Healing Factors in live-action TV.
- In 4400, Claudette discovers that she can heal quickly from any injury.
- The 4400:
- In "The New World", Isabelle jumps off the roof of the 4400 Center after learning that her rapid aging is directly linked to her mother Lily becoming a frail, elderly woman overnight and the only way for Lily to live is for Isabelle herself to die. However, about two minutes after hitting the ground, Isabelle is completely healed. Several hours later, she holds her hands over an open flame and the burn heals within seconds.
- In "Being Tom Baldwin", Isabelle drowns when she walks into a deep lake. She is found by a fisherman sometime later and is able to heal herself as soon as he takes her out of the water. Although Shawn believes that she was trying to drown herself, she was in fact trying to teach herself to swim while fully clothed.
- Also in "Being Tom Baldwin", having injected himself with a modified form of promicin, Dr. Burkhoff develops the ability to heal himself. However, it does not always work. He demonstrates it to Diana by stabbing himself in the hand with a scalpel. Dr. Burkhoff is the first non-returnee to develop an ability. In "The Ballad of Kevin and Tess", he is shot and killed by an agent of Dennis Ryland's company Haspel Corp so that they can study the effects of promicin on a human body. However, Burkoff is able to revive within minutes, displaying a form of Resurrective Immortality.
- In "Fifty-Fifty", the extent of Isabelle's ability to heal is seen when she survives a major explosion, which killed everyone else in the immediate vicinity, unscathed.
- Alphas: Big Bad Stanton Parrish can completely recover from any wound, even when it has just killed him.
- The Boys (2019) features two varieties:
- The Female turns out to have the traditional variety, as shown in the wake of her fight with Black Noir after he stabbed and slashed her multiple times. Black Noir himself is shown to have this as well, however it wasn't strong enough to fully heal his disfigurement and Slashed Throat.
- Gecko has the ability to regenerate entire limbs, which he monetizes by letting wealthy clients pay to cut off pieces of him and watch them grow back.
- Buffyverse:
- Buffy has a lesser healing factor as part of her Slayer powers. She can't regenerate injuries in front of our eyes, but she does recover from serious injury much faster than a normal human (at least if she also gets medical assistance).
- Vampires also have this healing factor, though it may not be as strong as Buffy's. Spike was stuck in a wheelchair for several episodes, and Drusilla was heavily weakened by an attack which required a ritual to heal. In some ways it can be stronger than Buffy's, as vampires are clinically dead, they don't have to worry about things like blood loss.
- Spike recovered at some point before he actually got out of the wheelchair; in one scene, he reveals he'd been faking it for an unspecified amount of time. Angel has been gutted and run through an unspecified number of times, particularly in his spinoff show. Illyria also threw him through two windows several stories off the ground.
- The Mayor's invulnerability manifests as this. He tests it by allowing someone to stick a sword through his head; the two halves sew themselves back together almost instantly.
- The Collector: Collectors quickly recover from any wound, with Hellfire spewing out of it in the process. A client also exhibited it (minus the flames) with fatal wounds. Because of the Devil's obligation to clients, they are protected from death for the duration of their deal, one way or another.
- Continuum features Travis Verta, a cybernetic Super-Soldier whose blood is infested with nanites that let him survive gruesome injuries, although the healing is slow enough to take a few weeks to repair five bullets to the heart.
- Appears to be the only sort of power ascribed to grim reapers in Dead Like Me, beyond the ability to yoink souls out of bodies. One example is when George accidentally runs her hand through a paper shredder, losing a finger in the process. She picks it out of the basket, holds it back in place for a few seconds, then goes and washes the blood off her hands.
- It is implied that they aren't impervious from pain, as another episode has Mason trying to make money on a trip by smuggling drugs. The condom, full of what should be a lethal amount of narcotics, bursts open inside him, causing him to absorb them all at once. He obviously doesn't die, but it's clear he feels the full effects, as he's in a great deal of physical distress for the rest of the episode.Roxy: Why do you do this to yourself?
Mason: [curled up and whimpering] I don't know...
- It is implied that they aren't impervious from pain, as another episode has Mason trying to make money on a trip by smuggling drugs. The condom, full of what should be a lethal amount of narcotics, bursts open inside him, causing him to absorb them all at once. He obviously doesn't die, but it's clear he feels the full effects, as he's in a great deal of physical distress for the rest of the episode.
