry asks him if anyone's ever died playing Quidditch, Wood responds, "Never at Hogwarts", which seems to imply that fatalities have occurred elsewhere.
* It's a more minor example than most of these, but the [[BadassCrew four Aurek Seven]] stormtroopers in ''[[OutboundFlight Survivor's Quest]]'' should count. Two of them fight for and protect two unarmored officers against a large number of Vagaari armed with blasters and charrics. Their armor is good, the blasters are fifty years old and have a weak charge, and charrics aren't designed to pierce this armor, but there are a ''lot'' of Vagaari. By the time the other two show up it is mentioned that their chestplates aren't white anymore, they're having trouble standing and walking, the nonhuman stormtrooper is forgetting to translate his responses to commands into Basic, and the other isn't responding at all, and yet they're still shooting, still [[TakingTheBullet taking the blaster bolt]]. That's how Zahn writes stormtroopers. They take a lot of damage, shoot well, and never give up.
* [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]]. Seriously. In ''Fool Moon'' alone, he gets chin-decked, shot in the shoulder, pistol-whipped, beaten with a tire-iron, slammed into various walls, savaged by a werewolf, knocked out by overuse of magic, stomped to a pulp, duct-taped to a pillar from which he rips himself free, tossed over a wall, dropped out of a moving car on the Interstate, and tossed down into a 20-foot pit, yet still manages to use powerful magic, climb hand-over-hand up a 20-foot rope, and otherwise kick the living shit out of the bad guy by the end. His friend Murphy also somehow manages to climb up a rope and rapid-fire a .38 mere hours after sustaining a compound fracture to her right arm. And that's just in Book 2!
** To be fair, Harry Dresden is a wizard, and a lot of his abilities to take damage and keep going are quite literally AWizardDidIt. He actually uses pain to fuel magic. In addition, unlike many examples here, Dresden does show his injuries, even if they aren't as prominent as they should be. He's abilities fade as he gets hurt, many of the book's climaxes find him completely drained and throwing around magic that wouldn't disturb a fly, and the epilogues are mostly Dresden lying around for weeks while all his friends come by to both inform him of the results of his actions, and to make fun of him for being a pansy.
* Woodrow Lowe from ''Man of the Century'' by James Thayer. In the course of the book, Woodrow is whipped raw by dervishes, bloodied by a sadistic lover, knocked off a boat by an incoming boom, kicked by a horse, trampled by a bull, stabbed within an inch of his life more than once, shot multiple times, some very close to the head, has the snot beaten out of him by at least five famous 19th-century prizefighters, and is imprisoned for 368 days in a Chinese torture pit. He is a Dakotan cavalryman, a Rough Rider, an opium trader, the (deposed) ruler of China, an Amazonian sex slave, and the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And he lives to tell about it all. [[CoolOldGuy At the ripe old age of 108]].
* In R.A. Salvatore's ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'', the [[FiveManBand Companions of the Hall]] sometimes seem to be made of iron. For example, in ''[[Literature/TheIcewindDaleTrilogy The Halfling's Gem]]'', the five of them take on an army of wererats, a hydra, get sent to Tartarus where they're swarmed by demons, Drizzt has the fight of his life against an opponent who is his equal... and when it's all said and done they have not only managed to beat all of the bad guys, not only managed to survive, but ''none of them are even seriously injured''. And even though they're kind of tired, you get the sense that they could have kept on fighting for another few hours if they had to.
* ''ConanTheBarbarian''
** In Creator/RobertEHoward's story "A Witch Shall Be Born", the witch survives exposure as a baby.
-->''But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for it partakes of the essence of the forces that seethe in the black gulfs beyond mortal ken.''
** In the same story, Conan himself not only survives being crucified, but after his cross is chopped down (with him still nailed to it) he helps pull the nails out and rides 10 miles ''before'' his injuries are treated.
* [[SuperStrength Brutes]], Massives and/or people with [[PowerTattoo kanji]] of durability in ''Literature/TheGrimnoirChronicles'' books.
* Subverted in {{Harald}}. The BadassGrandpa protagonist is on the run from [[{{Mooks}} The King's Wolves]], and has been playing GuileHero to try and avoid fighting them. They catch him while he's fleeing on horseback, he kills several of them, gets hit by a couple AnnoyingArrows and shrugs them off - and then one of them whacks him in the head, he passes out, gets rescued by {{Those Two|Guys}} {{Action Girl}}s and spends months recovering from all of his injuries.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Literature/GarrettPI Gilded Latten Bones]]'', with Morley Dotes' stab wounds. The healer who treats him is astounded by the fact that none of the attacker's strikes had damaged vital organs or major arteries. Subverted in that Morley is laid up far longer than Garrett anticipated; played straight in that by all logic, he should've been one dead half-elf.
* ''Literature/RagnarLodbrokAndHisSons'' features the Viking warlord Bjorn Ironside, who received his nickname because he was supposedly impossible to wound, even though there is no reason why he should be so in-story.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''PowerRangers''
** Commander Doggie "Boss" Kruger in ''TokusouSentaiDekaranger'' was a bit inconsistent with this trope: During his first on-screen brush with death, he was shot in the chest and survived with nary a scratch (though he was wearing a BulletProofVest); much later, he attempts to stop an old friend of his gone mad and was hurt enough (even through his Dekamaster armor) to need a few days in bandaged hospital care. During the season finale, however, he's not only beaten and slashed with swords repeatedly (without his Dekamaster armor on), but ''slammed through at least three walls, one of which he was stuck in for a half-second'', but this only rendered him unconscious for a little while with little more than battle fatigue and a few somewhat minor scrapes.
** His counterpart in ''PowerRangers SPD'' was even tougher: the finale [[spoiler:had him and his wife drop several stories from an exploding alien HumongousMecha, and ''still'' have enough fight left in him for one final match with the series' DiscOneFinalBoss.]] And ''his'' first onscreen brush with death was in an episode that was nearly a ShotForShotRemake of the original... ''minus the part where there was a vest.'' The old dog is just that tough.
-->'''Doggie:''' *waking up ''just'' as they're discussing how bad his wounds are* "Who are you calling an old dog?"
** While all series are guilty of this to some extent, ''Time Force'' is particularly {{egregious}} with this. The red ranger repeatedly fell from heights that should have shattered him. One episode in particular stands out: the red ranger was recruited to be a stuntman for a scene where not only he's cut with real swords, but he falls at least five stories onto concrete ''after'' the cushion is taken out from under him. He's "lucky to be in one piece" indeed.
** The Quantum Ranger also showed this in one scene where he's [[OnlyAFleshWound shot in the arm]] as he falls several stories off a bridge [[SoftWater into a river]]. Plus there is a climactic scene where he and the red ranger swing out [[SoftGlass through a window]], fall several stories out of clocktower, and manage to morph and land on their air speeders with nary a scratch. In real life, these two guys should have been dead several times over, but all is forgiven because of the RuleOfCool (and that last stunt in particular was pretty damn cool).
** ''[[Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm Ninja Storm's]]'' GrandFinale may be the worst offender: The BigBad has absorbed all of the Rangers' powers, so they, as civilians, must fight a much, much, ''much'' stronger version of their foe. Somehow, being blasted full-on is shrugged off, ''less than'' OnlyAFleshWound.
** Heck, there are plenty of times when unmorphed Rangers take abuse they shouldn't be able to withstand. For example, in episode 13 of ''[[Series/PowerRangersWildForce Wild Force]]'', Taylor gets distracted by Zen-Aku's hold on Princess Shayla, leaving her back unmorphed and unprotected from the motorcycle org. Said org fires two shots at her, which explode very close around her, knocking her to the ground. She's sitting on the ground "injured" for less than five minutes (or until the other Rangers show up), and is then walking around is if she's completely unharmed, only holding her arm in a way one does when they accidentally walk into a door. You're [[ActionGirl awesome]], Taylor, but there's no way you should've healed that quickly.
* ''SuperSentai'' is of course just as bad, if not worse. Unmorphed Rangers and bystanders are often seen simply sent flying by explosions and landing without a scratch, severe cuts heal far faster than they ought without special healing tech, etc.
* {{Kamen Rider}}s are just as bad. Just ask Kamen Rider Ichigo, Nigo and Riderman, who survived ''nuclear explosions to the face'' and come back just in time to aid other Riders! Then there's ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'', who, in his cameo in a KamenRiderOOO movie, made his arrival by ''crash landing from low orbit'' '''HEAD-FIRST''', and just hopped up from the ground, dusted himself off and went to aid OOO. All he got out of that was a mild headache.
* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Jack Bauer shouldn't be able to ''walk'' by the halfway point of a typical season, and that's before you take sleep deprivation into account. By the time a season is over it's not uncommon to have seen him bleed from the [[StandardBleedingSpots mouth, forehead or arm]] at least once. Here's some of the worst ones. If this doesn't prove how much of a badass Bauer is, then nothing will:
** Day 1: Grazing bullet wound to the gut. Overall it's one of the more minor ones on this list. Also had to contend with [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready Nina]] after this.
** Day 2: Survives a plane crash in the first half of the season. Is later captured and tortured nearly to death.
** Day 6: More torture (at the start of the season no less). Later on Jack gets cracked ribs.
** Day 7: Infected by a biological weapon. Quite possibly the worst one.
** Day 8: Superficial knife wound early in the season. Serious stab wound in the final hours. Didn't seem too bad at first but as Jack walks away from the wall he's leaning on there is a very serious bloodstain on the wall. Shot in the final episode and even survives a serious car wreck before the end.
* A humorous example would be Tim Taylor from ''Series/HomeImprovement'', who despite his tendency for stupidity and LampshadeHanging about being notorious at the local hospital, never receives scars or injuries of any severity.
* The companions on ''Series/DoctorWho'', almost all of whom are human, are put through the physical and emotional wringer nearly every single time they step out of the TARDIS, yet are perfectly fine the moment they step back in. The Doctor himself partially justifies this by being a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien, but considering the things he's been through, it's amazing he can still walk.
** The End of Time. [[spoiler: Never mind the fatal radiation poisoning, the fall from the Vinvocci ship should have had him ready for his next regeneration.]]
** Jack Harkness, who keeps dying and getting better. Whatever keeps him tethered to life is Made of Iron.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'s'' Malcolm Reynolds can take insane amounts of damage; in the episode "War Stories" he gets ''[[ColdBloodedTorture tortured to death]]'', only to be revived and then get up, stick the [[HoistByHisOwnPetard torturer with his own weapon]], and start beating up the BigBad.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''
** The series has an entire ''race'' of Made of Iron's, the Scarrans. To drop just one takes [[MoreDakka a whole lot of firepower]]: God help you if you run into more than one of them.
** Ditto [[MagnificentBastard Scorpius]]: not only is he half-Scarran, but he also wears body armour for anything his body can't deal with. Add to that his own impressive willpower, and he's damn near unstoppable. And even if it looks like you've somehow managed to kill him, well, chances are he [[CrazyPrepared planned ahead]] enough to be back again in a fortnight. Although there is [[AchillesHeel his coolant system]], which has been attacked by both Crichton (who sabotaged it) and Emperor Staleek (who tore the whole mechanism out of Scorpy's skull with his bare hands). To their mutual annoyance, Scorpius survived both.
* In ''Series/TeenWolf'' it is justified for werewolves and other supernatural creatures. Their bodies naturally have a much more powerful HealingFactor than humans.
* The pilot episode of ''Series/TheAdventuresOfBriscoCountyJr'' features a comic relief {{Mook}} named Pete, who ends up getting shot. The producers liked the actor's performance so much that they brought him back, explaining that he had recovered after getting hit in the gut. Then they decided to just go with it and had him survive the likes of Chinese throwing star and pitchfork attacks.
* Ricky has been repeatedly shot on ''TrailerParkBoys'', often by accident, although always in a non-vital area. The worst damage he usually suffers is to his pride.
* The main characters on ''MarriedWithChildren'' demonstrate this: Marcy has been electrocuted, Kelly been bitten by deadly poisonous insects, Bud suffered various injuries in his futile attempts at romance, and Al suffering everything from electrocution to shooting himself in the foot to setting himself on fire to industrial accidents while trying to build a workbench with Jefferson to [[CrowningMomentofFunny repeatedly falling off the roof with Jefferson and his other buddies while trying to install a satellite dish on the roof]].
* Freddie on ''Series/ICarly'' endures what sounds like a brutal beating from Sam in the episode "iMeet Fred", being hit hard enough with a tennis racket to cause it to break. A blow of such severity to the head (say from Sam wanting to knock some sense into him) would likely result in loss of consciousness, a concussion, and severe bleeding from cranial lacerations. Striking any part of the body that severely would be intensely painful and would result in definite physical trauma, and likely broken bones. However, at the end of this, Freddy walks out looking somewhat mussed and scared, a little bruised but no worse for wear. Moments later Sam pushes him out of a tree house, and yet he is still able to actively take part in making Fred videos afterward.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': In "Born Under a Bad Sign", Dean got pistol-whipped, shot in the shoulder (and later had a thumb digging into his bullet wound. Ouch), nearly got beaten to death and was left to drown in icy water. And after all that, he still manages to drive? The boy is super-human!
