History Main / NoOneCouldSurviveThat

'''Please note that this is a DeathTrope that can be set up as a twist, so expect spoilers.'''

* Early on in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', a young Guts is shot with an arrow and falls off a cliff, prompting the bowman to proclaim, "He won't survive the fall."

* Nemu Kurotsuchi in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', [[spoiler:impregnated by Szayel Aporro Granz and then as she struggles in extreme pain, and then her belly explodes, her body devoured and Szayel came out forcefully from her mouth. Szayel describes the process as [[DeaderThanDead destroying the victim]]'s ''[[DeaderThanDead soul]]''. Any normal people would be killed, but fortunately, Nemu is somehow MadeOfIron as Mayuri built her (and her soul being an artificial construct just like her body, is somehow equally durable), so that only leaves her in a withered husk of a body. And then she still came back to her old self of a body because Mayuri ''had sex'' on her (or so Uryu & Renji's reactions imply; Mayuri insists they must be perverts to think that)]]. Needless to say, this is one instance where this trope can be [[{{Squick}} squicky to the max]].
** Her Captain Kurotsuchi Mayuri is not free from this trope either, especially when he fought [[TheLancer Uryu Ishida]] and took a full brunt of his arrow, leaving his body blown up, partially. If he didn't have that ability to turn himself into a liquid, he's as good as dead.
*** An arrow that tore through Mayuri's bankai as if it were made of paper, and minor energy leakage from it completely disintegrated surrounding buildings ''that weren't actually even hit''. Ishida was at the time utilizing a form at the time that would burn out his power shortly afterward but temporarily made him [[StoryBreakerPower one of the most powerful beings in existence]]. At least half of Mayuri's body no longer existed after he was hit. But then he turned himself to liquid and took a week or two to be back to what passes for normal in his case.
** Ichigo's been stabbed, sliced almost in half (except for his spine), had [[spoiler:Ulquiorra's ''arm'' through his chest, and was shot through the same spot (albeit more of it) by the same Arrancar's cero]]. In the last, he's apparently back on his feet [[spoiler:without even being healed first.]] However, that's probably because of his [[spoiler:[[SuperPoweredEvilSide Inner Hollow]]]].
** Ulquiorra double-subverts this. He has his ''entire waist'' blown off by [[spoiler:Ichigo's SuperPoweredEvilSide]], after getting the beatdown of his life. His HealingFactor lets him get back up in time to save Orihime and Ishida and [[spoiler:return Ichigo to normal]]...and then [[RedemptionEqualsDeath he dies]] because he doesn't have enough energy left to regenerate his lost organs.

* The third ''Manga/CaseClosed'' 2-hour special has a man fall off a cliff as he is shot, a scene with his comrades deciding that he is dead because there's no way he survived, [[NeverFoundTheBody the information that only his jacket was ever recovered]] and all the characters in the episode believe he is really alive. [[spoiler:And in a subversion, it was all a misleading tactic. Apparently, he really didn't survive that.]]
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', protagonist Lelouch lures [[spoiler:PsychopathicManchild Mao]] into a trap where a squad of [[MindControl Mind Controlled]] police officers gun him down. When the villain returns in the next episode, he remarks that Lelouch really should have told them to "shoot to kill" not just "shoot", and also compliments the Britannian health care system. Which is pretty egregious given that said police were armed with machine guns and included a [[HumongousMecha Knightpolice Frame]].

** C.C. may be the grand champion of "being able to survive anything". In the first episode, she was shot in the head and returned in episode five as though nothing happened. Later, shrapnel ended up embedded in her chest but she was just fine a few hours later. [[spoiler: Not only that, but she was stabbed in the chest by the nun who gave her the Immortality Code which is the reason she survives all these things. This isn't even mentioning the stuff V.V. and later Charles pulls off.]] Then we have [[spoiler: Jeremiah Gottwald]] who returned in R2 [[spoiler:after seemingly sinking into the bottom of the ocean]]. What's more, back during the first season, he was supposed to be KilledOffForReal in a radiation attack by Kallen's [[FacePalmOfDoom Guren MKII]] but because he was already [[Main/EnsembleDarkhorse so popular]] the writers changed that, making him visibly eject and show up several episodes later [[spoiler: as a Cyborg]].
*** A meta-example occurred in Episode 18 of ''R2'', where [[spoiler:a [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo FLEIJA tactical warhead]] obliterated a good section of Tokyo, including (apparently) Shogo Asahina, Alicia Lohmeyer, Gilbert G.P. Guilford, Sayoko Shinozaki, and most importantly Nunnally; in truth, only Asahina and Lohmeyer actually died]]. When the supposedly dead characters returned, the fandom was divided between those who felt it was an AssPull, and those who argued that the elements of their survival were in the episode and required good observation skills to notice.
*** Made hilarious when you start to see the screencaps of the episode which shows such things as [[spoiler: Nunnally getting on to a different transport shuttle from Lohmeyer]]'s.

* ''Anime/{{Daltanious}}'': When Kento was four years old, his dad went missing during a shipwrecking accident, which lead the Tate family to presume he drowned. Afterwards, Kento's grandfather Kazuto helped his mother raise him and his sister. It turns out his dad was actually alive but enslaved on Planet Marios. In Episode 31, the cruiser he boarded was captured was sunk by the Zaal, but he also survived that and came back seven episodes later.
* In ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'', [[spoiler:Wizardmon gets tossed into the water and thrown into a wall by Myotismon]], things that should have killed him.

** [[spoiler:Wizardmon]] actually comes back as a ghost in 02, in order to warn Gatomon of the BigBad.

* The villain Gauron from the anime ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' also takes this trope and runs with it... about 4 or 5 times. This includes being shot in the head before the series starts, two Arm Slaves exploding around him [[spoiler: and a self-detonation sequence of a third. However, he comes out of that last one as a quadruple amputee with a missing eye]]. [[TooKinkyToTorture It doesn't seem to dampen his spirits much.]]