- Doctor Who:
- Adric has this ability, thanks to his species' capacity for incredibly rapid adaptation. It only gets mentioned in two of his stories, though. The Info-Text for "State of Decay" uses this to poke fun at a continuity error regarding a mysteriously disappearing patch and rip in Adric's trousers where he skinned his knee in "Full Circle", saying that apparently "Alzarian trousers heal as fast as their owners."
- In "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor is shown to be able to quickly regrow severed limbs for up to 24 hours after regenerating, using leftover regeneration energy. In "Let's Kill Hitler", Melody, who has just regenerated, is shot with many bullets, but regeneration energy prevents any damage.
- In Earth: Final Conflict the Atavus can regenerate from extensive damage. Several parties spend time and effort finding a way to kill them. It turns out they are weak to cold temperatures.
- Revealed as an ability that Pilot's race has in a scary early episode of Farscape. The crew of Moya, minus Crichton and Aeryn, cut off one of Pilot's arms to trade for maps to their home worlds. Predictably, they get double-crossed so they really mutilated Pilot for no reason.
- First Kill: Legacy vampires have one, easily healing from most injuries. It's first seen after Juliette gets staked by Cal. She passes out, but on regaining consciousness she pulls out the stake and the wound heals instantly.
- In The Flash (2014), all speedsters have this ability, granted by their Super-Speed. In the pilot, Barry breaks his arm, which heals in 3 hours. Presumably, the bone still has to be set as soon as possible to prevent it from healing improperly. In an Arrow crossover episode, Oliver intentionally shoots Barry with two arrows to teach him to be aware of his surroundings. When Barry complains, Oliver reveals that he knew about his healing ability (which doesn't prevent it from hurting like hell)In Season 2, this very ability becomes the goal of Hunter Zolomon/Zoom, who supplies his super-speed via a drug called Velocity-8, which is killing him. Zoom finally takes over Barry's powers, becoming sper-fast permanently and healing himself. In the subsequent seasons, Barry uses his regenerative abilites several times more in order to help his friends.
- Gotham Knights (2023): The Talon is capable of healing from even injuries which would be otherwise lethal, such as multiple gunshots from close range or being crushed by debris.
- Heroes:
- Claire Bennet. She exhibits the power of rapid cell regeneration, a trait that allows her to recover from almost any injury in a matter of seconds. She also feels relatively little pain from even serious injuries, including burns and compound fractures, although she did grimace when her hand was damaged while retrieving a class ring from a running garbage disposal. She has not yet reached a limitation in her powers. Along with the injuries stated above, she suffered an injury where her neck was broken and turned around 180 degrees. However, Claire cannot heal an injury if a foreign object is obstructing the wound. This is true of other characters with healing factors, who can still heal incorrectly, incompletely or not at all if certain conditions are not met, just like normal humans. For example, in the first episode, the bones of Claire's ribs were sticking out at one point. After a comment from Zach brought this to her attention, Claire had to move them around a bit before they would heal properly.
- Adam Monroe/Kensei has the same power and is immortal.
- Peter Petrelli has the same power via absorbing it from Claire (until Arthur removed all his powers).
- By Season 3, Sylar, but in a less family-friendly fashion than Peter.
- Highlander:
- Immortals don't get sick and beheading is the only way to kill them. Any injury that doesn't happen to the neck or head will heal within minutes, and mortal wounds result in a short-term "death" where their body will shut down and appear dead while it repairs the damage. Once again, in a couple of minutes they're good to go. The most notable exception to their healing power is that lost limbs can't be regrown... a recurring villain whose hand is cut off in a duel in his first episode is still missing that hand in subsequent episodes.
- There was also a recurring villain whose first duel with Duncan centuries ago resulted in his throat being cut. For some reason, it healed improperly, and he has since been incapable of singing opera. He really hates Mac for that.
- In From the Cold: Jenny can heal from even pretty severe injuries so long as she has energy, which use of her body morphing power depletes. She fails to heal after morphing and then being shot.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022):
- "...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self": When the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt is bare-chested, we can see that his back is perfectly healed (there isn't any scarring) from the multiple stab wounds that were inflicted on him by Louis de Pointe du Lac a few hours earlier in the previous episode.