* After the events of "House's Head"/"Wilson's Heart" especially, Series/{{House}} should be either be dead or suffering serious brain damage by now.
* A very common trope in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Justified for Buffy, Faith, and the assorted vampires and demons and other beasties, who are supernaturally tough and can take insane amounts of punishment without blinking. However, Xander, Willow, and especially Giles should be quadriplegics several times over by now.
* In {{Garo}}, [[TheHero Kouga Saejima/GARO The Golden Knight]] takes this to {{HSQ}} levels, he's been thrown off buildings, shot at point blank range, ''SLASHED IN THE CHEST WITH A SWORD'' and ''IMPALED TWICE IN THE SAME SHOULDER'', it's safe to say that this man is the personification of this trope.
** [[TheLancer Rei Suzumura/ZERO The Silver Fanged Knight]] is also this to a lesser extent
** This trope is probably part of a Makai Knight's training.
* Played somewhat inconsistently in ''{{Dollhouse}}''. Sometimes, people go down really fast. Other times, well, watch the fight between Boyd and Ballard (particularly the part where one bashes the other's head with a rock).
* In several occasions in ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' with Spock, whose Vulcan physiology was used as a kind of [[PlotArmor armour]]. For example, in the Season 2 episode "The Apple" he is shot full of poisoned thorns and later struck full on by a bolt of lightning, both of which killed {{Redshirt}}s instantly. Not justified, as on many other occasions he is shown to be fairly vulnerable.
* Rick in ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' has ''feet'' Made of Iron. He hobbles out of a hospital loading dock down metal mesh work stairs, wanders around a city, and rides a bike (pedals have some pretty big protrusions and ridges for traction) all completely barefoot. Granted, he probably has other things on his mind, but still... ow.
* Averted in ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' in the episode "Personal", Marty Deeks [[spoiler: is shot at the beginning of the ep and while he does manage to struggle out of his hospital bed near the end, he's bleeding through his bandages, and collapses once the danger is past]].
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': If there's anything that will take Olivia Dunham down for more than about half an episode, some very determined people haven't found it yet. Although when she was in a car accident caused by [[spoiler:William Bell pulling her into the Alternate Universe]], she did take a few episodes to recover fully, even needing to walk with a cane for awhile.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds''
** In the two parter "Lo-Fi"/"Mayhem", Aaron Hotchner ''gets blown up'' and is still together enough to attempt first aid on a severely wounded colleague and help get her to hospital even though no first responders will help him for fear of being the target of a second wave of attacks; he collapses briefly at the hospital, but is soon heard from fretfully demanding his clothes, after which he goes with the rest of his team to hunt down the bombers, even though he's still half-deaf from the first blast. The Reaper should have done a little research: if a bomb couldn't slow Hotch down for long, severe exhaustion plus a dozen or so stab wounds were never going to do more than keep him in bed for a few days...
*** This is made even more impressive by the fact that the series' tough guy, Derek Morgan, gets knocked unconscious twice, by The Reaper in "Omnivore" and by Billy Flynn in "Our Darkest Hour". [[TheWorfEffect If Hotch can do better than Morgan...]]
** Morgan recovers later in the series. In "Supply and Demand", he gets tackled by a much bigger security guard and despite taking several big blows (and getting some in himself), after getting rescued by teammate David Rossi, Morgan shakes off the attack like nothing happened.
* Every single character on ''{{Smallville}}'' who isn't [[{{Franchise/Superman}} Clark]] suffers from this, easily recovering from beatings, gunshot wounds, and [[HardHead blows to the head]]. Jason Teague, TheDragon from Season 4 might be the best example though. He's shot by Lionel Luthor and falls off of a cliff and into a waterfall. [[NotQuiteDead He somehow recovers enough to arrive at the Kent farmhouse, take them hostage, and then doesn't go down until he's been hit by a meteor.]] Who'd he think he was, ''the Terminator''?
** Chloe Sullivan once took a SuperStrength punch from Clark directly to the face and is completely unscathed.
** Lana was once beaten up by ''Zod'' and is up and about in no time.
** Lois once had her and her car thrown high into the sky then crash down courtesy of a very jealous [[spoiler:Maxima]]. She barely had a scratch on her.
** Yes, he spent a few weeks in the hospital, but JimmyOlsen still looks pretty good for someone who has been mauled in the chest by freaking '''Doomsday'''.
** Chloe was once knocked down and showered by shattered glass, which doesn't leave a single scratch on her. The odd thing is, Oliver is covered in small cuts in the same scene.
** A special mention also goes to Tess, who was voluntarily killed by a defibrillator and then brought back to life with atropine. She wakes up, sits up, looks weak for about five seconds, and then walks out of the room as if she wasn't dead ten seconds earlier.
** Slade is probably the very worse case. He took a couple of hits from Hawkman's mace and somehow survives not one, but ''two'' huge explosions. The first one took one eye. The second one doesn't seem to even scratch him. [[spoiler:Lampshaded on the second occasion - a possible explanation might be that he is under the influence of {{Darkseid}}.]]
* TopGear tried various methods to make a Toyota Truck stop running. [[SerialEscalation They tried driving it down stairs, running it into a tree, leaving it in the ocean for hours dropping it and things onto it, and finally putting it on top of a skyscraper that was being DEMOLISHED]]. The truck was still able to move. For this unbelievable achievement, they put it on a platform, and is still in the studio to this day.
* There's a debate in the Series/{{Merlin}} fandom whether or not Merlin is immortal like his mythological counterpart. Thus far in the show, he has taken a fireball to the chest and got up unscathed, gotten hit by a freezing cold spirit that had killed all previous victims and disabled his magic (although he was dying that time and had to be saved by brook spirits)[[note]] And even that's debateable, as the brook spirits themselves said that he had great power, which could mean that he would have eventually survived[[/note]], and had a mace slice across his chest that most likely left a huge, open hole, and he still had enough energy to carry on a conversation with few winces.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Red Riding Hood, of all people, comes off as this in her DayInTheLimelight episode: [[spoiler: her grandmother shoots her with a crossbow while Red is [[TheBigBadWolf in wolf form]], and it takes her down long enough for Granny and Snow to put the [[ChekovsGift red cloak]] that keeps her human over her. Once she's back in human form, she isn't injured at all, even though she was clearly shot]].
* {{Grimm}}: The protagonist Nick Burkhart regularly takes blows from incredible opponents, and wrestle's with creatures that posses superhuman strength, notable demonstrations of his durability include being pulled out through his cars window and thrown onto the pavement, having a toaster smashed round his head {{It Makes Sense In Context by a super strong part jackal creature}} and receiving a beating from a giant ogre and only getting a few bruised rips. Justified in the fact he is a Grimm, a superhuman warrior.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Because he personifies most bruiser tropes, it's no surprise that ComicStrip/{{Popeye}} was Made of Iron back when he got his start on ''Thimble Theatre''. In his first few story arcs, Popeye takes some brutal beatings and manages to come out on top. When in one fight he takes several handgun rounds in the gut, he manages to still win the fight before passing out. In the hospital, in addition to the bullets that put him there, knife blades, tips of pool cues and many, many other indications that you should see the other guy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* ProfessionalWrestling can wander into this when things go wrong and sometimes even when they go right, generally missed completely by the tendency for people to think "knowing how to fall" equates to "falls don't hurt." See [[http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qFWaCoe78k Hell in the Cell,]] where MickFoley suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a ''dislocated shoulder'' after falling from a twenty-foot height ''twice,'' and still finished the match.
* Another great example is KurtAngle. For the uninitiated, he was in the summer Olympics with a broken neck. No, he didn't get it during the wrestling tournament, he had it before the tryouts. Not only did he convince them to let him compete, he won the gold medal. While he's at times injury prone, his neck at least is made of titanium. This is an understandably large point of pride both for his character and in real life.
-->"I won an Olympic Gold Medal with a ''broken freakin' neck''."
* Japanese female wrestlers can take piledrivers, powerbombs, and DDT's from the top rope onto steel chairs and tables, ''several times in the same match''.
* TheUndertaker. At Elimination Chamber 2010, Taker was making his way to the ring in his usual grand fashion (Smoke, fireballs, really slow walk, etc.). Undertaker did his usual pause at the top of the ramp, and was engulfed in flames by an errant fireball. Playing it off as being [[IncrediblyLamePun fired up]], he ran to the ring, and proceeded to wrestle an entire Elimination Chamber match. He then lost his World Heavyweight Championship to ChrisJericho, but nobody's perfect.
* {{Kayfabe}} example: StoneColdSteveAustin uses a forklift to drop a car with TripleH inside from a great height to end Survivor Series 2000. Triple H returns the next week with a bandage.
* Wouldn't you believe it but Zack Ryder has become one. In the month of January 2012, he's been assaulted by Kane in ways that other wrestlers his size would be dead by now. He's been dropped from ten feet in the air, had three powerbombs on his cracked ribs, got chokeslammed through the stage before ''finally'' having to be put away with a Tombstone Piledriver by Kane at the Royal Rumble before he has to be put out for a while.
* Wrestling/ChrisJericho has only suffered two serious injuries to his body in his entire life. One was a broken arm caused by his own stupidity (practicing dives without a mat). The second was a herniated disk, which he suffered training during ''Series/DancingWithTheStars''. Keep in mind he's been in more Elimination Chambers than anyone else, been in more than a few brutal TLC matches, worked for several promotions that specialized in [[GarbageWrestler Garbage Wrestling]], and works a hard-hitting, high-risk style in which several peers have destroyed their own bodies.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sports]]
* Olympic skier Hermann Maier's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu2kexdW3a8 spectacular crash]] at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. High winds caused an unintentional ski jump. He flew through the air, hit the ground headfirst at 70 miles per hour, bounced, tumbled, and smashed through two wire-and-slat fences before coming to a stop. And then ''he picked himself up and walked back up the hill'', rubbing his shoulder (he also had a minor leg injury). A few days later, he won gold medals in two events. [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/olympics1998/sport/alpine/articles/wilbon14.htm A news article about the event]] began with the words, "The Tough Man contest is over. Forever. The winner is Hermann Maier." And he almost lost his leg after a traffic accident but continues to win -- his nickname "Herminator" is well deserved.
* Hockey player Gordie Howe was said to get a goal, an assist, and a fight in every game. He continued playing in the NHL into his fifties, even through its notoriously violent era, long enough to play with his grown sons. After his retirement, he even suited up for a charity game in the minors, whereupon a local radio DJ offered a large cash prize to any player on the opposing team who fought Howe, by then in his seventies. No-one was stupid enough to take up the offer.
* In a similar vein, Toronto Maple Leaf Bobby Baun scored the game winning goal of game six of the 1963-1964 Stanley Cup finals after sustaining a broken ankle earlier in the game.
* [[http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/bloody.php This classical fencing article]] discusses how unreliable a sword-inflicted wound could be in ending a duel.
* Jake Brown, 2007 X Games skateboard contender, lost control of his board and fell 45 feet to the deck below (clip is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q3PNj3tRW4 here]]). After a dazed few minutes, he ''got up'' and was able to walk out under his own power.
* George Chuvalo, a former heavyweight boxer, was known to have one of the toughest chins in history. He faced some of the most devastating punchers in history and was never knocked down as a professional in 93 fights (his two technical knockout losses came when the referee stopped the fights). In fact in his fight against George Foreman (a man whose punch normally [[MegatonPunch sends mere mortals to the moon]]), Chuvalo complained to the referee after the fight was stopped.
* Though both have become more vulnerable as they've aged, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hunt Mark Hunt]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antônio_Rodrigo_Nogueira Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira]] were each known for this. Hunt was known for shrugging off life-threatening strikes as mere annoyances, while Nogueira was known for taking immense amounts of punishment, but still somehow managing to not only survive, but to ''win''.
* Bert Trautmann, football (soccer) goalkeeper active in the 1950s. During the 1956 FA Cup Final, he was injured in a collision with an opponent. With 17 minutes to go, and no substitutes allowed, he shook off the injury and continued. He saved several goals, preserving his team's lead and helping to win the match. The injury? Merely a broken neck.
* Jack Youngblood played the entire 1979 playoffs and Super Bowl, AND the meaningless Pro Bowl game with a broken tibula. Because of this, he was called “the John Wayne of football”.
* Steve Yzerman played on essentially on one leg due to having a blown out right knee during the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs.