* Being an escapologist, con artist, and walking plot device, [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]] the ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'' made a name for himself due to this. He's been face to face against the most powerful beings in existence such as the {{Satan}} and {{God}} (gods) himself, and somehow only leaves (and I quote) "a nod, a wink, and a wisecrack". It also helps that {{Deus ex Machina}} is one of his signature magical powers.

* This is how [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk the Hulk]] got ''started''- [[TheWoobie "Puny Banner"]] got himself [[spoiler:''nuked by his own gamma bomb'']]!

* Subverted twice in an issue of ''ComicBook/TomStrong'', in which the eponymous hero learns from his arch-nemesis that one of his other enemies actually died from breaking her neck in a fall into the Niagara Falls at the conclusion of their last battle. This foreshadows the fact that [[spoiler:Paul Saveen, Tom's archenemy, is ''himself'' just as dead as previously believed -- the Saveen that Tom was speaking to was a MasterOfDisguise stand-in]]. There's also a RetrauxFlashback to the first time the two met, which ended with Saveen seemingly falling to his death into a vat of phlogisten. After they reminisce about it Tom actually asks Saveen how he survived.
* Lampshaded in an old issue of ''ComicBook/NewMutants'' after [[Characters/MarvelComicsSunspot Sunspot]] hurled the ancient mutant Selene into a lava pit and caved it in behind her to the horror of his teammates. After seeing a sword plunged into her chest without slowing her down, he was inclined to take her claim that [[NighInvulnerability she could not die by mortal means]] at face value.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' the team saw a missile go off near Chase and counted him as dead. In a case of desperate {{genre savv|y}}iness Molly guessed ''exactly'' how Chase survived and hadn't come back yet. Her friends refuse to believe her, sparking the immortal, ''"Why are you not awesomed by me!?"''
* The villainous cyborg Dekko in Scott [=McCloud=]'s ''ComicBook/{{Zot}}''. The first time was a subversion: Dekko seemed to have shot himself dead while foolishly playing with a gun thought to be empty. But Zot never bought it at all, because he knew that the gun ''was'' empty and that Dekko must've deliberately recharged it. He also notes that no body was found and that Dekko's walking ocean fortress receded beneath the waves as if controlled remotely. As it turns out, the Dekko that shot himself was a remotely controlled robot. It happens again when Dekko is crushed by a collapsing wall and trapped as his fortress sinks, only to rise from the sea (without any legs) and rave about his immortality to seagulls before [[NoFourthWall yelling at the reader]].