- "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding":
- In the final moments of her mortal existence, Claudia is covered with life-threatening burns to her body, but after her Emergency Transformation into a vampire, the scorches on her skin are mostly gone by the time she explores Lestat's townhouse. There's only some scar tissue on the left side of her face.
- Discussed when Lestat cautions Claudia about her careless driving; even though vampires live forever, acute injuries require months to heal.Lestat: Putain de merde note , steer, steer.
Claudia: Ugh, but we're immortal!
Lestat: You can still smash your pretty little head and then take long, dull months to recover. Eyes on the road.
- Jekyll and Hyde (2015) gives Hyde the ability to heal from injuries at an accelerated rate.
- Kamen Rider often uses a healing factor as one of the powers to make a major villain dangerous:
- Kamen Rider Double gives one to the Beast Dopant, whose powers are collectively a Shout-Out to Wolverine and who has to be defeated by Double gaining his Super Mode.
- Kamen Rider OOO makes it a general trait of the Greeed that they regenerate from any injury that doesn't involve losing one of their Core Medals, and even those can be regenerated just by reclaiming the stolen Cores.
- Kamen Rider Fourze has the Aquarius Horoscopes possess two separate water jugs on her shoulders that can heal her wounds, including repairing the other jug if it's destroyed, requiring Fourze to destroy both at once to defeat her. Fourze's own Medical Switch can induce a similar effect in himself or others by synthesizing the appropriate medication.
- Kamen Rider Drive can induce this with the Mad Doctor Shift Car, although being healed by it in this manner is excruciatingly painful.
- Kamen Rider Ghost has all of the Gamma able to do this to some extent due to being composed of magic-fueled nanomachines. Kamen Rider Necrom has the additional ability to hijack the nanomachines of other Gamma and use them to replenish himself, until his Redemption Demotion strips him of this power.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid villain Kuroto Dan gives himself this power using the Dangerous Zombie Gashat, which has none of the usual Super-Toughness that comes with being a Rider but instead repairs all the damage he takes mere seconds later. This is to bait his opponents into beating him down over and over, as the data accumulated from all these near-death experiences eventually supercharges the Gashat to drastically increase his power.
- Kamen Rider Build lead villain Evolt has this to From a Single Cell levels. The only thing that actually works to kill Evolt is tricking him into blessing himself with suck and giving himself a power that can be used to drain him of all his energy, and even after that he has the potential to revive through one of the heroes who's his biological son.
- Kamen Rider Zero-One has Ark's physical body comprised of nanomachines that can heal his suit, though he has to wrap himself around a host to serve as his skeleton and those can be injured normally. The Movie features a villain who has more advanced nanomachines which no longer need a skeleton, making him able to regenerate a lost arm in seconds. Zero-One himself briefly uses a similar suit in the same movie, demonstrating why a healing factor is not an acceptable substitute for Super-Toughness when each punch he throws breaks his arm before the suit fixes it.
- Kamen Rider Revice has the ability to regenerate as a feature of Gifftarians, including lost limbs. Unlike previous examples, however, this never makes Gifftarians any more dangerous, and is instead exclusively used to allow a new character or form's debut to brutalize them for longer.
- The rebuilt Michael Wiseman's new body in Now and Again has a nanite-based healing factor. While it's not as extreme as in some of the other examples on this page, it's much faster than a normal human.
- The TV corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a few examples:
- The titular characters in Jessica Jones (2015) and Luke Cage (2016) both have minor variations.
- Jessica can walk-off broken ribs and non-fatal bullet wounds in a day but is still vulnerable to minor firepower if surprised.
- Luke starts off being mostly-invulnerable. In the rare exception that a weapon can penetrate his skin, his bodies heals remarkably quickly, as long as the foreign object is removed.
- Harold Meechum in Iron Fist (2017) is gifted with Resurrective Immortality by The Hand. If killed, he comes back in full health and doesn't age. Other wounds don't seem to heal unless he dies. He also gets crazier every time comes back.
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. presents two Inhumans, Hive and Jiaying, with the ability to heal from deadly injuries, as long as they have people to feed on.
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that people who take the Super-Soldier serum gain a minor one. They cannot, however, heal from fatal injuries.