* Donovan [=McNabb=] played on a broken ankle for most of a 2002 regular season game.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFvR7QRmow Fedor Emilianenko vs. Kevin Randleman]]. Fedor got hit with possibly the most perfect suplex in history, impacting the mat with all of his own weight plus all of Randleman's weight directly onto his spinal column. He calmly turned around and made Randleman tap out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' can be intensely silly about this. Due to the highly ambiguous definition of HitPoints, the characters therein can shrug off being shot, struck by lightning, or even terminal velocity impacts with no adverse effects but the loss of HP.
** How do you know you're Made of Iron in ''D&D''? When it becomes literally impossible for orbital reentry to kill you, you're a little bit too tough to exist. If you can then fly back out of the atmosphere and do it again for kicks? Now you've reached the level of absurdity. Some of the meanest things in the game can literally do this all day long, while on fire and immersed in acid.
** Specifically to avert this, 2nd Edition introduced a rule that required a saving roll to be made if a character took more than a certain (admittedly, quite high) amount of damage in a single attack.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}: The New Era'', especially compared to the more realistic wound rules in previous and subsequent editions. When you can take a blast from an [[{{BFG}} FGMP]] and have a fair chance of making a full recovery, ''something is wrong''.
* Some units and characters in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' have the special rule "Feel No Pain". They have a 33% chance of ignoring any damage that doesn't inflict "Instant Death" (which comes from two main sources: ChunkySalsaRule and YourSoulIsMine).
** Units aligned to the [[LegionsOfHell Chaos]] {{God|OfEvil}} [[PlagueMaster Nurgle]] almost invariably have this rule. {{Bl|essedWithSuck}}ight [[SpaceMarine Marines]], for example, who are already superhuman killing machines with [[HyperactiveMetabolism basic regenerative powers]] that would make ''clerics'' jealous, are so bloated and disease-ravaged by their various maladies that not much can hurt them further. Also, they don't feel pain. At all.
** The fifth edition introduced a new special rule called "Eternal Warrior." An Eternal Warrior laughs at your Strength 10 attacks; a ColonyDrop does the same damage to him as a bullet to the torso (that is to say, one Wound point).
*** The Medallion Crimson of Imperial Guard has more or less the same effect.
** The current ultimate example of this is Commissar Yarrik. All of the above, then, if you actually manage to get through all of his wounds, he has an ability that lets him ''ignore death'' two times out of three. Roll well and Yarrik will survive anything and everything. {{Determinator}} does not begin to describe it.
** Honorary mention to Captain Cortez of the Crimson Fists. If he was to tread on a land mine, that might fracture the last two remaining bones in his body that have never been broken. He once disarmed an Ork Warboss by trapping the weapon in his own ribcage, and has also fought for six weeks without supplies and led charges into the breach with a broken back. Even the Apothecaries of the Fists maintain that he's breaking the rules when it comes to how much damage a Space Marine can sustain. He's currently missing presumed dead, but they NeverFoundTheBody and his Chapter Master flatly refuses to accept him being dead until such time as an actual corpse turns up.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' 1st edition warrior characters (assuming that they survive their [[MadeOfPlasticine squishy]] and [[YouSuck pathetic]] earlier careers) can acquire a condition that the fanbase [[FanNickname used to call]] [[FanDisservice Naked]] [[{{Squick}} Dwarf]] Syndrome, which is essentially the idea that a Dwarf [[DeathSeeker Giant Slayer]] or similarly high level character, even if he is [[FullFrontalAssault totally naked]], can take repeated [[GunsAreWorthless gunshots]], [[AnnoyingArrows arrows]] and [[AlmostLethalWeapons sword strokes]] from [[{{Mooks}} average combatants]] without ever taking a single point of damage due to his high Toughness characteristic.
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' series of ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader'', ''TabletopGame/Deathwatch'', and ''TabletopGame/BlackCrusade'' zig-zag this trope. Normal humans are absolutely squishy. Space Marines and many of the ''core monsters'', however, can be shot over and over by normal humans and ignore all damage that does not trigger the game's CriticalHit system, Righteous Fury. For a normal human, a weapon which does 4-13 damage is considered insanely lethal and able to tear arms off, while Space Marines typically wield armor piercing grenade launchers which do 7-25 damage. A typical Ork may ignore about 10 damage per hit, making them nearly unkillable with lasguns, while powerful Tyranid creatures can often ignore 12-18 damage from toughness plus another 6-10 from armor, meaning even bolters often can't even score ScratchDamage most of the time.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' suggests a lot of Ablative Damage Reduction to replicate this. Basically it acts just like HitPoints except that you won't flinch, won't bleed and won't be "really" hurt until it has been worn away by, say, getting hit by a truck and then shot several times.
* The ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' RPG turns Malcolm Reynolds' aforementioned toughness (see Live Action TV above) into the character trait "Tough as Nails". It gives an HP bonus.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' Aftermath reintroduces readers to the character of Julian the First, the leader of the infamous ''Juicer Uprising'', some five years back. This is at least ''four'' years since Julian's body was ''supposed'' to have literally burnt out to a flaming (ultimately ''exploding'') skeleton as a side effect of the PsychoSerum he enhanced it with. True, his body is nowhere near his peak condition, but the sheer fact that he is still alive in the first place is nothing short of miraculous.
* ''{{Exalted}}'': with the 2.5 errata toning down the GlassCannon effects, builds that focus on this have gone through "viable" and into "virtually mandatory". Rapid-healing, [[FeelNoPain pain-ignoring]], tons-of-health-levels soak monsters are the big thing now. Resistance-heavy Solars, high-Stamina Lunars, and Malfeas-focused Infernals stand out among the three most likely to take a daiklave to the chin without slowing down.
* TabletopGame/DCHeroes , ah, whereto start. First, in the default "Action" genre, any attack not explicitly declared as such at the time the attack is made is incapable of killing anyone, or even causing long-term damage (with a few exceptions, such as the damage from knockback). Superman could pick up a battleship and use it to bash Aunt May over the head, and she'd just be unconscious for about an hour or so; she could also survive a direct plast of solar level fusion plasma and likewise just be unconscious for about an hour or so. Secondly, any character could spend up to his or her "Resistance Value" in Hero Points to negate incoming damage - meaning that Batman, with 190 Hero Points, could be shot with a .50 cal machinegun repeatedly, assuming each shot hit and didn't do exceptional damage, for over 65 combat rounds (counting hisactual innate hit points), which is long enough for the barrel of most heavy machineguns to have melted long before, and assuming a single continuous belt, long enough to have fired well over two THOUSAND rounds of ammunition. Now THAT is Made Of Iron !
* ''TabletopGame/SpiritOfTheCentury'' tends toward this as written. Player characters and major antagonists can generally take quite a few hits to just their "stress track" (five-plus-bonuses boxes of which only one gets checked off per hit, though not necessarily in order) before they have to move on to taking "consequences", of which they can accumulate up to three before finally being taken out. This tends to result in overlong conflicts even for the pulp genre, so later iterations of the ''FATE'' system address it by either radically shortening the default stress track (''TabletopGame/TheDresdenFiles'') or turning it into a more traditional hit point bar where every ''point'' of damage takes off a box (''TabletopGame/StarblazerAdventures'' and its fantasy cousin ''TabletopGame/LegendsOfAnglerre''), as well as turning consequences into more of a form of reducing or preventing incoming stress damage in the first place.
* ''TabletopGame/OnMightyThews'': the most an injury will do is provide you with a bit of a penalty later in the story. Character death isn't actually part of the rules.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* This can happen in many games due to glitches or unexpected game engine behavior, for example falling from a great height, but glancing off a vertical surface so the fall distance resets and the drop counts as much shorter.
* ''FinalFantasy''
** Too numerous to mention. Not merely in bosses, but also in the characters before health reaches a certain point. A good example is whenever ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'''s "Doomsday" attack (a planet-destroying meteor) ''misses'' its intended target, [[SlapOnTheWristNuke leaving no mark on either the enemy or the landscape]]. Generally, in video games, only the [[CriticalExistenceFailure last hit point counts]]. And in fact, being beaten to near-death can even make you ''stronger'': in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', characters who are near death have a chance of performing a special, powerful attack only available in that state.
** The Turks from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. While they are supposed to be not enhanced unlike their SOLDIER counterpart, they seem to live through everything while SOLDIER members drop like flies. In the original game members of the Turks are seen surviving through being beaten up by the heroes several times (once hard enough for the Turk to be hospitalized), being stabbed in the stomach in the middle of an abandoned temple (though strangely you find that Turk at the entrance of the temple when the flashback showed him in the center of it - indicating that he possibly traveled through the booby trapped and monster infested temple with a stab wound), getting shot then experimented on then shoved in a coffin for 30 years, being shot down in a submarine to the bottom of the WEAPON-infested ocean, being on a plane that got attacked by a WEAPON which then crashed to the bottom of the ocean and got infested by super strong monsters and a Meteor nearly crashing on the city.
** The trend continues in the movie sequel and remake ''Advent Children'' and ''Advent Children Complete'' when Tseng and Elena get captured and tortured by the villains, but still survive and show up near the end no worse for ware. Meanwhile the two remaining Turks (Reno and Rude) get beaten by the BigBad, hit in the face by a metal rod, pummeled by the henchmen, thrown from the top of a building and [[spoiler:falling a great distance from a crashing helicopter onto pavement]], but being appearing perfectly fine in the next scene to attempt a near-kamikaze moment with dynamite (which they also survive and appear at the end of the movie unharmed). Rude even has a ''billboard'' fall and hit square him on the head, only for him to shrug it off a second later. The most injuries seen on the Turks were a few bandages, a small cut and a bloody nose (the two latter which were gone a few scenes later).
** Cloud Strife, the main protagonist can also be seen as made from iron seeing how he can survive several deadly falls with nothing more than skinned knees. [[spoiler:Not to mention being stabbed through the chest by Sephiroth.]]
** Basch fon Ronsenburg in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''. He's betrayed and locked in a dungeon for two years, hanging from his scaffolding by his arms. After he's rescued by the other characters, Basch is visibly tortured - the bruises and red marks on his shoulders are absolutely horrifying to look at. He finds a corpse and loots its clothes, ties his hair back, finds his former friends and gets to ''work''.
** Galuf from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', especially during his one-on-one with the Big Bad. Bring his HP to zero? Eh, 'tis merely a flesh wound, he fights on undaunted. [[spoiler: Until the adrenaline rush wears off, anyway, at which point the injuries catch up with him and he suffers a CriticalExistenceFailure]].
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''
** Liquid Snake. While not nigh invulnerable, he survives things which should kill your average tank. First he survives having his Hind-D shot out from under him. (It's implied he parachuted out, but ''still''...) Snake then blows up his giant mecha by throwing missiles directly ''into Liquid's lap in the open cockpit''. He then survives the giant mecha exploding, which knocked Snake out, despite having been ''inside it at the time'', and in fact wakes up early enough to strip down Snake to his pants, and drag him and his Love Interest up to the top of the five-story tall now-derelict mecha, for a personal ''fist fight'' [[spoiler:between brothers]]. Then, when Snake knocks him off the giant mecha, he survives the ''five-story fall'' and comes at him as Snake escapes in a Jeep, driving his own and firing its machine gun. He is still hardy enough, even after all this, to ''drive with one hand'' and ''shoot with the other''. Snake shoots him with his own machine gun. The ''bare-chested bastard shrugs it off''. Then, after all that, he survives the crash of both Jeeps, and comes at you with a machine gun in one hand, in all his bare-chested glory. You only survive because [[spoiler:he then dies of a bloody ''virus'' of all things. Damn FOXDIE]]. That doesn't stop him coming back in the sequel; after TheDragon, who replaced his lost arm with Liquid's, ''gets possessed by Liquid from beyond the grave''. And he still thought Snake, who dies remarkably easily, got their clone-parent's dominant traits.
** The Gamecube port, ''The Twin Snakes'', steps this up. After Liquid [[spoiler:seemingly dies from FOXDIE, he picks himself up and ''tries to fight the virus off'' whilst attempting to grab Snake ''twice'', then gets up on his feet to have ''a staredown'' with him.]] ''Then'' he [[spoiler:succumbs to the FOXDIE.]]
** The part about Liquid possessing Ocelot is because [[spoiler: Ocelot inherited his father's psychic abilities]]. It remains to be seen if the sheer {{Bad Ass}}itude is part of the transfer, but considering the ''Metal Gear'' aaga's tendency for thematic mirroring (Big Boss killing The Boss, Snake killing Big Boss, Raiden killing Solidus Big Boss killing Gene, Snake killing Liquid) it's not unthinkable.