* Herman von Klempt from ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'' is pretty good at this. In 1939 (shown at the beginning of ''Conqueror Worm'') he was at ground zero of an explosion involving [[StupidJetpackHitler the Nazi space program]] and was the only survivor. However, he was reduced to a [[BrainInAJar Head In A Jar]]. Later, Hellboy blew up Von Klempt's lab, with von Klempt inside, yet Robert Zinco and Karl Ruprect Kroenen were able to find and revive him again. Then ''their'' laboratory exploded, and Von Klempt was again the only survivor. [[spoiler:At the end of ''Conqueror Worm'', Roger breaks Von Klempt's head jar, killing him for real.]] In 1946, his attempt to launch a rocket carrying mutant vampires at the United States was foiled, and he was onboard the rocket when it blew up. Trevor Bruttenholm assumes him dead, but Varvara gives him a "what are you, stupid?" look for jumping to conclusions like that.
* In an issue of Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/NewWarriors'', the eponymous teen heroes have a moment like this after the villain is defeated. [[Characters/MarvelComicsPeterParker Spider-Man]], who happens to be teaming up with them at the time, isn't so sure and begins to tell the story of how [[Characters/MarvelComicsOttoOctavius Doctor Octopus]] survived a ground-zero nuclear bomb explosion...
* ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer: in ''The Francis Blake Affair'', the guards chasing after Mortimer stop looking for him when he jumps off a cliff and they see something hit the water below. [[spoiler: It's revealed a few pages later that Mortimer isn't dead: he just managed to [[SavedByThePlatformBelow land on a platform]] and push a giant stone into the sea in less than one minute.]]
* ''ComicBook/DeathLiesAndTreachery:'' In the second issue, Ry-Kooda is buried in a collapsing shaft, and his crony Boz says not even Ry-Kooda could survive that. The final issue has Ry-Kooda burst out of the rubble though, and [[spoiler:it takes blowing him in half with a grenade to kill him]].
* Franchise/{{Tintin}}: every time Tintin is involved in a gruesome car accident, the people trying to kill or capture him go check the burning wreckage in an unusual display of genre savviness. Unfortunately for them, Tintin always escapes those accidents by jumping from the car right before it goes off the road, so he generally ends up stealing his pursuers' car (and in one case ''tank'') while they're looking for his body.
** Also, every time Tintin gets shot, the bullet just ''happens'' to miss any major organs or merely grazes his skull. In one particularly JustForFun/{{Egregious}} case, Tintin is sentenced to death by firing squad, but the guns were filled with blanks beforehand and Tintin faked death - yet somehow, ''no one notices that he's not bleeding despite supposedly being riddled by bullets'', even though, given the secrecy of the whole thing, clearly not everybody was in on the conspiracy.
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an issue of ''[[ComicBook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders The Outsiders]]'' in Franchise/TheDCU. When bad guy the Duke of Oil falls off an oil rig (after ''having a sword put through his head''), ComicBook/{{Metamorpho}} (himself a master of BackFromTheDead) remarks that "If you don't find a body, they aren't dead".
* This really happened to the author of ''ComicBook/{{Persepolis}}'' 1 and 2 (Marjane Satrapi), which is depicted in ''Persepolis'' 2, "The Story of A Return". Suffering from deep depression, Satrapi takes all of her meds at once. This knocks her out cold a few days before subjecting her to hours of bizarre hallucinations... However, according to her then-psychiatrist, what she took was enough to kill a small elephant. Satrapi took this as a sign that she was not meant to die.
* During the first story arc of Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/JLA1997'', the villains of the month have shot down Batman's plane. They don't even bother to check the wreckage, since "[[UnderestimatingBadassery he doesn't have any]] [[BadassNormal powers."]] Seems to be a straight example, but [[spoiler:turns out to be {{Foreshadowing}} that they're actually White Martians, who would have been vulnerable to the fire from the burning wreckage]].
* In the first issue of ''ComicBook/BigBangComics'' published by Creator/{{Image|Comics}}, Mighty Man faces off against a superintelligent mind controlling Nazi caterpillar who is cut in half at the end of the story; Naturally, Mighty Man states that he probably won't hear from this villain again. [[spoiler:A later story shows ''two'' worms as part of a LegionOfDoom plotting against the Round Table of America, implied to be the two halves regenerated.]]
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': In a comic set on Cybertron, Optimus Prime has Gears blow up a bridge to prevent Megatron from gaining access to Iacon. When Megatron is blown into the air and buried under masses of metal, Gear remarks that nobody could possibly have survived that. Guess what happens in the next panel.
* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': The Joker [[JokerImmunity is practically the poster child for this trope]]:
** Once, he not only survived being struck by lightning and falling into the sea but managed to ''almost dethrone ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} while he was down there.''
** On another occasion, he was shot in the chest multiple times at point-blank range, while in a helicopter that then exploded with him in it, and fell into the sea. Even Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} NeverFoundTheBody though...
** Then there was the time a police officer in a [[CostumeCopycat Batman costume]] shot him [[BoomHeadshot point blank in the forehead]]. It just made him crazier.
** The Joker even lampshaded this fact on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'':
--->'''Joker:''' Oh who cares? I've been blown up, thrown down smokestacks, fed to sharks; I'm the Joker! I ''always'' survive!
* ''ComicBook/{{Promethea}}'': The Painted Doll keeps waking up in the river with fuzzy memories of another narrow escape no matter how seemingly sure the previous demise seemed. [[spoiler:When a large group of Painted Dolls revive at once it is finally revealed that the character is actually a series of automatons.]]
* ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984'': Late in the series, [[Characters/MarvelComicsDoctorDoom Doctor Doom]] successfully kills the heroes (multiple times). However, a traitorous minion presents a scenario to Doom where the heroes could have survived. Doom had recently gained [[RealityWarper reality-warping]] powers that he couldn't fully control, and he ''accidentally resurrected'' the heroes simply by considering that they ''might'' have survived (even though they hadn't until Doom thought of it)
* The vigilante hero Nemesis (real name: Tom Tresser) had a backup feature in ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' for a few years, even teaming up with Batman a few times in the main story. For issue #193, they teamed up again to look for [[ItsPersonal the murderer of Nemesis's brother]]. At the end of the story Nemesis pilots a helicopter full of explosives into the villain's headquarters. Upon seeing the resulting devastation, Batman practically says the trope word-for-word.[[note]]"It's a sure bet nobody survived this!"[[/note]] Nevertheless, Nemesis turned up hale and hearty a few years later in the pages of ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad''.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': During Priscilla Rich's first outing as the [[Characters/WonderWomanCheetah Cheetah]] she jumps from the roof of a four story building into a raging fire. When Diana later sees Pris she's rather shocked as she'd suspected she was Cheetah, but then dismisses her earlier suspicions as Pris being alive and fine must mean she wasn't Cheetah since the villan has to be dead.
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Achilles gets this reaction when he gets back up and takes down his attacker, ''with a sword lodged through his heart''. The undead hero points out that his current heart originally belonged to a god and a little thing like getting impaled is more of a shock and inconvenience than anything, despite the copious blood loss.
* In ''ComicBook/TysonHessesDiesel'', the whole town of Peacetowne blows up. Cap and Phillip got out and it's later revealed most of Peacetowne's inhabitants survived, injured but alive, and are trapped in the wreckage of Peacetowne, waiting for Cap and Phillip to bring help.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
** ''ComicBook/WarWorld'': [[Characters/DCComicsMongul Mongul]] apparently dies when War World blows up, but he shows up some time after in [[ComicBook/{{Starman}} Prince Gavyn]]'s Throneworld (as narrated in ''ComicBook/DCComicsPresents #36''), with no explanation as to how he survived.
** In ''ComicBook/WhoIsSuperwoman'', the titular villain's body falls apart and explodes when Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} rips her suit off. Everybody believe she's dead (including Supergirl, whose SuperSenses allow her to analyze matter at the atomic level), but the spells and alien DNA respectively woven and grafted into Superwoman's costume reconstruct her body fully.
** In ''ComicBook/{{Crucible}}'', the main characters have to destroy the Superboy clonelings grown by [[BigBad Korstus]], but damaging the cloning pods will trigger a self-destruct mechanism which will obliterate the whole facility. Thus, Supergirl and Superboy convince their friends to get to safety while they stand behind to destroy Korstus' lab, arguing their superhuman toughness gives them a chance of surviving. As watching a huge chunk of Crucible Academy being consumed by a giant fireball, Lys Amata wonders how her students could possibly survive. Seconds later, both Kryptonian teenagers fly out of the blazes.
--->'''Lys Amata:''' How could anyone survive that--\\
'''Maxima:''' ''(spotting both Supers)'' Wait, look--!
** In ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'': As she is being chased by Supergirl, the titular villain gets accidentally thrown out of a window and into the castle's moat. Thinking a dive from that height would kill anybody, Supergirl guesses Starfire has fallen to her death.
** In ''ComicBook/ThePlagueOfTheAntibioticMan'', Amalak gloats that Supergirl must be dead since she got caught by his spaceship's explosion. Later, she reappears and says she was merely knocked out.
--->'''Amalak:''' You see, I noticed that my star-cannon was about to self-destruct... Just before it did, I teleported here! Supergirl, however, was on board my ship when it was blasted into nothingness! She could not have survived!\\
''Later''\\
'''Supergirl:''' Amalak grossly overestimated the deadliness of his star cannon!
* ''ComicBook/SuperDinosaur'': General Casey spouted the line when Tyrannosaurus X was caught in a huge explosion that brought a building down on him. Needless to say, he survived.
* ''ComicBook/BatmanBlackAndWhite'': In "A Game of Bat and Rat", a hoodlum fires a rocket launcher at Batman, blowing up the vehicle he was crouching on top of. "No way Bat-boy coulda lived through that," he says confidently -- and, of course, incorrectly. He just has time for a round of boasting at the local BadGuyBar before Batman is back to get him.
* ''ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch'': Ozai doesn't believe for a second Vachir's claim that no one could survive in Forgetful Valley and his target must be dead already. (Now we know where Azula learned it.) Well, Ikem discarded his identity and got a new face, so metaphorically, he was dead.
* ''ComicBook/LukeCageHeroForHire:'' In the final issue before it was rebranded ''Power Man and Iron Fist'', the villain Bushmaster is subject to the same process that gave Luke his powers, before his base explodes. As everyone flees, Misty Knight declares there's ''no way'' he could've survived the process or the resulting explosion. The final line is Luke noting ''he'' survived. Sure enough, it turned out Bushmaster lived... sort of.