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Jennifer Walters has incredibly fast healing as She-Hulk thanks to her body metabolizing gamma radiation faster than Bruce Banner's. A sample of her blood is able to heal Bruce's arm in a few hours, which was still badly burnt after Avengers: Endgame. This is actually one of the Hulk's powers from the comics that was Adapted Out for the MCU.
- The titular characters in Jessica Jones (2015) and Luke Cage (2016) both have minor variations.
- My Dead Ex: Ben gets shot multiple times, with the wounds simply healing up in a moment. He doesn't appear to feel pain at all from them.
- NOS4A2: Manx is capable of healing any injury, even coming Back from the Dead, so long as his car is running and intact.
- The Outer Limits (1995):
- In "The New Breed", nanodevices injected into the body provide the test subject with this ability. He demonstrates it by burning his hand, which is repaired within seconds.
- In "Last Supper", an immortal woman who goes by the names "Laura" and "Jade" reveals that she was actually born in medieval Spain before her village was ravaged by the Black Death. She was the only one to survive, but hasn't aged or gotten sick since, and all her wounds recover soon enough. A government scientist takes samples of her blood to replicate the effect, but vastly underestimates its potency when he injects himself with it and de-ages into a puddle of cells.
- An extreme form is seen in "Sarcophagus" in which the alien skeleton discovered in the burial chamber cocoon absorbs energy from Curtis Grainger to heal himself to the point that he regrows organs, tissue, skin, etc. in the space of a few hours.
- In "A New Life", Daniel stabs Father with a knife given to him by Thomas. In the chaos that follows, none of the community members notice that Father is bleeding and that his blood is green. Within seconds, Father manages to heal himself, covering his wound so that no one sees the green glow emanating from it. He stands up to show his flock that he has not suffered any injury and it is hailed as a miracle.
- In "The Vessel", Jake Worthy develops a strong healing factor due to the presence of an alien lifeform inside of him. When the space shuttle Inspire crashes on the launchpad of the Kennedy Space Center, Jake survives while the other six people onboard are killed. The second and third degree burns that he sustained in the crash heal by the time that the rescue team brings him back to the base. He later smashes one of the windows in the isolation room where he is being quarantined and a bad cut on his left hand heals within seconds. The presence of the alien altered his body chemistry so that he was able to use his body's electrical impulses to heal any injury.
- The Outpost:
- As a Blackblood, Talon is able to survive multiple stab wounds to the stomach and a few days later the wounds have healed.
- Yavalla is capable of healing from what would be fatal wounds.
- Similar to the comic, the titular character in Painkiller Jane can recover from pretty much any injury that leaves her body largely intact. In the pilot, it takes her no more than 30 minutes to recover from Destination Defenestration. The "painkiller" is a Non-Indicative Name, as she goes through extreme pain from these injuries that happen with disturbing frequency. In one episode, she is trying to convince a neuro who can make people see things that he is the one being manipulated. She shoots her own hand and shows it to him as the wound closes in a matter of seconds to prove that none of it is real. However, one "Groundhog Day" Loop episode has her die by tripping a claymore mine and following the Chunky Salsa Rule. The loop resets, so the death doesn't stick. Later, she also finds out that there are others like her. Interestingly, they reveal that neither they nor she are The Ageless, and their (completely healthy) bodies simply shut down when the time comes.
- Power Rangers: Most of the monsters and antagonists that are injured or destroyed end up Killed Off for Real, but there are plenty of them who have healing factors of their own, allowing them to regenerate from death easily. Special examples go to Vrak, Kamdor, Master Org, Queen Bansheera, Dai Shi, Serrator, Vexacus, Broodwing, Omni, Venjix, Evox, Zeltrax, Mesogog, and Goldar.
- The same principle goes to its Japanese counterpart, Super Sentai, with most of the same characters' counterparts listed above and some original ones.
- Siren (2018): Merpeople can heal much quicker, from worse injuries, than humans. Within a few days they can go from close to death and come back. While in the water, the merpeople heal particularly quick. It gets weaker the longer they stay in human form however.
- Smallville has this crop up from time to time. Clark has one, which is supercharged by direct sunlight. Bizarro's is powered by Kryptonite. The Martian Manhunter has one, which is dampened by both Earth's atmosphere and fire. Curtis Knox is an immortal who has been alive for Millenia, but has to dig bullets out of himself if shot. The Kryptonite-created vampires also have one, but can be vaporized with Heat Vision. The list goes on.