** Not to mention in ''{{Metal Gear Solid 4|GunsOfThePatriots}}'', [[spoiler:Raiden again. Dear God.]]
** All the playable characters are made of iron, though to a lesser extent than Liquid. Despite electroshock torture, repeated head trauma, poison gas exposure, and a scene where he's '''clearly shot through the chest prior to the second Sniper Wolf battle''', Snake manages to get through ''Metal Gear Solid''. Raiden gets knocked around a lot as well in part 2, and the abuse heaped upon Naked Snake in ''3'' is pretty ridiculous. In part 4 it's even mentioned that given all the abuse the now old Snake has endured, he shouldn't be able to stand, let alone save the world.
* Every character in the ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series. Every character. Players included. Jump off a cliff? No problem, you stumble a little, but take no damage. Hit by an exploding fireball that's bigger than you? Stop drop and roll, but otherwise, good to go! Stabbed, impaled, bitten, stomped, crushed, burned, eaten? Pff. Get back up and go. Nothing can stop a Monster Hunter! Likewise, the monsters are just as tough... If not tougher.
* Ena from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius: Path of Radiance''. In a game where every mortal wound is either a FinalDeath or a mercenary career-ending injury, she can "die" ''three times'' and still be back for the end. The first is when the hero takes her out (reducing her to 0 HP). The second when the Black Knight strikes her down (somewhat justified because he says he [[TapOnTheHead checked his swing]]). And after joining your party, she can die a third time... but she is plot-relevant and lives to see the end.
** She can then die two more times in ''Radiant Dawn''. Note that the second example is part of a non-canonical [[MultipleEndings Bad Ending]].
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' usually justifies this, as Dante and Vergil have a strong HealingFactor due to their being half-demons, but the third game has one grievous example. Lady, who is fully human, gets the bayonet on her bazooka rammed through her thigh and twisted around. For a real person, that would render that leg useless for the rest of his or her life, assuming [[OnlyAFleshWound they didn't bleed out first]]. For Lady? One bandage around the leg later and she's climbing up the side of a building.
* In ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'' there's a particular guy who taunts you, and no matter what do you to him (which being a deity,it's a lot of possibilities) he will remain unscrached.
* Several examples in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'':
** Any racial leader (ex: Thrall for the Orcs) can take several (usually 15>) people whaling on him/her simultaneously with lighting bolts, flesh-eating zombie summons, fireballs, gunshots, etc.
** Raid bosses can take a ton of punishment as well. And even your own character could be used as an example of this trope, as you're pretty much invulnerable to low level mobs or characters after you hit level 80.
* Travis Touchdown in ''NoMoreHeroes'' is an interesting case of ''[[CutscenePowerToTheMax conditional]]'' Made of Iron. During boss introductions, he regularly takes blows that would normally leave his opponents dismembered, disemboweled, decapitated or simply blown to smithereens (at one point he has ''three'' hand grenades literally dropped in his lap, and later we see that only ''one'' of them is enough to blow a person's head off) with nary a scratch. Of course, in combat he can still have the crap beaten out of him, but a deathblow will still simply cause him to [[BloodFromTheMouth spit up blood]] and collapse. Not to mention he gets a hole punched in his heart with blood spurting everywhere and doesn't bat an eye, and comes out perfectly fine right after. [[AllThereInTheManual Apparently it is mentioned somewhere]] that Travis wears a magical vest that protects him from even fatal blows to the chest.
* ''CityOfHeroes''
** The eleventh official expansion to the MMORPG added a new powerset, Willpower, specifically designed to let players create characters who are Made of Iron.
** That ability existed all along with Invulnerability, Stone Armor, etc... Willpower just gave another way to do it that seems more believable for the "Natural" Origin character. Willpower is a mix of defense, resistance, and regeneration rather than offering only 1 or 2 of those 3 like the other powers in the game do.
** To a lesser extent, ''every'' PC in ''City of Heroes'' qualifies for this--even a relatively fragile psychic with no defensive powers is capable of taking a few machine-gun clips to the face with no lasting ill effect. And this goes double for the enemies, ''triple'' for Archvillain/Hero-class foes.
** A game mechanic that has been active for awhile, but frequently misses notice, is that players are protected against dying from most one-hit kills when at full health. It prevents certain annoying situations and cheap deaths. The result is that although not every hero or villain can leap skyscrapers, they can all survive falling off of one, even at level 1 with no defensive abilities, merely dropping down to a single hit point. Of course actual enemies don't stop after just one attack.
* While it takes a bit of FridgeLogic to see it, since he isn't the toughest fellow around combat-wise, but the ''PrinceOfPersia'' in the ''Sands of Time'' trilogy probably counts. No "normal" person should be able to keep pulling off his brand of Babylonian Ninja LeParkour without at least getting bruises.
* While her other "siblings" probably are of the same quality, [[VideoGame/SuperRobotWars Lamia Loveless]] have displayed these features several times (considering she is a RobotGirl, of course she is made of steel):
** In ''SRW Advance'', she stood up in between two feuding expert martial artists [[GGundam Domon Kasshu]] and [[{{Daimos}} Kazuya Ryuuzaki]], about to punch each other. She takes full brunt of both punches from different sides. She just came back with mere bruises. Even when Domon said she got hit on the vitals...
** In the ''OG'' saga, this is shown in ''OG Gaiden'', where she goes through all the plugging in the ODE System, got plugged out of her mecha forcefully by Kyosuke, shot down in open air, [[spoiler:later got plugged out again by Axel]]... all while butt naked. NoOneCouldSurviveThat... well except her, that is. It's more fatal than the above example, but she always survives enough for further repairs to get her back to normal state. Oh, and there's also her surviving Code: ATA which is said to be able to take out two battleships at once, and still can get repaired, not utterly destroyed.
** See Also: Arado Balanga. People claim he's BornLucky, and they may be right. However, like Heero Yuy above, he's not only withstood one of Kushua's drinks, he actually ''liked it!''
** But even Arado had to admit he loses out to Kyosuke Nanbu. He has survived TWO explosions while being human (the second explosion he is in a mech that burnt down, fell over and sank into water, and he only comes out with just a few broken ribs.
* Albert Wesker in the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series. He gets slashed by Tyrant (he dies for real in all the endings of the original), but escapes and sets off the SelfDestructMechanism, and even worse in ''Code Veronica'' he has superhuman ''Matrix''-style powers and survives having a stack of girders dropped on him, while the base is burning around him. And in ''RE 5'', he can catch rocket-propelled grenades.
** [[spoiler:Though much of this is handwaved by the supervirus he takes following the Tyrant incident; a forced overdose in ''RE 5'' removed said abilities, leading to his eventual defeat, and according to WordofGod, death.]]
** The player characters are pretty Made of Iron as well. Things you can survive in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' include a direct hit from a rocket launcher and [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice getting a hug from an Iron Maiden]].
* The protagonist in ''DisasterDayOfCrisis'' qualifies, as does Evans... Jesus, that guy can take as much punishment as Liquid Snake. And he ''loves it''.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': Link seems to get this. He gets battered about with swords ''as big as he is'' and just shrugs it off. If he takes enough damage, he acts tired when he stands still. That's the extent of the damage.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' King Bulblin is no slouch, either. For a humanoid mini-boss with no magical protection, he handles being repeatedly sliced, diced, and thrown off bridges pretty damn well.
* Dr. Wily's ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' incarnation defies imminent death at the end of each game in which he appears. He was at the center of a large explosion in the first game. In the third, he had his mind drained by a machine that promptly self-destructed with an explosion large enough to sink the entire island on which Wily's base was stationed. He somehow regained his mind and reappeared in the fifth game, in which he walks into a (exploding) computer room based [[ConvectionSchmonvection crater of a currently-erupting volcano]] and actually uses the computer while it is in the process of exploding. In the sixth and final game of the franchise, Wily stands in the center of an explosion that levels a large portion of town, yet is said in the epilogue to have survived with only a few scratches.
** Being Made of Iron seems to be hereditary, as Wily's son, [[spoiler:Dr. Regal, manages to survive high-voltage electrocution and subsequent fall off of a very high roof]]. He goes on to survive the same explosion and eruption that Wily survived after having his mind and memories completely drained.
** Wily has this quality even in the classic ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' series, being perfectly fine despite having his inventions blown up with him inside on numerous occasions, and even taking direct hits from Mega Man in some of them.
* Everything that ever lived in any ''TombRaider'' game. In the first games you have to shoot any human being for minutes for it to die, not because they are hard to hit. Every. Single. Shot. Is a hit. Count the amounts of bullets you have to put through each enemy (taking into account the player uses tow pistols at the same time. You'll be surprised how much stronger than 50 cent each little monkey in the jungle is.
* Almost every FirstPersonShooter player character falls into this by default, able to soak up gunfire like a sponge. This is more RuleOfFun than anything, though -- if he were humanly durable, then the game would be unrepentantly hard.
** Perhaps the best example is also the first example, the one and only VideoGame/{{Doom}}guy, who manages to survive everything hell can throw at him.
*** On the subject of Doom, there's the Cyberdemon in the original games.
* Averted in First Person Shooters at the "realistic" end of [[FacklerScaleOfFPSRealism the scale]] -- such as ''CounterStrike'' and ''OperationFlashpoint'' -- where it's possible for anyone to die from one gunshot wound, even if it's "just" to the torso.
* Not strictly an example, but: in Yuri and Estelle's FriendshipMoment the night before the final battle in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'', Estelle comments on how she's surprised that he can't sleep, and he replies "You say that like I'm made of iron or something." In a meta way, it's probably fair to say he is, in every sense of the word: both as a character and as a force in battle [[GameBreaker (being one of the most broken playable characters]] in the ''TalesSeries'').
* Captain Cross from ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'', supposedly an unpowered BadassNormal with only weapons and skills to call his own, soaks up damage that would otherwise do a number on tanks and the explicitly superpowered {{Super Soldier}}s.
* Every FightingGame ever. ''StreetFighter''? Just as one example, the piledriver is capable of breaking necks in the real world when done in the somewhat controlled environment of ProfessionalWrestling; Zangief can perform one from effectively 20' in the air, and the victim can get up. Then there's ''SamuraiShodown'' and ''[[SoulSeries Soul Calibur]]'', where you can shrug off a sword aimed through the chest. Somewhat needed, though, otherwise these games could be very, very short.
** For the aversion, see ''BushidoBlade'': weapon-based fighter like the two above, but one clean hit kills you automatically.
*** There are other aversions, but in general, these are games where the OneHitKill is [[GameBreaker much too easy]]. Exhibit A: ''TimeKillers''.
** There are some ''ridiculous'' stage effects in the ''DeadOrAlive'' series that can range from being thrown into explosive containers to literally dropping over 10 stories below. Worst that happens is a KO and otherwise everyone just gets up like nothing even happened.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' the characters are more likely made of [[LivingToys plastic.]]
* An interesting example in ''ModernWarfare''. Most of the time in game, especially on Veteran and online this trope is averted; while you can take one to three shots standing without much issue, any more than that and you'll have just as much a chance of standing as the card tower you're trying to build before the hurricane hits, metaphorically. However, in the Campaign, this trope is played [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome awesomely straight]] when your character, [[spoiler:Soap]], survives, in order, falling off of a waterfall, having his head bashed into the roof of a car, being stabbed in the chest, crawling to a gun with said knife in chest, being stomped on the face with a boot, and finally [[spoiler:pulling the knife out of his chest and throwing it into the eye of General Shepherd, finishing him off for good]]. ''[[HolyShitQuotient Damn.]]''
* The [[DeepSouth swampfolk]] of Point Lookout in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', who despite being dressed in overalls take ''much'' more damage than the PoweredArmor-clad stormtroopers of the Enclave (such that sneak criticals on the bigger ones frequently only deal {{scratch damage}}), and also dish out more damage, despite the Enclave mooks wielding high-tech energy weapons, and the swampfolk wielding axes and breech-loading shotguns. This may be due to the heavy mutations caused by a combination of radiation exposure and inbreeding.
** This has less to do with being Made of Iron than the [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard game being a cheating bastard]]. The Hillbillies' and Tribals' weapons (and most of the weapons in point Lookout for that matter) deal an extra 30-50 points of damage when used against the Lone Wanderer. They also happen to have raised health(WordOfGod says this is because the developers wanted Point Lookout to be one of the hardest expansions).
** This is somewhat applicable to several high-end baddies added in the expansions, the probable reason being that by the end of the vanilla game the Lone Wanderer can deal IMMENSE amounts of damage, Sneak attack critical + sniper rifle + headshot = dead almost anything from the vanilla game.
** Also applicable to some of your followers in Broken Steel, namely Dogmeat, Fawkes, and Seargent RL-3. When the ability to level up companions was added, there was a glitch that made these three gain ''hundreds'' of hitpoints per level. By level 30, they couldn't be killed by anything less than three shots from the Mysterious Stranger's .44 Magnum, a gun you can only get by cheating that does over ''9,000 damage per shot!''