** In ''Film/{{Iron Man|1}}'', Big Bad [[spoiler:Stane]] seemingly falls to his death from over 85,000 feet. The next scene shows protagonist [[Comicbook/IronMan Tony Stark]] barely making it back alive, seemingly setting it up like [[spoiler:Stane]] DID die. However, [[spoiler:he was perfectly fine, and only died when the arc reactor he was over blew up in a classic example of {{power|Glows}} [[PillarOfLight glowing]]. A deleted scene shows Stane even survived that, and was only killed when he fell into the arc reactor]].

** Franky getting run over by the Sea Train deserves a special mention, as it seemly tore him to pieces in eyes of TheGovernment yet Franky miraculously stayed alive long enough to turn himself into a {{Cyborg}} before he bled out.

** In ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, War Machine and Rocket Raccoon invoke this [[spoiler: when Thanos's starship the ''Sanctuary II'' '''nukes''' the Avengers Facility with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill a barrage of super missiles completely destroying the homebase as well the surrounding terrain]]... and yet ''all the heroes are still alive''. Though some albeit trapped under rubble, but considering certain Avengers e.g Ant-Man got hit with explosions from point blank range, it' a miracle any of them (save maybe Hulk and Thor) are still in one piece]].

* This applies to [[spoiler:[[{{Pyromaniac}} Sharkface]]]] of ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'', who was knocked out by [[CompetitionFreak Carolina]] by throwing a Covenant [[DropTheHammer Gravity Hammer]] '''right''' at his face, shortly followed by the remains of a '''[[DroppedABridgeOnHim entire skyscraper]]''' on top of him after the [[CoolStarship Mother of Invention]] fired a freakin' '''[[MagneticWeapons MAC round]]''' dead center into said building from space, '''damn'''...!

** Of all the X-Men [[Characters/MarvelComicsIceman Iceman]] even more so than Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} is the king of this trope. Every major X-Men event (at least after the full extent of his ice powers were revealed) has him at some point being crushed, melted, or destroyed but due to being one of the 10 or so most powerful mutants always comes back. He once exploded in his human form, came back as gas, from gas turned to steam, from steam water vapor, from vapor to melted ice, until he finally solidified as flesh.

** ... While Lunars have several Charms that allow them to ignore the fact that they should be dead; that, and instant regeneration that makes Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} envious, which makes them seriously hard to kill. And then you have Lunar Chimeras, which are capable of perfect regeneration to the point where they can regenerate from a single drop of blood... Yeah.

* In an issue of Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/NewWarriors'', the eponymous teen heroes have a moment like this after the villain is defeated. [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]], who happens to be teaming up with them at the time, isn't so sure and begins to tell the story of how [[Characters/MarvelComicsOttoOctavius Doctor Octopus]] survived a ground-zero nuclear bomb explosion...

--->'''Lys Amata:''' "How could anyone survive that--"\\
'''Maxima:''' (spotting both Supers) "Wait, look--!"

--->'''Amalak:''' ''"You see, I noticed that my star-cannon was about to self-destruct... Just before it did, I teleported here! Supergirl, however, was on board my ship when it was blasted into nothingness! She could not have survived!"''\\

'''Supergirl:''' ''"Amalak grossly overestimated the deadliness of his star cannon!"''

* ''Anime/{{Daltanious}}'': When Kento was four years old, his dad went missing during a shipwrecking accident, which leading the Tate family to presume he drowned. Afterwards, Kento's grandfather Kazuto became the prime paternal presence in his life and helped his mother raise him and his sister. It turns out his dad was actually alive but enslaved on Planet Marios. In Episode 31, the cruiser he boarded was captured was sunk by the Zaal, but he also survived that and came back seven episodes later.

** Richter is first presumed dead when Georiya takes over the Undersea Castle and sentences him, Raiza and Balbas to death, but thanks to some quick thinking on Raiza's end, the three are able to make it out alive. When Richter tries to singlehandedly get revenge on Olban, Raiza stops him and insists on doing it herself, getting killed in the process. Richter is then scheduled for {{Execution}}, but the executioner turns out to be part of LaRasistance and helps Richter escape.

* ''Anime/VoltesV'':

** Phoenix Wright is not only lucky in winning trials, but he's also damn lucky in surviving. In the final case of ''Trials and Tribulations'', Phoenix attempts to cross a burning bridge, which breaks apart, causing him to fall 40 feet below into a fast-flowing river. If that didn't kill him, the freezing cold water (since it was winter at the time) would have, right? WRONG! Phoenix gets away with only a few bruises and a nasty cold. Also, during ''Apollo Justice'', Phoenix gets hit by a car, goes flying 30 feet into the air and smacks his head into a telephone pole. Crazily enough, his head is fine and he only suffers a sprained ankle!