- The Wraith in Stargate Atlantis. Their healing factor is directly dependent on how recently and how much they fed. One notable Wraith is found who has been feeding on both humans and other Wraiths for 10,000 years. No matter how much lead is pumped into him, he keeps going. Only a drone strike finally brings him down (by destroying his body).
- Supernatural:
- The Leviathans have this as part of their skill-set. Edgar recovered from having a car crush him, and Borax, while capable of hurting them, only causes temporary damage. When they have their heads removed, it reattaches itself.
- Angels also regenerate from damage quite quickly, the speed relative to how bad the injuries are. In Castiel's first appearance, he is shot with dozens of bullets, and blood is visible in a few places on his coat, but it's minimal and he displays no ill effects, implying that the bullets did pierce the vessel's skin but the wounds healed within seconds. If an angel is injured by a weapon that actually damages their true form, recovery will take longer, but generally occurs within a couple of days, if not hours.
- Demons are a variation. As long as a demon is possessing a host body, injuries that would be horrific or fatal (such as stab wounds with conventional weapons, falling several stories off of a building, etc.) heal quickly and don't hamper the demon at all. However, it seems the demon is only healing itself; as soon as the demon vacates the body, the wounds come back, often killing the host. This is in contrast to angels, who heal the actual human body they're possessing and such healing is permanent.
- Sweet Home (2020): The monsters are nigh-unkillable, and will eventually recover from just about anything, including having their head cut off. Kill It with Fire when downed is the only reliable way to kill them, or in the case of monsterized or pre-monsterized humans, killing them while still in human form.
- Teen Wolf: All the wolves have it. Sometimes they even come back from apparent death.
- In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Robot Girl Cameron's epidermal layer heals unusually quickly, to the point that a gaping, deep wound that had to be stapled closed healed to the point that is just looks like a recently patched-up cut the next day.
- Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood comes Back from the Dead whenever he encounters lethal damage. When he does, the damage is healed, regardless of whether it was mundanely or supernaturally inflicted.
- Taken to a disturbing extreme in the series two finale, in which he is trapped in a continual death-resurrection cycle for almost 1900 years after being Buried Alive.
- Taken to yet another disturbing extreme in the Children of Earth miniseries, where he has a bomb implanted in his stomach. He regenerates from a few limbs and part of a head to a skeleton to his normal self over the course of the day... and starts regaining consciousness and screaming when his skin has yet to come back. The room he's locked up in is promptly filled with concrete, and he's rescued when the team breaks the concrete block by dropping it into a quarry.
- This regenerating thing of his is not because of a natural, biological healing factor. Poor sod became a universal constant in the parent series when Rose fixed the past a bit sloppily in her god mode. This peculiar being of his makes him too weird for the time-sensitive Doctor.
- He loses his healing factor in Miracle Day, and after the Miracle (which stops everyone on Earth from dying, no matter how badly they're injured) there is speculation that he many now be the only person on the planet who can die. Once "the Blessing" is given, which is some of his blood from when he was immortal, he regains it, along with associate Rex Matheson. Word of God is that, while his Healing Factor is gone, his Resurrective Immortality remains.
- The Torchwood: Web of Lies mobile game reveals that Jack's body is full of bullets and shrapnel from every time he was injured or killed since he was first resurrected. Apparently, his body doesn't push all that stuff out, but simply regrows around it. None of it appears to bother him in the least. Most of the metal pieces come out at the end of the game, though, thanks to an MRI magnet.
- The vampires and werewolves of The Vampire Diaries. Vampires heal particularly fast if they drink some blood.
- The X-Files: Several monsters of the week have this.
- "Fire" features a pyrokinetic villain who can control fire. He survives fifth and sixth-degree burns over his entire body and his tissues start to regenerate rapidly.
- In "Young at Heart", a Mad Scientist experiments with cell growth and salamanders' regenerative power. John Barnett is given a horrifying salamander hand in the process.
- "Leonard Betts" plays with the healing factor's similarity to the rapid cell growth of cancers; a man who can regrow his whole body almost at will shows up in lab reports as having a wide variety of cancers, and he needs to eat tumors to survive.