* Joshua Graham of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. This is a man who was set on fire and thrown down the Grand Canyon [[YouHaveFailedMe for losing a battle]], and ''managed to drag himself to Northern Utah after that''. In-game, he has a Damage Threshold of 50, which is more than the best Power Armor. If asked, Graham merely states that for him it was a mix of HeroicResolve and [[BadassPreacher faith]].
** The White Legs tribals are also surprisingly tough for their lack of armor, being able to sometimes survive a headshot from the Anti-Materiel Rifle.
* ''{{Kikokugai}}'': Subverted by Gong Taoluo, even more so considering his specialized techniques do him lots of pain when he uses them too much.
* Steel-types in ''{{Pokemon}}'' are a literal example of this trope, with some of them (like Steelix) also living up to it.
** Shuckle is the epitome of Made of Iron. It has the highest Defense and Sp. Defense of any Pokémon, with both of them maxing out at ''614''. And it can also have the Sturdy ability, which protects it from 1-hit KO moves. The only reliable way to KO Shuckle is to use attacks that do set amounts of damage or poisoning/burning it.
** Subverted with Bastiodon, who is in the top ten for both defensive stats in the game and is ''literally'' Made of Iron, but still falls to a wayward hit because of its absolutely crippling weaknesses to Ground and Fighting-type attacks (they do ''four times the damage'' and are some of the most common attacks in the game). Aggron is a similar case, except it has much lower Special Defense but higher Defense.
* For a murder game, ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' characters seem to be surprisingly resistant to bullets not taken to the head or heart. [[spoiler: Manfred von Karma was shot in the shoulder and carried the bullet around for ''ten years'' just so nobody would find out about it]] and [[spoiler: Lang gets shot in the leg while protecting Shih-na and just keeps walking around afterwards without so much as a limp.]]
** [[spoiler: Wocky Kitaki]] ''does'' get shot in the heart, and survives for over six months!
** [[{{VisualNovel/AceAttorney}} Phoenix Wright]] himself seems to be borderline invincible:
*** He ate a poisoned ''glass'' necklace (and even mentions ''chewing'' it) without suffering any visible pain.
*** He was electrocuted by a stun gun and stood up again just a minute later, unharmed (whereas Maya still felt the aftereffects a day later).
*** He smashed through a massive metal door, meant to prevent [[DemonicPossession possessed]] people from escaping the room and didn't even seem to carry away as much as a bruise.
*** He was beaned by a fire extinguisher and only blacked out for a few moments before getting up, suffering slight amnesia.
*** He ''fell from a bridge, 10 meters in the air, landed in a freezing cold river with a horrifying fast current and was carried along with said current of doom for a few miles and only got a cold from it''.
**** Not only a bridge, but he fell from a ''burning bridge''.
*** And, finally, he was hit by a ''car'' and hurled 30 feet across the street, right into a metal pole, but stood up and walked away with just ''a sprained ankle''. Did we forget anything?
* From the same people, ''GhostTrick'' has several characters who stretch the limits of survivability, even without the player character's death-reversing powers.
* In ''AceCombat Zero'', the ADFX-02 Morgan certainly doesn't look or perform like the properly armoured A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt II, but can take at least six missile hits to down when most enemy planes go down in two. Even then, it still manages to pull off a SingleStrokeBattle-like flypast on Cipher's plane before it finally explodes.
* In ''AirForceDelta Strike'', some player aircraft have 4000+ hit points.
* VideoGame/{{Lugaru}} averts this. A few well-aimed blows to the head can deal with most enemies (or ''you'') and the staff can ''kill'' with one swing (again, you too).
* Wario in the ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' games will be put through every condition possible (to name a few, zombification, lit on fire, spun up into a ball of string, being trapped in a snowball, and more.) and he just shakes it off. All of them are also required to solve many of the puzzles.
* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect'', Commander Shepard's Soldier class consists of equal parts MoreDakka and Made of Iron; after some upgrade, s/he can more or less laugh off a missile to the face. [[TheBigGuy Krogan buddy Urdnot Wrex]] from the first game also counts. And as for the [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 second game's]] krogan, [[BloodKnight Grunt]]...with a few upgrades and his special Fortification power, bringing him down with normal gunfire is like trying to break concrete with a toothpick.
** Not to forget the Sentinel class, with the Bastion prestige. A high-level barrier from a Bastion ''will'' shrug off ''several'' missiles to the face, and can be recharged before it's duration expires.
** Krogan in-game are extremely hardy, with secondary and sometimes tertiary organ systems and regenerative abilities. Thane Krios, a superb assassin whose preferred techniques tend towards quick, low-fuss {{neck snap}}s on most species, has a somewhat different style when killing krogan while [[{{Badass}} unarmed]].
--> [[DeathFromAbove Top approach]], [[EyeScream double-strike to eye ridge]], slide down between blinded target's rising arms, [[PressurePoint precision nerve strike to throat]], secondary nerve strike to counter [[UnstoppableRage blood rage]], [[GroinAttack quad-kick]] to bend target, grip each side of skull, running leaping spinning [[NeckSnap neck-snap]]. Alternate: [[StuffBlowingUp Bomb]].
** Shepard's resurrection by the Lazarus Project included a reinforced skeletal structure, allowing them to headbutt Krogan and not fracture their skull whilst doing so. A more practical use for this however, comes in that they are now capable of using the Claymore Shotgun or Widow Sniper Rifle, weapons that generate sufficient recoil to shatter every bone in a ''normal'' person's arm.
** Shepard [[UpToEleven turns this up to eleven]] in VideoGame/MassEffect3 when [[spoiler:s/he is blasted by Harbinger's main gun on the way to the Citadel during the endgame. Bear in mind this is a gun that fires molten metal at near-lightspeed, and it has been shown to destroy dreadnoughts in other appearances. Shepard just gets up and keeps going, albeit with major injuries.]]
*** This can then be taken UpToEleven ''[[BeyondTheImpossible again]]''; Shepard is shown to have survived [[spoiler: their cybernetic implants overheating, the Citadel ''exploding'', and the subsequent plummet through Earth's atmosphere, ''while mortally wounded'', in a high EMS Destroy ending, stretching this trope beyond belief.]] That seems to be the limit, though, as [[spoiler:that's the only time Shepard will live; having his/her body disintegrated is apparently too much even for them.]]
*** In the Extended Cut, [[spoiler: the Destroy Ending retcons this to show Shepard surviving an explosion on the Crucible, which caused the Citadel to get damaged as the superweapon fired. Shepard is then shown in the rubble, taking a breath.]]
* ''SuikodenII'': Luca Blight ends up fighting eighteen heroes working in tandem, defeating at least twelve of them, and has to have half an army shoot him in order to weaken him enough to make a duel against him even remotely fair.
* ''SuperMarioBros'' Bowser, definitely. From being [[SuperMarioBros thrown]] [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 into]] [[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii lava]], [[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory crushed by two castles and a train]], and [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy knocked into a sun]] [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 followed by a black hole]] among much more, the sheer amount of things he's survived with barely a scratch on him is amazing.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' lampshades this in his playable sections. He has literally infinite lives.
** Perhaps the Mario Brothers aren't the only ones who can benefit from One-up Mushrooms.
** It's worth pointing out the one time he actually [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath died]]. In NewSuperMarioBrothers, the first boss is Bowser, who falls into lava after you cut the bridge. You've done this many times before, no big deal. But then he struggles in the lava as his skin and eyeballs melt out and only a skeleton is left as Mario just stared. Why is this worth pointing out? Because that's NOT when he died. You meet him again in world 8, completely fine. He's just missing his flesh and eyes. Being a skeleton is no big deal for him. However, this time the bridge doesn't have any lava under it, and when you cut the bridge, he simply falls a great distance. It's a confirmed death in the very last fight, where Bowser Jr. is seen with Bowser's remains (his skeleton broken into pieces from the fall) and promptly throws it all into a black magic pot to [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist resurrect him.]]
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has a literal example in Chapter 3 with the Iron Clefts/Armored Harriers/Iron Adonis Twins who [[NighInvulnerable cannot be beaten]] until Mario gets his [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement Yoshi partner]].
* King K Rool in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry''. In the first game it's fairly standard punishment, but in the second, he gets his gun explode on him about ten times, gets punched out the window of an airship by a captured Donkey Kong, hits every single cliff face on the way down, torn apart by sharks, sinks into the ocean, has his gun explode AGAIN in the TrueFinalBoss battle, flies into the island core, is presumably there when it sinks like Atlantis and sails away on his ship afterwards. Then, in the third game, he gets electrocuted like ten times from his mad science laboratory equipment, and has a giant egg dropped on his head by the freed Banana Bird queen... Then gets beaten up by all five Kongs in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', hit by a rocket powered boot shot by Funky Kong, thrown straight through the roof of the boxing roof and into K Lumsy Island, where said giant locked up Kremling proceeds to beat K Rool senseless for locking him up. He's perfectly fine in later appearances.
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'', [[spoiler: the Cardinal in the St. Peter's Basilica Lair of Romulus sidequest]] can take multiple crossbow bolts or blows from a heavy weapon, damage that would crumple a [[HeavilyArmoredMook Brute]], despite apparently wearing nothing more protective than cloth robes.
** [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII Ezio]] and possibly [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI Altaïr]] could count for this as well. Best seen in the trailer for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'', during which Ezio, [[OneManArmy while working his way through an army one by one]], headbutts a guy wearing an actual iron helmet. Helmet-guy doesn't win this encounter. Desmond counts as well on the technicality that he doesn't have a health bar, meaning he can survive any fall or fight you can put him through.
*** Compounded in the extended trailer (and the second opening cutscene) of ''Revelations'', when Ezio freefalls from several stories high only to make a ThreePointLanding ''with no negative physical effects'', and all of his acrobatic abilities intact.
* Luka Redgrave in ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' suffers some pretty nasty abuse but is none the worse for wear by the ending. [[ButtMonkey Enzo]] takes a few bumps, too, like being thrown head-first into the driver's seat of his car.
* The player ship in the entire ''TheTaleOfAlltynex'' trilogy.
* ''VideoGame/RaptorCallOfTheShadows'' has a player ship that is like this too, and that's ''not'' counting in the extra shielding (which take the same amount of damage as the plane).
* ''MortalKombat'' dips into this in the 2011 {{Reboot}}: each character has a special attack dubbed the X-Ray Move, in which they unleash such brutal attacks that it shatters bone and destroys organs, complete with (as the name suggests) a brief X-ray image of said destruction. Not only do these characters keep fighting after having their skulls cracked, spines broken, and livers frozen and shattered, but you can do it over and over again.
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': Shirou-"My body is made of blades"-Emiya.[[NightmareFuel Both literally]] [[{{Determinator}} and figuratively]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'': Chell can take far more punishment than one would expect. So can her Long Fall Boots, apparently.
** She can be shot or otherwise injured an unlimited number of times with no permanent effects, as long as she has a few seconds to rest after each hit. Faith of MirrorsEdge is the same way. Neither of these cases make any sense; in all other respects they seem like normal humans, and there's no explanation for their endless bodily bullet capacity.
* ''TheIncredibleMachine'''s CosmicPlaything mini-human Mel Schlemming can withstand anything outside of getting eaten, though falling from a great height will knock him out.
* The players in ''[[EASportsStreet NFL Street]]'' would be hit with tackles as hard as the average football game but without all the armor protecting them. Given that football in real life had commonly resulted in injuries even when wearing armor, the players must had been pretty tough.
* The snowboarders in ''VideoGame/{{SSX}}'' can take plenty of punishment. From hitting each other at the speed of a car to crashing after a massive jump, they always seem to be able to get back up uninjured. Crashing in such a fashion as to totally wipe out is incredibly rare.
* Everyone in {{Scribblenauts}}. Especially Maxwell himself. With the dizzying array of weapons in the game, you'd think SOMETHING would cause a lasting injury. But nope. CriticalExistenceFailure only here.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'', {{Ron|aldReagan}}nie [[http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060125.html gets shot]] by a robber, then [[http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060201.html takes out the criminal]] using nothing but PatrioticFervor.
* ''RPGWorld'' often [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20001201.html plays with]] this trope.
* O-Chul from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' has survived being in an exploding castle whilst paralyzed, fighting a shark in a tank of acid, and (offscreen) having a staring contest with a basilisk. WordOfGod states that he has a constitution score in the mid twenties. The villains have taken to placing him in psychotically dangerous situations simply to bet on his survival. This is a man who has ChuckNorris jerky for breakfast.
-->'''O-Chul:''' [This is] Xykon's spell list. Or most of it, anyway.\\
'''Roy:''' Are you kidding?!? How did you get this??\\
'''O-Chul:''' One saving throw at a time.
* Steve from Webcomic/LifeAndDeath in his fight with himself.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''
** Bun-Bun has shrugged off attacks that would kill an ordinary human being, made all the more impressive by the fact that he's a ''rabbit''. At one point he was actually eaten alive by an alien, and simply burst his way out of the alien's stomach and proceeded to kick its butt. Bun-Bun has an origin even he is not clear about; he was bought from a Magical Store.