** There's also Maggey Byrde, an [[BornUnlucky impossibly]] [[CosmicPlaything unlucky]] young woman who managed to survive after falling off the ninth floor of an apartment building, ''when she was an infant''. Seriously, even if her fall was somehow softened by some things, it's still impossibly unlikely that she would survive falling from that high at such a young age.

*** BigBad [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] was practically guaranteed to return when Batman foolishly declared "Nothing could have survived that, not even Darkseid" after the villain's apparent death by planet-sized explosion. Superman provided a little LampshadeHanging by immediately quipping "You know something Bruce? You're not always right." The ''Unlimited'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS3E12Alive Alive!]]" provided the shocking twist that [[spoiler: Darkseid '''''didn't''''' survive. But since he came BackFromTheDead, the end result is the same regardless]].
*** In the GrandFinale, after Darkseid dies ''again'', this time it's Superman who declares that he's really most sincerely dead, since "We saw it this time." The Flash notes, "You saw it last time, too." At least Batman's smarter this time: "I doubt either of them (Darkseid or Luthor) died." According to Creator/DwayneMcDuffie, [[spoiler:Batman's half right. Darkseid and Luthor are still alive...as part of the Source Wall. They're not coming back]].

* In ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' Colonel Shikishima exclaims "He must be dead!" after Tetsuo is directly hit by the SOL.

** What about Ichigo? He's been stabbed, sliced almost in half (except for his spine), had [[spoiler:Ulquiorra's ''arm'' through his chest, and was shot through the same spot (albeit more of it) by the same Arrancar's cero]]. In the last, he's apparently back on his feet [[spoiler:without even being healed first.]] However, that's probably because of his [[spoiler:[[SuperPoweredEvilSide Inner Hollow]]]].

* In ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' [[spoiler: Wizardmon gets tossed into the water and thrown into a wall by Myotismon]], things that should have killed him.

* In ''Anime/FutureGPXCyberFormula'', Hayato puts Asurada GSX's boost in a dangerous spot, the car goes off the track and crashes into the trees, tearing it apart, but the driver's cockpit remains intact and Hayato comes out unharmed.
** And in the first episode of ''ZERO'', both Hayato and Randoll survive (albeit with serious injuries) after Hayato's car goes off the track banking, his car flies airborne and crashes into the ground.

* Happens to Nazi officer Rudol von Stroheim in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' Part 2, who blows himself up with a grenade in order to destroy a vampire that had taken over his body. Even Joseph Joestar, a Brit, sheds a tear for his sacrifice and everyone believes him dead. Then later on in the same story, Joseph unexpectedly runs into Stroheim, alive and well, albeit remade into a [[StupidJetpackHitler cyborg.]] It helps that, as Stroheim is happy to point out, "'''GERMAN SCIENCE IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD!!'''" Ironically, at the end of Part 2, Stroheim is said to have been permanently killed off in the Battle of Stalingrad.

** During the light-saber fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul in ''Film/StarWarsThePhantomMenace'', Obi-Wan uses the force to summon his masters saber and cuts Maul in half at the waist. The Sith tumbles down the shaft where Kenobi had been hanging, seemingly to his death. Somehow, though, he shows up later in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' and ''Film/{{Solo}}'', having survived entirely on his hate of Kenobi. A light-saber wouldn't cause blood, and shock could in theory be avoided through the Force and sheer [[JustForPun force]] of will. That doesn't explain him surviving the fall, or how he got off the planet.

* Double subverted in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', when TheDragon dies or commits suicide, when you issue the order to either save the Council, attack the ship that TheDragon was indoctrinated by, or let the Council die. Guess what Shepard says to his/her squad, "Make sure he's dead." 10 seconds later, a squad member makes sure TheDragon is dead by shooting him with a pistol, in the head, but then comes back to life thanks to implants.
** Also played with in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', in which the bad guys blow up the Normandy and drop Shepard from orbit, actually killing him/her. Harbinger is smart enough to ''not'' assume this trope and go on a long race with Liara to recover Shepard's body, just in case. And then Shepard ''recovers''.
** A less important example is in Wreav. During the ride to the Shroud, [[SandWorm Kalros]] comes by and eats the car Wreav is in. When [[LivingMacguffin Eve]] asks Wrex what they should do, Wrex responds that there's no way he survived, and he couldn't give a shit about Wreav, remarking that he was a never-ending pain in the ass.

** For that matter, in ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork 2'', Lan is exposed to hundreds of thousands of rads of radiation. Even with a good radiation suit, that should have killed him, and quickly. It's so egregious that it crosses into ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics. For reference, 1000 rads will kill you in about 10 minutes as seen on ''Series/MythBusters''...
* ''Franchise/MetalGear'':

** The Ustanak from ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil6 RE6]]'' likewise keeps coming back from certain death including swimming in molten steel like Mr. X, it's only when Sherry and Jake AttackItsWeakPoint does Ustanak finally keel over and die.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'':

* In ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' [[spoiler:Luca Blight is killed as follows: Riddled with arrows (killing his horse), fought three times (all three of them six-on-one beatdowns), riddled with arrows, riddled with arrows ''again'', and then fought in a duel. Only then does he die]].

