As a Death Trope, contains many spoilers. Tread with care.
Times where Anyone Can Die in Webcomics.
- Breakfast of the Gods: Let's just say the first death occurs on page 3 of the first book.
- Counting Not just anyone but everyone in the town of Thirston. Including a bird in a bird bath.
- Seen in Dead of Summer, being that it's a Zombie Apocalypse story.
- Goblins. Many characters die as soon as you start getting attached to them. The tagline for Book Four's climax was "EVEN MAIN CHARACTERS CAN'T LIVE FOREVER."
- Game Destroyers has killed off or otherwise incapacitated a number of main characters to date, namely Bojangles, Ace, Cedris, and the Nintendo Otaku. Only a small handful of main characters will likely never be considered when it's time to kill someone off.
- A Game of Roleplay attempts to set a record for major character deaths with four unexpected deaths by the end of the first chapter.
- These include one of only three players character (twice), the heir to the throne (another PC) and the quest giver for the main campaign.
- This is even more impressive when you consider that the strip is based on Game of Thrones and so follows an already set out plot. This is of course changed to suit the author's new plot.
- Girl Genius: While for the most part the comic merely averts Nominal Importance very hard a couple of the protagonists have died while part of the main party and the tie in material includes a timeline in which everyone in Europe besides Tarvek and Othar ends up killed off, which Othar was then sent back to try and prevent with a copious amount of murder.
- Hitmen for Destiny killed off a character who was explained to be extremely important quite early on. Recently another major character was unexpectedly killed off. Both of these characters were very popular among the fanbase. It looks like nobody is safe at this point.
- Played With in Homestuck. Several times the narrative develops characters over the course of time, then kills them off, before using Time Travel or Cosmic Retcon to send a sole survivor to a different timeline to avert that Bad Future. Problem is, changing the timeline changes how each character develops, and with enough time, their personality entirely. The characters attempt to gloss over this uncomfortable fact, but sometimes they can't help but be taken aback.i mean, it's ok if you're gay now! that's totally cool, if true. i just think... you turning gay would be kind of a weird consequence of me changing the time line around?
- Juathuur has lot of death in it, and no way shown to resurrect people. The trope is established with Bivv's death and comes into full force with the Battle of Erab Adur.
- In a comic called Kill Six Billion Demons, is it really surprising that a lot of people tend to die, violently and unceremoniously?
- Lackadaisy's author has stated that one of the main characters will die.
- MS Paint Masterpieces uses this. Even Mega Man gets it.
- Nuzlocke Comics, being a comic adaptation of a Permadeath run of Pokémon, spare no party member. In season 1, Ruby's entire team dies, and in the second, only his Charizard survives (maybe).
- Although set in a world with functional resurrection magic, The Order of the Stick has featured a number of shocking deaths. It uses the interesting loophole in all D&D resurrection spells: the dead person's spirit has to be willing to return.
- Lord Shojo, and Therkla would, for various reasons, rather stay dead than face their lives again.
- Miko Miyazaki wasn't exactly well-liked, and was cut in half.
- Roy Greenhilt, himself, who is the main protagonist of the comic. Only his death has been reversed, and doing so was the goal of an arc.
- Then Durkon Thundershield bit it, though he got better...sort of.
- Strip #913 sees the death of major antagonist and Elan's evil twin, Nale, with his body being zapped to dust and scattered to the winds.
- Our Little Adventure has had three fairly important protagonist characters die since it started. The first two of those will not be coming back with the first one not wanting to, and the second turning out to be a Meat Puppet traitor. The third is the main protagonist's sister, so she was eventually resurrected (as the comic uses D&D mechanics and coming back to life isn't that hard).
- Despite being a fancomic and using characters from TV Shows, Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi doesn't skimp on this. Deedee is shown killed during a flashback, taking a laser blast for Dexter. Mandark, in his attempt to kill Dexter, lets himself be blown up during his base self detonation. Blossom is temporally drowned while being held captive but brought back to life. During the side story, Atomic Betty's crew (Sparky and X-5) are killed after stumbling upon one of the big bad's bases. Betty nearly killed herself if not for Amazo finding her.*
- Rimworld Tales by srgrafo heavily enforces this rule. The only major characters who even live to the end are Andrew and the child, who doesn't even count as the main cast takes on a Suicide Mission to resurrect them... which is also the reason Tynan and Huntsman die.
- Sarilho: if the first chapters are any measure, this is where the story seems to be headed.
- Schlock Mercenary has its fair share of this, frequently killing off supporting cast members. Although anything short of a headshot can be healed thanks to Applied Phlebetonium, and major characters were brought back through Time Travel.
- Being the demolitions tech for the Toughs is pretty much a one-way ticket out of the strip...
- To wit: The strip has killed, since the beginning, six major characters just among the Toughs, including two who could easily be billed as main characters, and so many supporting Toughs it's hard to count. And these are just the ones who HAVEN'T come back.
- To be fair, however, that's spread out over twelve years. You can certainly start reading any given arc and assume that no Toughs will have died by the end of it (not even any redshirts).
- Sluggy Freelance: For a long time it seemed clear main characters were safe, though more minor characters could die both dramatically (rarely, except for Oasis who kept doing it and coming back) and humorously (more common), or even kind of both ways at the same time. Then a long-foreshadowed extremely dramatic storyline, "bROKEN", turned the whole thing upside down with two main characters appearing to die and one much more definitely so than the other. The following storyline basically Zig-Zagged with whether the other one could survive, or for that matter whether they would end up in And I Must Scream or as a Soulless Shell, but ultimately subverted the trope and in the end left the readers gasping for breath but pretty secure with the knowledge that Plot Armor is still in place for the most central characters.
- Something*Positive. The author, Randy Milholland, has made it quite clear that nobody - beloved or despised — is immune from the Grim Reaper. And if you tell him he can't, for whatever reason, kill off a character, Randy will kill said character anyway out of spite, even if they weren't supposed to die.
- Swageon and Glacigeon
: Ass Ketchup, Swagle, Cyndaquil, Treecko, and Growlithe all dead. Also, The Hero Dies. Swageon/Sylveon and Glacigeon/Glaceon are dead by the end of season 3. - Tails Gets Trolled is probably one of the best examples. After chapter 2, both the main cast and the secondary characters start dying at a real fast pace. Also, The Hero Dies, if you considered Sonic to be the protagonist; later, it's clear that the hero is Tails.
- Unsounded: Secondary and background characters start dying in droves once the Silver Weapon was formed, but those traveling with Sette and Duane were safe until chapter 16, where Sara was crushed and Duane lost his head.
- Before It's Walky!, Roomies! featured the (then) shocking death of Ruth. Her death marked a Cerebus Syndrome moment in the strip's history (The strip started the transition to It's Walky in the immediate aftermath) and served to show that the gang's wacky hijinks were no longer consequence-free. It also set the "No warning" tone for many of the deaths to come (Dina's in particular).
- Wrongside: Beginning has not been hesitant to kill characters off. And has even parodied it in a joke strip.
- Although it does take the Hero Killer to show up.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic has main characters die quite often, and with little drama. It helps that there are quite a few main characters in each arc. Only one of them, Glon, has ever been brought back.