** Oasis might also count. She's been through many NoOneCouldSurviveThat moments, including two explosions and a sniper bullet to the head. How she does this is not yet explained, and may or may not be a superpower she was given by Dr. Steve. Her "sister" Kusari has also survived being stabbed through the chest and even ''decapitated'', again by means unexplained.
* The entire cast of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' has exhibited this despite not having any apparent magical protection.
** One member managed to survive having '''Australia''' dropped on them. That one member? The '''''[[SquishyWizard SQUISHY FREAKING WIZARD]]'''''.
** Fighter himself has survived several stabs to the back of the head courtesy of black mage and it isn't likely he's ever felt a thing. Hell, he even had one used as a lightning rod to channel a Lightning Spell directly into his brain. That particular spell actually INCREASED his intelligence instead of dealing any damage whatsoever!
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius ''
** Considering what he HAS survived, Othar Trygvassen (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!) is only boasting a little in the page quote.
** Also a defining characteristic of the [[SuperSoldier Jaegers]], along with their [[FunetikAksent thick Germanic accents]] and [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily teeth]]
** And coming completely out of left field is quiet, unassuming, MauveShirt Airman Third Class Axel Higgs. He gets slammed into a stone wall hard enough to leave a man-shaped dent, brushes it off, [[spoiler:then cuts the insane clank that did the slamming with a wrench [[OneHitKill in a single swipe.]]]] Although we're starting to get hints that he's not quite what he seems...
* Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}: Recently, [[spoiler: Gamzee]] received several ''hundred'' bullets in the chest courtesy of [[spoiler: Caliborn]], and doesn't even stop smiling. Apparently, [[spoiler: clowns]] in Homestuck are death-proof.
* [[TheAce Ms. Jones]] from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''. Trick one: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=380 a sword bounces from her face]]. Trick two: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=721 place a palm on a wall.]] Close the fist, excavating what concrete happened to fit under the fingers. Who she is wasn't revealed yet, only that she's ''not'' a robot and [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=515 probably]] not a "normal" magic-user either. We already saw one god and one valkyrie at the Court, though... And remember, androids aren't robots, and golems don't count as robots either.
** Ms. Jones probably belongs on {{Complete Immortality}}. [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=1113 Latest page]] shows her standing in the magma of the FORMING Earth.
* Webcomic/VGCats parodied this with (amusingly enough, considering the Trope Picture) Zoro from ''Manga/OnePiece''. Zoro blows off some physical damage taken by earlier attacks... only for Chopper to tell him that he's taken such internal damage from the attacks that [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=226 most of his colon has to be removed]].
* The title character of ''Webcomic/PrincessPi''. Watch as she survives [[http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=5 an explosion]], then ''two'' [[http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=6 throws to the ground]], then [[http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=7 a gasoline fire]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Memoria}}'': [[http://memoria.valice.net/?p=303 The children realize their injuries should have been worse.]]
* [[spoiler:Richard]] in ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'' may qualify as a double subversion, [[spoiler:given the huge number of AmusingInjuries he's survived with little ill effect. At first it seemed justified by the fact that he's undead, but recently some strips have dropped hints that he may be a flesh-and-blood human masquerading as an undead.]]
** Triple subversion! [[spoiler:His immortality is derived from some sort of magic which requires him to kill innocents and harvest their ashes.]]
* Among other things, Vane Black of ''NextTownOver'' has been shot through the hand and hanged, and the strongest reaction she has is frustration that John Henry Hunter is getting away because of such holdups.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Jacob Starr of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' is (in)famous for this trope, to the point of handlers referring to its use as "The Jacob Treatment". The character in question, over the course of his tenure on the island, was [[AnnoyingArrows hit by arrows]], burned, [[OnlyAFleshWound shot]], cut and stabbed, all without seeming to flinch or even lose any mobility.
** V3's Rick Holeman also took an absurd amount of injuries before dying. These included getting shot in the chest while still being able to run right over to his attacker, knock her over and starting to beat her down. All the while being stabbed with a knife - then he survived long enough to deliver some last words before finally kicking the bucket.
* Justified in ''BrokenSaints'': Gabriel, [[spoiler:TheDragon]], can handle the pain of his spear wound so easily because [[spoiler:he been genetically engineered to have enhanced physical endurance, among other attributes.]]
** Played straight with Oran. Sure, [[HandWave the power of his faith protects him]], or at least numbs him to pain, but he still takes way [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat too much punishment to survive]], time after time.
* [[AvertedTrope Usually averted]] in the ''WhateleyUniverse'', even if it is a comic book universe. Even the NighInvulnerable characters get injured. Lancer is a FlyingBrick, and in his combat final, he got a dislocated shoulder that sent him to the hospital. [[spoiler:He still won, though.]] Phase seems to be in dire need of her roommate's healing salves on a regular basis.
* Randall [[spoiler: Octagonapus]] of ''TheLazerCollection 3'' survives ''falling from the roof of a tall building'' and with no reaction other than "Ugh... I'm fine... ''but this is personal.''"
* The most obvious example from the ''GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' would be The Shield, whose only superpower was a complete and total immunity to being injured. It didn't matter what you used on him... his power would let him survive it uninjured. Bullets? He laughed at bullets. Drowning? Sorry, can't drown, though he doesn't quite breathe water in those circumstances. Having a skyscraper collapse on top of him? Granted, he'd get bored waiting for you to dig him out, but in the meantime he'd be fine. Exposure to vacuum? Doesn't faze him. Drop him to the ground from orbit? Been there, done that.
** The superheroic Stuntman from the same setting is an interesting variation. His powers revolve around luck rather than simply being [[NighInvulnerable immune to injury]], so as a result he gets banged up all the time... but never as badly as he should be. Stuntman once was thrown from the roof of a twelve story building, and through a series of lucky breaks and coincidental events managed to walk away from it with a skinned knee and a twisted ankle.
** Infinity is amazingly hard to hurt as well because of her mutation. Her bones are made of metal and her musculature is far more dense than normal flesh. She gets hurt all the time, but it takes a lot to do it.
** Anvil is literally Made of Iron. Imagine Colossus of the X-Men, except permanently transformed and iron instead of steel.
* Roleplay/DarwinsSoldiers has a surprising amount of Made of Iron characters.
** Pelvanida experiments are ''extremely'' hard to kill.
** [[BadassNormal Alfred]] shrugged off at least two point blank gut shots from a pistol and continued engaging [[ScaryBlackMan Marcus]] in a fist fight.
** Marcus is an ordinary human Dragonstorm agent. He was capable of taking on two beings with SuperStrength, even after he had been punched several times by them.
* Corbin from ''SplinterCellExtinction'' gets surrounded by a SWAT team, sedated, takes a MagicAntidote, his MissionControl provides him a distraction via HollywoodHacking that leads to a DarkenedBuildingShootout, Corbin gets shot in the chest while totally murdering everyone in the room, then beats the crap out of four more armed commandos and escapes.
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick can get her head exploded and only need happy pills to cure the minor headache she got.
* LetsPlay/MarikPlaysBloodlines. While [[LargeHam Marik]] was in the wrong crowd's house, one interrupts his BadassBoast. All the other wrong crowd members got down within 2-3 hits, this particular one got hit ''16'' times total by a [[BuffySpeak Bat-wielding-Vampire]]!
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', Skitter. Her sheer toughness is demonstrated on several occasions, but the most vivid demonstration comes in [[http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/scourge-19-2/ 19.2]] when she walks up to a hero who uses his power to sort-of cure her, a power which as a side effect transfers her injuries to him. She was prepared to fight without healing, but Tattletale convinces her to go through with it anyway. Afterwards, the hero needs the help of two people just to stand.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', Robin (being the BadassNormal) is the only character to ever ''occasionally'' receive minor injuries, but even those were for the sake of the plot (such as the episode "Fractured") and were invariably [[HollywoodHealing gone by the next episode]] (Raven has HealingHands, so maybe that part is justified). Other than that, despite having no superpowers whatsoever, he is just as Made of Iron as the rest of his superpowered teammates, sometimes rivaling that of the literally Made of Iron Cyborg.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers''
** Brock Sampson has, in various episodes, survived being beaten, stabbed, shot, exposed to the vacuum of space, hit with a bus and buried alive after receiving a supposedly lethal dose of knockout darts. When the Phantom Limb has to perform emergency surgery on Brock to save his life in the episode "Hate Floats" he runs down a litany of all the things he removed.
-->"I have removed the bullet. And three others, a blowgun dart, two shark's teeth, a tip of a bayonet, a twisted paperclip, and a meager handful of buckshot. You may want to learn how to duck."
** To a lesser extent, Dr. Venture is also indestructible, having survived the loss of an arm (later reattached with no ill effects) and having an eye knocked out of its socket (he's forced to wear an eye patch for an episode, but next time we see him, [[{{Snapback}} all is well]]) and kidney removal. Both kidneys, by the way.
* Despite frequently being on the receiving end of, among other things, [[ElementalPowers giant boulders and fire blasts]], the characters of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' rarely receive anything more than cuts and bruises.
** A significant supporting character was KilledOffForReal with what by the show's standards was a relatively minor attack, simply because he was caught by surprise and wasn't able to brace himself for the hit.
** The only two people who actually had bones broken were the canyon guide in "The Gread Divide" after being attacked by some canyon crawlyers and [[spoiler:Sokka]] in the GrandFinale by awkwardly falling about ten metres onto a metal platform.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** Played for laughs in an episode where it is revealed that Homer was born with an unusually thick skull and has an extra layer of protective fluid around his brain, so he can take severe, repeated blows to the head without suffering any real damage.
*** Even outside of the protection afforded him by "Homer Simpson Syndrome," Homer is able to shrug off injuries that would kill lesser men. In ''Homer Scissorhands'', he laments this trait after intentionally drinking a jar of disinfectant:
--->'''Homer''': (Groans) Why dosen't anything kill me?
** And subverted in "Homerpalooza" when the doctor informs him that his cannonball-to-the-gut sideshow act is killing him.
** Double subverted in the episode "Bart the Daredevil," when he falls down the Springfield Gorge twice with an ambulance crash in-between, but sustaining severe injuries.
* In TheMovie of ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', [[HypercompetentSidekick Shego]] is kicked from the roof of a building that is several stories high, into an electrical signal tower, which not only [[HarmlessElectrocution electrocutes her]] but also collapses right on top of her. And she comes out of the incident with slightly torn clothes and frazzled hair...
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom''
** Just about all the main characters get blasted, smacked, slammed, falls, and runs through other notable dangerous hazards with nothing more then scrapes. Valerie's future self fell ''hundreds of feet from the sky and lives!''
** Danny himself, though partially justified through his ghost abilities. Still, given the number of times he gets shocked, blasted, slammed into walls or the ground and overall smacked around by every ghost EVER, he definitely falls into this trope.
* Everybody in the {{DCAU}}, starting with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''. The first seasons of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' were fairly tame, but starting with Superman and continuing through ''The New Batman Adventures,'' ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond,'' and ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited,'' supposedly human characters (and not just the {{Badass Normal}}s) routinely take abuse that should kill or cripple everybody involved.
* ''{{Duckman}}'' has Big Jack [=McBastard=], who is trampled by a horse, eaten by vultures down to a skeleton, and then buried. At the end of the episode, he shows up to congratulate them on completing their job. When asked how he survived, he takes a drag on his cigar, and says "[[NoodleIncident Long story]]."
* Any character from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''.
** Averted with [[spoiler: Eddy's Brother. He delivered a pretty sickening NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on Eddy and Eddy survived with bruises and marks. In his brother's case, one hit with a door and he was out cold.]]
** [[spoiler: [[FridgeBrilliance Though Eddy must have built up resistance from the years of abuse.]] And WordOfGod said that [[GlassCannon his brother never took a hit in his life.]]]]
* Major Bludd in ''GIJoeRenegades'' is a fairly impressive example, taking about as much punishment in one episode as one could theoretically suffer in a kids show, and shrugging every bit of it off like nothing happened. He get punched, kicked, shuriken'd, knocked off a speeding truck ''through'' a billboard, smashed into crates, ''[[ForkliftFu hit with a forklift]]'', buried under debris from a collapsing wall, and finally blown up with a shopping mall/ammo dump. Only after the last one [[EyeScream costs him an eye]] does he ''start'' to even [[ItsPersonal hold a grudge]] against the Joes.
* [[EvilOldFolks Grandfather]] from ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' is an extreme example. He survives [[spoiler: ''[[ColonyDrop getting a giant flaming metal treehouse dropped on him]]'']] [[NighInvulnerable and shrugs it off like it were no big deal]]. Naturally, it's {{lampshade|Hanging}}d.