** And it was actually PRECEDED, when she self destructs to save the team from the Shadow Mirror, and she got Lemon to haul her in the last minute and repair her and let her off...
*** Justified, as she's a ''robot''. A [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots ridiculously human one]], built mainly for infiltration and for SleeperAgent operations. Meaning, she's not MadeOfIron ([[JustForPun not literally]]), but still she's definitely covered when it comes to replacing the damaged parts of her body, because of said explosions and possible shrapnel, with little to no trauma afterwards. Neither the game or the anime, however, capitalize on this little tidbit.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' has one of its antagonists, [[spoiler:Dist]], live up to the phrase 'tenacious as a cockroach.' Near the end of the game, [[spoiler:Dist, in a desperate attempt to kill the party, jumps on top of the damaged robot he sent to kill them and tries to blow it up along with him, only to be sent flying in the air by Luke along with the robot, where it explodes in midair]]. However in the Nebilim sidequest, [[spoiler:Dist comes back, unharmed with no explanation, only to get blasted by Nebilim's energy beam. After the battle, though, he's still alive]]. He is [[spoiler:the only God General to survive]]. Then we have [[StrawNihilist Sync]], who was ''thrown into a volcano''.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
** Phoenix Wright is not only lucky in winning trials, but he's also damn lucky in surviving. In the final case of ''Trials and Tribulations'', Phoenix attempts to cross a burning bridge, which breaks apart, causing him to fall 40 feet below into a fast-flowing river. If that didn't kill him, the freezing cold water (since it was winter at the time) would have, right? WRONG! Phoenix gets away with only a few bruises and a nasty cold. Also, during ''Apollo Justice'', Phoenix gets hit by a car, goes flying 30 feet into the air and smacks his head into a telephone pole. Crazily enough, his head is fine and he only suffers a sprained ankle!
** The case before this is an even more consequential example. In a flashback, Mia Fey defends a death row convict who had previously been found guilty of pushing his girlfriend off the bridge and into the deadly river below. The exact same bridge and river, in fact. Until late in the current trial, it is considered unthinkable that the woman could have survived, [[spoiler:let alone might have jumped on purpose... or could in fact be in the courtroom right now]].
** There's also Maggey Byrde, an [[BornUnlucky impossibly]] [[CosmicPlaything unlucky]] young woman who managed to survive after falling off the ninth floor of an apartment building, ''when she was an infant''. Seriously, even if her fall was somehow softened by some things, it's still impossibly unlikely that she would survive falling from that high at such a young age.
* Jack from ''VisualNovel/TimeHollow'' is considered dead when he falls off a cliff... but he suddenly appears at the end of the game to foil Ethan's plan to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'':
** BigBad [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] was practically guaranteed to return when Batman foolishly declared "Nothing could have survived that, not even Darkseid" after the villain's apparent death by planet-sized explosion. Superman provided a little LampshadeHanging by immediately quipping "You know something Bruce? You're not always right." The ''Unlimited'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS3E12Alive Alive!]]" provided the shocking twist that [[spoiler: Darkseid '''''didn't''''' survive. But since he came BackFromTheDead, the end result is the same regardless]].
** In the GrandFinale, after Darkseid dies ''again'', this time it's Superman who declares that he's really most sincerely dead, since "We saw it this time." The Flash notes, "You saw it last time, too."
** At least Batman's smarter this time: "I doubt either of them (Darkseid or Luthor) died." According to Creator/DwayneMcDuffie, [[spoiler:Batman's half right. Darkseid and Luthor are still alive...as part of the Source Wall. They're not coming back]].
* Characters/{{Batman|TheCharacter}} survived a similar incident in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', in a scene that more than one viewer has admitted to believing for a moment that he had really died.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''
** Batman, in the aptly named episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE51TheManWhoKilledBatman "The Man Who Killed Batman"]].
** This trope is played upon twice in the episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE25TheClockKing "The Clock King"]]. Right before Fugate seems to die as the clock tower starts to collapse:
--->'''Fugate:''' You of all people should know, Batman... There's always a way out!
** And later in the same episode, when Gordon doubts that Fugate survived, Batman tells him that if ''he'' could have gotten out, then Fugate could have, saying "it's only a matter of time" before he reappears. And it turned out that Batman was right. Fugate did survive, and made a return appearance in a later episode.
* Throughout the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse, [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] ended about half of his appearances like this.
** And a good number of other villains. Some call it the "[[JokerImmunity Batman Villain Ending]]."
** Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "Meltdown," in which Victor Fries did apparently die.

* In the Creator/AndrewVachss Burke book ''Dead and Gone'', after an ambush on [[spoiler: Burke]] goes wrong because of BigDamnHeroes, the attackers [[BoomHeadshot put a round into the victim's head]]. Somehow it doesn't take.

* In the Creator/DaleBrown novel ''Flight of the Old Dog'', no attempt is made to look for [[spoiler: Dave Luger]] after he crashes a fuel tanker into a Soviet vehicle in a HeroicSacrifice due to the ensuing explosion. Understandably, the characters are surprised when ''Night of the Hawk'' reveals that he's NotQuiteDead.

* In Creator/MatthewReilly's books, AnyoneCanDie. Gena "Mother" Newman of the ''Shane Schofield'' series appears to die once per book but always manages to survive. After the third time, she declares herself "f*** ing indestructible". The protagonist in each of Reilly's books always goes through this (at least) once per book.

* [[spoiler:Colonel Autumn]] pulls this in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' to a bullshit extreme. The Water Purifer releases deadly radiation when activated. This is enough to kill two guards in radiation-resistant power armor, [[spoiler:your dad and ''liquefy'' you (unless you have ''Broken Steel'')]], but not [[spoiler:one man in a longcoat]]. While ''you see him die'', his "death" animation shows him injecting himself with something that supposedly protected him, but you'll never get to use this miracle drug.
** Then there's ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', where the player's character starts out by surviving two bullets to the head ''and'' being BuriedAlive.
** ''New Vegas'' also gives us the original Legate (field commander) of Caesar's Legion, Joshua Graham. He'd been reported dead five times by New California Republic {{ranger}}s and sharpshooters, but he survived until he lost the Battle of Hoover Dam, when Caesar ordered him covered in pitch, set on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. Rumors persist that he lives on as "The Burned Man," which are proven true by the ''Honest Hearts'' expansion.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has multiple examples, which all appear to be PlotlineDeath until the characters show up alive later on. They may be injured, but no explanation is given as to [[UnexplainedRecovery how they survived at all.]] Only one playable character is ''actually'' KilledOffForReal. The most egregious example is Cid, who leaps from a speeding airship hundreds of feet (at least) above the ground. He then sets off a [[WeaponOfMassDestruction bomb powerful enough to collapse a mountain.]] Which it ''does''. On top of him. Oh, and the bomb is in his ''hand'' at the time. Yang isn't much better; it's implied that he stops a city-destroying super-cannon by ''stuffing himself in the barrel and causing it to misfire''.
** Later on, the party fights and defeats [[spoiler:[[BigBad Golbez]]]] just as he's about to steal a [[MineralMacGuffin Crystal]]. After the fight, the party, containing ''at least'' two highly-trained, experienced soldiers, decide to leave the room ''without checking to see if he's actually dead''. [[NotQuiteDead Guess]] [[VillainTeleportation what happens next]].
* The first half of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' concludes with the entire party packed into an airship and fleeing from a newly [[DeityOfHumanOrigin divine]] OmnicidalManiac. It doesn't go well, and the airship gets sliced in half and falls to Earth from a height of thousands of feet. It initially looks like a subversion, as the viewpoint shifts to a character who spent a year in a coma after the crash, and when she finally wakes up assumes that she was the only survivor. It takes about half an hour to discover otherwise.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' killed off Rufus Shinra while having him trapped in a building which was then blown up - this was played entirely as a KilledOffForReal scenario. But, to resurrect him for TheMovie, he turned out to be a victim of this trope instead. It was salvaged by a subtle and very good LampshadeHanging - Rufus starts to explain to Cloud how he survived, and Cloud cuts him off before he can, leaving it a mystery until Dirge of Cerberus, where it is revealed in a flashback that he was rescued and put on a helicopter.
** Cloud himself is an inhuman punching bag. He survives the fall from the platform outside a Mako reactor (plummeting hundreds of feet before landing on the church Aeris frequents), is impaled right through by a massive katana, drops into the planet's "lifestream" and resurfaces hundreds of miles away, and undergoes multiple bouts of psychological trauma. And he gets hit on by a mafia pimp.
** It must be something about those flowers because Zack ends up skydiving in the same way, and lands in the same flowers, and survives just fine.
** Also Sephiroth getting run through by Cloud and thrown into the Mako reactor only to come back [[PhysicalGod stronger]]. Sephiroth, at least, has the excuse that he's not completely human [[spoiler:(and for that matter, the Sephiroth you fight for most of the game isn't the actual Sephiroth)]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' where, judging by the cutscene, the party gets practically nuked at the Galbadia Missile Base. Somehow they walk away from it just fine.
** And then, [[spoiler: they come back with the wrecked carcass of the robot boss of the base as both shield and escape tool]].
*** What about Squall getting a shard ice put through his torso and waking up fine? This recovery so [[UnexplainedRecovery unexplained]] it gave [[WildMassGuessing way a fan theory]] that he died right there. Yoshinori Kitase liked the theory so much he said he'd based the whole game around it if [=FFVIII=] ever got a remake.

* This happens to the hero in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', during the Whirlybird mission. Carl plays door gunner for a Triad mission, but his chopper is shot down. One bad guy asks about survivors, and a nearer gunman says that no, No One Could Survive That. Properly played, CJ would then sneak up on the gunman and slit his throat.

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', Calo Nord is LeftForDead. Buried under rubble. In a collapsing building. On a doomed planet undergoing heavy bombardment. With no chance to escape had he even not been buried, as the player has just stolen [[CoolShip the only possible means of escape]]. Later in the game, he emerges on the BigBad's flagship with barely a scratch; it is never explained how he survived, although they do [[LampshadeHanging hang a lampshade]] on this.

* Liquid Snake, chief antagonist of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', is the most prominent example in the series. He goes down with his flaming Mi-24 Hind-D after it eats several Stinger missiles and Solid Snake watches it go down. Snake gets slightly suspicious later on when he finds a parachute caught in a tree ("No way, he'd be sliced up faster than an onion in an infomercial..." since the Mi-24 doesn't have an ejection system), and sure enough, he comes back for more. He pilots the Metal Gear REX against Snake at the climax of the game and eats several MORE Stingers, this time into the open cockpit. He then fistfights his brother on the back of REX and gets thrown off. He gets into a Jeep and pursues Snake during his escape, taking heavy machine gun fire all the while. When both Jeeps crash, Liquid hauls himself toward Snake, FAMAS in hand and covered in blood. He finally keels over from a FOXDIE-induced heart attack. And ''then'' he comes back by possessing Revolver Ocelot through his transplanted forearm in ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid 2|SonsOfLiberty}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid 4|GunsOfThePatriots}}''. [[spoiler: Actually scratch that last one, Liquid wasn't actually possessing Ocelot, he just made himself and Snake believe was even though Liquid was long dead.]]

** The Tyrants, especially T-00 aka "Mr. X" recover from pretty anything the protagonists throw at them, Mr. X in particular takes a dip in molten steel and just loses his coat. It takes the [[{{BFG}} rocket launcher]] to kill the Tyrants for good. Except for the Super Tyrants in ''Anime/ResidentEvilDamnation'' where they just catch rockets and it takes a tank and fighter jet to put em down. The Tyrant from the ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake RE2make]]'' recovers quickly from getting smashed by a police van and several massive explosions and depending on scenario Mr. X is implied to have survived getting ripped open by Birkin.
** The titular Nemesis from ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis RE3]]'' lives and breathes this trope, surviving getting blown up, electrocuted, having his own rocket launcher explode in his arm, sprayed with acid so that all his arms, legs and head comes off, shot with a rail gun and then shot a few more time with a Magnum by Jill for good measure. Hell, it's suggested by Nemesis's still moving blob-corpse that it survived that as well, meaning it took Raccoon City [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill getting nuked]] for it be KilledOffForReal.
** The Ustanak from ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil6 RE6]]'' likewise keeps coming back from certain death including swimming in molten steel like Mr. X, it's only when Sherry and Jake AttackItsWeakPoint does Ustanak finally keel over and die.