-->"Did you honestly believe that a mere 39 gazillion tons of red hot metal and duct tape would crush me?"

* The Ponies in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' receive a lot of their respect among male fans by the constant demonstration that they're pretty much invulnerable. Pianos dropping on them, taking a full buffalo charge, getting hit by dragon breath, hitting a mountain at jet speed, nothing appears to even ''stun'' them for more than a few seconds. The first real injury in the series is when one of Rainbow Dash's failed stunts gives her a concussion and a broken wing (A compound fracture, no less) which requires a ''[[HollywoodHealing couple of days hospital stay and staying off the limb for a week]]''.
** Based on "Sonic Rainboom", ponies in this show can sustain ''over 1600 G-forces''. This is demonstrated by Rainbow Dash turning on a dime at [[ShrugOfGod what was either Mach 1 or Mach 5]].
** And later we see a flashback where she does it as a young filly. She is a pegasus, and is implied that the earth ponies are the ones more physically able than the other races. If they have health/safety regulations, they are for other animals as the cows and donkeys they live with, because ponies surely doesn't need them.
** Special mention goes to Spike, since his dragon scales give him a formidable natural body armor: He's completely fire-proof, at the point he can bathe on ''magma'' and sustain neiter pain or damage from stabs, hits or falls. He casually explains this last part while he's being used as a ''living pincushion'' by Rarity.
* [[{{Archer}} Sterling Archer]] is virtually impervious to pain, most recently walking away from a space shuttle crash unscathed.
** Averted with Brett, whose condition steadily worsens every time he gets shot (or savagely beaten). Mallory, who embodies the office's utter indifference to Brett's health, has taken to calling him "Mr. Blood Bank."
* {{Futurama}}
** Fry routinely has entire limbs--and once even his head--severed, but manages to function just fine; rarely even showing any outward sign of pain.
** Bender is made of iron (well, 30% iron) in both the literal and figurative sense. He even seems tough by robot standards, having endured being crushed, melted, shredded, eaten, jettisoned into deep space, exploded, and having his components incorrectly reassembled, somehow, into a working flying saucer in the 1950s (long story).
-->'''Bender''': What does it take to kill me?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy Audie Murphy]]. There's no way to list the ways in which this man was made of Adamantium without repeating everything on the linked page.
** During the battle of Holtzwihr in France, Murphy's company (of which 19 out of the original 128 men remained in fighting condition) was attacked by tanks and infantry. He ordered his men to withdraw while he remained and directed artillery from his forward position. When the Germans got close, he climbed onto a still-burning tank destroyer and opened fire with its .50 caliber machine gun. Almost totally exposed to enemy fire, he nonetheless [[OneManArmy single-handedly]] held off ''tanks and infantry'' -- '''''for an hour''''' (during which he was [[ImmuneToBullets shot in the leg]]) until the phone line connecting him with artillery got cut and he ran out of ammo. He then made his way back to his company, [[OnlyAFleshWound refused medical attention]], and ''organized his company in a counterattack,'' which forced the Germans to withdraw. At the time he had just recovered from being shot in the arm and the day before had been hit by shrapnel from a nearby mortar strike that killed two members of his squad. He received a Medal of Honor for his actions during this battle, and this isn't even the most ridiculously {{Badass}} thing he did during [=WWII=]. Not bad for a guy who was 5'6" and 130lbs and lied about his age to enlist.
* Shaolin monks practice a rigorous regimen known as "Iron Body Technique", allowing wooden clubs to be broken across their bodies, limbs and ''heads'' with little effect, as well as great resistance to piercing weapons. One of the most extreme examples involved a single monk bending two spears (with metal heads) almost double against his throat and having a baseball bat broken on his back at the same time.
** Those clubs are weakened to avoid breaking bones. (They still hurt like hell, though.)
** Most of those impressive feats are basically tricks that any moderately athletic individual could perform if they know the right technique. They're impressive in their own way, similar to magic tricks, but no great display of toughness.
** Well then let me introduce you to the technique [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4jT-AtpCSY iron balls]]. Yeah it's actually testicles of steel. And thats not even counting their body temperature controlling feats, and many other crazy shit they do. You do not mess with the Shaolin.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu Dr. Liviu Librescu]], Romanian-born Holocaust survivor, scientist and [[BadassTeacher academic professor]]. During the Virginia Tech massacre, Librescu [[YouShallNotPass personally kept the door shut]] to prevent gunman Seung-hui Cho from entering the classroom while his students escaped out the windows. He was shot through the door five times before finally succumbing to a shot to the head. Of course, he had a history, since surviving the Holocaust takes a {{Determinator}} in itself...
* The famous death of Grigori Rasputin, who was poisoned, shot, stabbed and finally thrown into the icy Neva River. Hard to say which [[RasputinianDeath ultimately did him in]], or if his assassins were just totally incompetent.
** He died of drowning as they found water in his lungs and the position he was frozen in suggested he was trying to claw or force himself out of the carpet they wrapped his body in.
* Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. A brief autopsy after his defeat revealed that he had taken five bullets and over twenty sword wounds before he went down.
* TruthInTelevision: It's possible to survive being stabbed in a non-vital area because the damage is mostly localized, so first aid and adequate medical care can allow someone to live without any detrimental effects (beyond the time it takes to heal). Bullets which are not designed to expand upon impact also can be survived, since the wound cavity is only as large as the bullet is..
* In February 2008, British marine Matthew Croucher [[JumpingOnAGrenade jumped on a grenade]], was blown across the compound, and then got up with only a concussion. His backpack apparently took "most" of the blast, but still.
** Oh, but it gets better: after literally standing up from said grenade blast, the lithium battery in his destroyed backpack caught fire and the medic recommended that he be evacuated . He refused on the grounds that the Taliban would come looking to investigate the explosion and that would give the Marines an opportunity to ambush them. [[BadAss The dude got blown up and then deliberately stayed behind to get back at the ones who did it.]]
** The USMC's Jacklyn Lucas smothered two grenades (one was a dud) with his body on Iwo Jima in 1945. The 17-year-old had no body armour. He died in 2008.
*** Lucas also survived jumping out of a plane when both his parachutes failed to open on a training exercise.
* While running for his third term of office, TheodoreRoosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin as he was on his way to deliver a speech. Roosevelt, never one to be deterred by something so trivial as a bullet wound, went on to deliver the entire fifty-page speech while bleeding from the gut, bothering only to add the following preface:
-->"I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."
** Bear in mind that [=TR=] delivered the speech ''from memory'', as the bullet had gone ''through'' the speech, folded in his pocket. This slowed the bullet enough to probably save his life, but left the speech with a hole through it and soaked in blood. He also claimed that he would be giving a shorter speech than intended. [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness He went on to speak for 90 minutes.]]
** Surprisingly (or perhaps ''not'' surprisingly, given who we're talking about), he went on to place second in the election.
*** Note that he placed second in the election...but he was running as a third party at the time. He is the ONLY candidate to beat a major party as a third party, solely on his personal charisma and influence. Even more impressive, the major party candidate he beat was Republican William Howard Taft, the ''incumbent President''.
** Real-life subversion: True to his image, TR practiced bare-knuckled fisticuffs in the White House. On one occasion he took a blow that struck him permanently blind in one eye. This was carefully kept secret during his remaining time in office.
*** ''That's why he didn't get killed when he was shot.'' Because of his poor eyesight, he had to make the letters in his speech very big with plenty of space between. Consequently, this was one thick wad of paper he was carrying in his breast pocket.
*** Even more true to his image, he was also a black belt in judo, carried a loaded pistol with him around the White House and kept a fully-grown lion and bear as ''pets''.
**** He also kept a badger as a pet. Not a trained one, considering most people complained of it running around savaging visitors ankles.
*** According to some, he took up judo after he was blinded boxing, because it wasn't as rough.
** In short, there's a reason why Cracked.com has him as the most badass manliest-man ever.
* During the Hundred Years War between England and France, English King Henry V was supposedly '''hit in the face with an arrow'''. He not only survived both the impact of the arrow and the surgery to remove it from his face, he proceeded to get right back up and return to beating the hell out of the French until he seized the Crown of France.
** It was at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 when Henry was 16 and still only a prince. John Bradmore, the doctor who removed the arrow, wrote about it -- "struck by an arrow next to his nose on the left side"; "The which arrow entered at an angle (ex traverso), and after the arrow shaft was extracted, the head of the aforesaid arrow remained in the furthermost part of the bone of the skull for the depth of six inches." The aftercare took several weeks. Henry won the battle, which was against English rebels.
* Henry V has nothing on the circus strong man Joe Greenstein, a.k.a. the Mighty Atom. He was shot in the face with a .38 revolver from 30 feet away. The bullet was flattened by the impact with his skull, and caused no serious injury. He was out of the hospital that evening. This is in addition to a career based on feats like bursting multiple chains at once by flexing his chest, bending 1/2 steel bars, and driving nails through several sheets of metal with his hands.
* Xiahou Dun of Wei did the whole "take an arrow to the face" thing first, when one of Lü Bu's men shot him in the eye at the Battle of Xiapi. Anyone else would have been on the ground moaning in pain, but he got back up, then proceeded to rip the arrow [[spoiler:''[[EyeScream and his own eye]]'' [[EyeScream out, swallowed the eye in one bite]]]], found the poor bastard who had the audacity of plonking him, and ''ended him'' in rather brutal fashion.
* Another example from ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' involves Guan Yu, who once took a poisoned arrow in his arm -- the best surgeon in the land was forced to cut the wound wide open, remove the arrowhead, and remove every shred of poisoned tissue, to the extent of scraping the poison off the bone. What did Guan Yu do all this time? Go a few rounds of Go with his good arm.
** Note that these stories are from Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is not necessarily historically accurate, but instead a somewhat romanticized version of history.
* Richard Hammond, who crashed a jet-powered racecar at 288 miles per hour and not only ''survived'' the incident (which many say would have decapitated a taller man -- there's a reason he's [[FanNickname called the Hamster]]), but recovered from all his injuries with no lasting damage (though he did joke about a new and inexplicable fondness for celery attributed to brain damage) and made a triumphant return to the show ''TopGear'' the following season.
* [[http://www.badassoftheweek.com/scaeva.html Marcus Cassius Scaeva.]] To quote:
-->''He was getting nailed from all sides during the fight -- his helmet was destroyed, his shield was bristling with arrows, he was stabbed in the shoulder with a javelin, hit in thigh by a sword, and fucking shot in the left eye socket with a goddamned arrow. Amazingly, this only made him more ripshit pissed off. He pulled the fucking arrow out of his own eye, threw it down, and resumed with the asskickings like a blood-lusted cyclops.''
* Mr Harishchandra Shiverhankar, one of the survivors of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, ''[[SlashedThroat had a blade slit his neck]]''. Obviously he is still around to tell the tale. So neck-slitting is no guaranteed kill, despite what fiction may have convinced us.
* Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who was impaled by a steel bar through the head, removing about 1/3 of his brain. He survived for twelve years (although his personality changed significantly, turning him into a textbook case in neurological studies).
** He also apparently walked away from the explosion that caused it without noticing the steel bar in his brain. However, that's probably due more to shock than anything else.
* [[http://www.badassoftheweek.com/luttrell.html Marcus Luttrell]], as BadassOfTheWeek can attest.
* A canine example of this trope: [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-178087/Dosha-miracle-mongrel.html Dosha the miracle mongrel]]. Said dog survived being run over, shot and spending two hours in a freezer before being found sitting up in the dog equivalent of a body bag.
* Tsutomu Yamaguchi, [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7963581.stm having survived both WWII atomic bombs and living into his nineties]], is Made of Lead. You think you had a bad week? Try getting nuked. ''Twice''.
** [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8443295.stm And now time finally caught up with him]]. After multiple nuclear weapon strikes, he lived until he was 93.
* AndrewJackson, 7th president of the United States, dueled quite a bit. In one duel, he actually allowed his opponent to take the first shot, then shot and killed his opponent while he was reloading. Repeat: in a contest where the object is to kill your opponent, Jackson ''volunteered'' to be shot at first. Apparently, his opponent had such a reputation as a duelist that he saw no purpose in trying to draw faster, so he accepted the rapid-but-badly-aimed first shot in order to retaliate with an aimed (and therefore lethal) shot. Keep in mind, Jackson got shot in the ribs, with the bullet so close to his heart no doctor would try to remove it for fear of killing him. Yet he walked away from the duel, acting like nothing had happened. Also a real life example of AuthorityEqualsAsskicking.
** Jackson actually had ''several'' bullets, a few arrowheads, and a ''bayonet tip'' lodged permanently in his body. It was said that he "rattled like a bag of marbles" when he walked around. (There's a story about Jackson digging a bullet out of his own arm during a Cabinet meeting, no form of pain relief, then mailing it back to a former duel opponent with a note along the lines of "I believe this belongs to you". This ''could'' be apocryphal, but given ''who'' the story is about....)