** Out of the [=RE=] protagonists Leon S. Kennedy and Jill Valentine seem to play this most straight. Leon not only survives and walks off getting shot but also a direct punch from the aforementioned Super Tyrant which sends him crashing into a pillar, and [[MadeOfIron his spine isn't broken]]. Leon also survives after falling from Helicopter onto the ground in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6''. Jill in ''[=RE3=]'' survives a horrific train with Carlos crash then recovers from being directly infected with T-Virus and it actually makes her body develop antibodies, then in ''[=RE5=]'' she tackles Wesker out of a window and like him survives the fall (despite being assumed dead).
*** In ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil0 RE0]]'' Billy Cohen and Rebecca Chambers are safely thrown out of a train that was going at least several hundred mph before crashing and exploding.
*** Special mention for Ada Wong who is seemly killed by the Tyrant and shows up in climax healthy enough to help kill the Tyrant. ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles'' however show that she was grievous injured and covered in bandages as a result. In the ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake RE2make]]'' Ada actually gets shot by Annette and then falls god knows how many stories into darkness and yet she appears later to help Leon (who still thinks she's dead) with Mr. X.
** Krauser actually [[https://pre00.deviantart.net/4d0e/th/pre/i/2011/347/a/a/the_theory_of_krauser_by_shadow_wesker-d4j0p5h.jpg seemed]] to have made it off Sadler's island before it exploded in ''[=RE4=]'', in spite of having been seemingly killed in single combat '''''twice''''' (once by Ada, once by Leon), judging by his "mission complete" screen in the Mercenaries minigame. Though it's likely not canon.
** Nicolai in ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis RE3]]'' is caught in a gas station explosion that levels the entire block, but comes out of it unscathed.
** This also happens to be [[GasMaskMooks HUNK]]'s entire gimmick, too.
** Half the characters in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7'' give the previous examples a run for their money when it comes walking off the unsurvivable.

* Don't assume this of your enemies in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' Example: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqSNmMYjRc]].
* In the early missions of ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 2'', Logan makes a leap of faith to dodge a helicopter-launched missile not once, but twice, first diving ''headfirst'' off a cliff of unknown height, then later off a 100-foot or so high bridge ''onto a moving train''. There's no way these leaps could be survived in real life, at least not without crippling injuries. In fact, jumping onto a speeding train from a stationary object would cause one to slide backwards and sustain severe lacerations or broken bones, maybe fall between the cars and be shredded under the wheels. Apparently, the designers disregarded Newton's third law. Don't think the snow in the first case would do much to cushion the impact, either (see SoftWater).
** And during the Agency Biolab Escape mission, he jumps a hundred feet or so down a large ventilation shaft and grabs onto a ledge a few feet above a gigantic fan, ''Film/DieHard'' style. If this were realistic, his fingers/wrists would snap on impact and he'd be shredded by the fan "like an onion in an infomercial". See NotTheFallThatKillsYou

'''Marlo:''' That some Franchise/SpiderMan shit right there.

* Hockey players [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Malarchuk Clint Malarchuk]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Zedn%C3%ADk Richard Zednik]], players both survived their throats being accidentally slashed by an ice skate live on TV, during a game (separated by years).

* In ''Fanfic/AFrozenFlower'', during the Tunguska Explosion event, Odd Squad goes on the attack against Natalia, the last awoken ''lambero'' prior to Orchid being born, who attacks Ottilie by using her [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]] to launch her head-first into a tree with enough force to split the wood of the trunk. Ottilie presumably dies on impact, as she lands on her face with the gadget meant to kill Natalia still in her grip, but Oprah, Otto and Orchid come across her years later as part of Grimes's group of dormant ''lamberos'', alive and healthy and going by the nickname "Till". Despite the battle with Natalia ending in the entire area exploding, Till explains that Edward J. Grimes found her in the aftermath and saved her, caring for her up until Orchid killed him.

** This trope played out with tragic consequences in the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 Japan Airlines Flight 123]]. Convinced that no one could have survived the crash, Japanese authorities weren't as expedient in getting to the scene as they might have been. It turned out that a small number of people ''had'' survived the initial impact, but many of those died from their injuries before help arrived. Even then, four people were rescued alive from the wreckage.

Almost universally uttered after a character (usually a hero but sometimes a villain) [[SuicidalGotcha takes a wild leap into the unknown]] as a way to escape pursuit and otherwise-inevitable capture — [[NoEscapeButDown jumping off a high cliff]] or across a wide chasm, for instance. The pursuers then give up the chase, confident that their quarry has effectively committed suicide, and [[NeverFoundTheBody never go look for the body]] to make sure.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* Kane from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Tiberium'' series. In the fourth game's ending, he was shot directly by Colonel James but he got up a few seconds later, unfazed, to rescue the protagonist from James. This guy is clearly immortal. Before that, he was blasted by an [[KillSat IonCannon]] in the first game, ran through and left in Temple Prime as it exploded in the second, and was in Eastern Europe, when it exploded, yes, '''''The entirety of Eastern Europe exploded'''''. He's still alive.

** Bryan Fury's ending in ''3''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2OCza3O1A Nuff said]].
** In ''4'', Kazuya Mishima got into this. So he was thrown into a volcano and probably was immolated there... But he still manages to get BackFromTheDead, because some scientists hauled off his ashes just in time and resurrected him.
** In ''5'', Heihachi Mishima takes this to a new level. Surrounded with robots, pinned down with no chance to escape, and all the robots self-destructed, destroying him and the temple where he's located. An observer confirms ''"Heihachi Mishima is dead"''... Is it? Bzzt! Wrong! He NeverFoundTheBody. So it turns out that Heihachi managed to survive the near-impossible odds, [[BadassNormal being no ordinary man]].

** Of all the X-Men [[Characters/XMenTheOriginalTeam Iceman]] even more so than Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} is the king of this trope. Every major X-Men event (at least after the full extent of his ice powers were revealed) has him at some point being crushed, melted or destroyed but due to being one of the 10 or so most powerful mutants always comes back. He once exploded in his human form, came back as gas, from gas turned to steam, from steam water vapor, from vapor to melted ice, until he finally solidified as flesh.