*** [[Website/{{Cracked}} Jackson never had any of them removed, probably because that would fall under the category of "Time not spent dueling", Jackson's least favorite time.]]
*** Also under the category of "get post-op infection and die".
** Then there was [[http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20070130-richard-lawrence-andrew-jackson-assassination-warren-r-davis.shtml the time Richard Lawrence tried to assassinate then-President Jackson]]. Two pistols misfired, and Jackson promptly beat Lawrence so thoroughly with his cane that his aides had to physically restrain him. Jackson was 67 at the time, and reportedly having respiratory problems.
*** The respiratory problem is the only reason that the two aides were able to stop him before he added another name to his kill tally.
* Adrian Carton De Wiart... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart just look him up]].
** To quote Wikipedia: He fought in the Boer War, World War I, and World War II; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear; survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn't amputate them. He later said "frankly I had enjoyed the war."
* Colonel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp John Stapp]], Ph.D, was the human precursor to crash test dummies. In his life conducting tests for human endurance in acceleration and deceleration, he subjected himself to over 50 potentially lethal experiments. He [[ScienceMarchesOn shattered conventional wisdom]] of thinking people would be subject to lethal injury at 18 g-forces when he walked away with temporary blindness and some bruising after sustaining 45 g-forces for over a second. His research was prime material that led to better [[EveryCarIsAPinto car]] and [[EjectionSeat aircraft]] safety the world over. He was also a good friend and colleague of Chuck Yeager
* Speaking of Chuck Yeager, he walked away from an airplane crash after beating a fire out ''on his face'' with his bare hands.
* Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot point blank [[BoomHeadshot through the]] [[http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/09/arizona.shooting/?hpt=T1 head]] and was communicative when she arrived at the trauma center 38 minutes later. At this very moment she's in the ICU with half of her skull removed but doctors are cautiously optimistic about her chances for recovery. Of people with similar wounds, [[http://www.slate.com/id/2175739/ 90% die on the spot and another 5% die before getting to the operating room]].
** Seven months after her surgery, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was back on the job, coming on to the floor of the House to cast a critical vote on a debt-ceiling measure. She was greeted with a standing ovation and not a few of her colleagues in tears.
* William George Barker of the RAF citation for the Victoria Cross says "On the morning of the 27th October, 1918, this officer observed an enemy two-seater over the F'oret de Mormal. He attacked this machine, and after a short burst it broke up in the air. At the same time a Fokker biplane attacked him, and-he was wounded in the right thigh, but managed, despite this, to shoot down the enemy aeroplane in flames. He then found, himself in the middle of a large formation of Fokkers, who attacked him from all directions; and was again severely wounded in the left thigh; but succeeded in driving down two of the enemy in a spin. He lost consciousness after this, and his machine fell out of control. On recovery he found himself being again attacked heavily by a large formation, and singling out one machine, he deliberately charged and drove it down in flames. During this fight his left elbow was shattered and he again fainted, and on regaining consciousness he found himself still being attacked, but, notwithstanding that he was now severely wounded in both legs and his left arm shattered, he dived on the nearest machine and shot it down in flames. Being greatly exhausted, he dived out of the fight to regain our lines, but was met by another formation, which attacked and endeavoured to cut him off, but after a hard fight he succeeded in breaking up this formation and reached our lines, where he crashed on landing."
* Nicholas Alkemade was a tail gunner for the RAF during the Second World War. On the night of 24 March 1944 his Lancaster was attacked and set on fire by a Junkers Ju 88. Alkemade -- whose parachute had been consumed by the flames -- chose to jump rather than burn to death. He fell for 18,000 feet, eventually crashing through pine trees and coming to rest in a snowdrift. Despite the fall, [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou and the sudden stop at the end]], he suffered only minor injuries. His captors refused to believe that he was not a spy, until the wreckage of his Lancaster was found. He spent the rest of the war as a POW, and died of natural causes in 1987.
* Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen -- the Red Baron. He was shot in the back of the head with an aircraft machine gun in late 1917. The bullet ricocheted off his skull, doing no permanent damage... at least physically. Those who knew him said he was a changed man after that day though, and may have led to his death in April, 1918.
** His eventual demise was also notable. The .303 machine gun bullet that hit his chest ruptured his heart and severely damaged his lungs -- a wound that should incapacitate a man instantly and lead to death within a couple of seconds. Not if you are the Red Baron. He managed to land and bring his Fokker plane to a full stop safely before moving on to the next world.
* Everyone from the following Website/{{Cracked}} articles: [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17573_7-fatal-injuries-that-people-somehow-survived.html 7 Fatal Injuries That People Somehow Survived]] and [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16497_7-people-who-cheated-death-then-kicked-it-in-balls.html 7 People Who Cheated Death, Then Kicked It in the Balls]].
* A couple of years ago in California, a man emptied his revolver into his lawyer at point blank range in front of the courthouse. Not only did the lawyer not die, but he was even able to casually walk away when the gunman ran out of ammo. The tail end of the incident was caught on video and circulated around on the internet. The lawyer was not wearing armor and he was indeed hit several times (including being shot through the neck), but you wouldn't know it from the way he seems to shrug it off in the video.
* [[http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/stabbed_man_orders_coffee This guy]]. When your first reaction to getting stabbed is to call not an ambulance but ''the police'', and then your second is to ''walk a mile to go and order a coffee''...
* This is a common trait of Wombats, which is probably the tank of [[AustralianWildlife Australia]]. It is one of the few animals where you are advised to swerve to avoid because hitting one will generally wreck the car.
* Similarly, Moose. If you're driving anything smaller than a loaded transport truck in the Canadian Shield and hit a moose, it will walk away. You will need a new car. (They've been known to walk away from collisions with transport trucks too, but less often).
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Levitow Airman First Class John Levitow, USAF]], lowest ranking airman to ever win the Medal of Honor. He was a loadmaster on an [[DeathFromAbove AC-47]] [[MoreDakka Gunship]] over Vietnam when his plane was hit by a stray artillery shell. Riddled with shrapnel, he saw a similarly wounded crewmate at risk of falling out of the open cargo door of the damaged plane. He crawled over to the crewmate and dragged him to safety, only to realize that a magnesium flare, used for night-time illumination of the battlefield, had fallen from its rack and begun to ignite, while rolling around on the floor amidst the cans of ammo used for the guns aboard the plane. Levitow threw himself upon the flare and body-dragged it to the door, where he threw it free of the plane. He died more than thirty years later of cancer.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Hayha Simo Hayha]], a Finnish sniper in the Winter War (and current page image for ColdSniper) spent months in severe winter conditions (-20 to -40 degrees Celsius) hiding in snow killing Russian soldiers and officers using his bolt-action rifle with iron sights and a sub-machine gun. The Russians dubbed him the White Death and often employed artillery fire, tanks and counter snipers against him to no avail. His confirmed kill count was 705 when he was finally hit with a headshot by an enemy soldier. He recovered and died of natural causes by the age of 97.
** [[{{Badass}} And he killed the guy who shot him in the head a few moments later.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade Tardigrade, also known as "Water Bear"]] is the toughest animal on Earth. 1 millimeter in length, it can be found in the Antarctic, on the summits of the Himalayas, in the deep sea as well as in your backyard. The list of conditions it can withstand includes near absolute zero temperatures (1 Kelvin) as well as temperatures well over the water boiling point (100 degree Celsius), pressure ranging from 0 (vacuum) to 1200 atmospheres. It can also survive more than 10 years of dehydration and 1000 times the doses of radiation lethal to a human. In 2007 tardigrades were flown to the Earth's orbit and exposed to outer space conditions for 10 days. They survived.
** And had sex. In space.
* Juliane Köpcke, the 17 year old schoolgirl who was the sole survivor when her plane broke up in mid-air above Peru. She fell more than two miles but only broke her collarbone. She then trekked for 9 days through the rainforest to find help. [[SurvivorGuilt Some scars remain though.]]
* [[http://www.imef.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/3963/Article/47770/marine-absorbs-ied-blast-walks-away.aspx Cpl. Matt Garst]] stepped on an IED, which blew up, sending him flying 15 feet. Immediately standing up, he yelled at his squad, "What the f-- are you looking at? Get on the cordon!"
* There was a newspaper article about a cute little kitten that liked to play in the laundry basket, hiding beneath the clothes. One day, it was laundry time and the kitten ended up inside the [[NightmareFuel washing machine]]. The poor thing spend the whole cycle in there before its owner heard the screams and came to the rescue. What happened to the little kitten? Absolutely nothing, just the shock.
* In 2010 a Frenchman fell over 75 feet into the Grand Canyon but somehow survived.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans These]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermococcus_gammatolerans bacteria]] are [[ILoveNuclearPower immune to radiation]]. Several other animals are capable of surviving crazy high and low temperatures and pressures that would kill most anything else; these are known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile extremophiles]], and the most famous may be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade water bear]].
* Subverted with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic RMS Titanic]]. It was claimed to be "unsinkable" by its owners. Pretty [[IncrediblyLamePun Ironic]], huh?
** Subverted again with her sister ship ''HMHS Britannic'', sunk by either a mine or torpedo.
* WorldWarII Airman [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_E._Erwin Henry Erwin]]. A phosphorus flare exploded prematurely in his aircraft, leaving him blinded and burned. He knew that if the flare stayed where it was, it would burn through the floor of the aircraft and set off the bombs in the cargo bay, killing all 11 people on board. So he picked up the burning flare ''with his bare hands'', crawled into the cockpit with it, and threw it out the window, saving everyone. He received the Medal of Honor for his bravery. Doctors expected him to die from his horrific injuries, but he recovered and lived to age 80.
* Colloquially, NHL players who make it through a season without an injury are referred to as "Iron Men".
* Brett Michaels from ''Poison''. You don't survive an emergency appendectomy, a brain hemorrhage, '''AND''' a hole in the heart all within six weeks if you're not this.
* RAF pilot Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader lost both his legs in a fairly horrific aerobatics accident, but recovered and tried to return to work as a pilot on the grounds that his two tin legs were perfectly good for the job. He was retired on medical grounds, but returned to the service as a fighter pilot in WorldWarII, becoming a recognised fighter ace. When he was forced to bail out over occupied France and captured as a prisoner of war, he made so many escape attempts that the Germans actually threatened to take away his prosthetics unless he stopped. [[NoSell He didn't stop]].
* Leon Trotsky took a blow to the head with an ''ice climber's axe'', and was still able to fend off his assassin until his bodyguards were able to take him into custody. He died of blood loss a day later.
* Sue Shiomi was this during her heyday as an action star in the '70s, according to Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, who directed her in three ''[[Film/TheStreetfighter Sister Streetfighter]]'' films.
-->'''Kazuhiko Yamaguchi''': [She] did all sorts of dangerous stuff without a single special effect or stand-in. She'd get injured all the time but never made one peep. She was totally bruised up during all of the ''Sister Streetfighter'' films.
* Most phones made by Nokia. The king, however, is the 3310. Anyone who has owned one (yours truly) has seen that nothing but TheresNoKillLikeOverkill can finish it off.
* OzzyOsbourne. [[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-01/news/sc-nw-dna-0702-20100701_1_genome-genetic-blueprint-gene-mapping Yeah.]]
* [[AustralianRulesFootball Brisbane Lions captain]] Jonathan Brown was hit by a car. He only need stitches, while the car was towed off for repairs
* The P-47 Thunderbolt, one of the toughest fighters fielded in WorldWarII.
** Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik, anyone?
* Alison Botha. In December 1994, she was kidnapped by a pair of men known as the [[SerialKiller Noordhoek Ripper]] and brutality raped. She was strangled, stabbed 30 times in the stomach and disemboweled. The men finished by slitting her throat, nearly decapitating her in the process. After they left, Alison gathered her intestines up in her shirt, and crawled to the road to find help. She survived the brutal attempt on her life, confronted her attackers in court, became one of the first South African rape survivors to speak openly about her ordeal, and is now a motivational speaker and author. More amazingly, her attackers stabbed her with the intention of destroying her reproductive organs, but in 2003 she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Her doctors believe a series of amazing events allowed her to survive her attack -- the slitting of her throat after being strangled provided a rush of oxygen to her lungs, the shirt thrown over her by her attackers allowing her to gather up and carry her intestines, the weather was unseasonably warm and prevented the onset of hypothermia, the full moon allowed her to find her way to the road, and finally the person that discovered her on the road was a vet tech, and therefore able to begin providing immediate medical assistance.
* There is a youtube video of a man putting a deer in the trunk of his car after accidentally running it over. When a police man makes him open the trunk, it ''jumps right out & runs off''. Yes, a young deer survived getting run over by a car!
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