History WhoWantsToLiveForever / ComicBooks

* In ''Comicbook/{{Empowered}}'', the Caged Demonwolf tells Ninjette that normally he thinks LivingForeverIsAwesome. But since Ninjette is a mortal woman and she will die eventually, he will miss and remember her until the end of the universe.

* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperboy'': In the comic book series tie-in with the TV series, the title character and his friend Lana Lang meet Ponce de Leon in the modern age, who was cursed with immortality, and ended up dying at the end of a story where he leads somebody to the fabled Fountain of Youth and gets shot because its waters actually had no power to revert or stop aging.

* ''ComicBook/{{The Warlord|DC}}'': The eponymous character is fond of reminding the less valiant warriors around him that they never wanted to live forever anyway, during the heat of battle. This is particularly prevalent in his more suicidal periods.

!Examples By Publisher

!!Other Comics/Creators

** [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] during ''ComicBook/TheAvengersKurtBusiek''. [[Characters/MarvelComicsThorOdinson Thor]] states that as a god, he realizes he's destined to outlive most of his friends on the team, but that doesn't stop him from going absolutely berserk when he thinks that [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]], Characters/{{Black Knight|MarvelComics}} and [[Characters/MarvelComicsQuicksilver Quicksilver]] have been killed by the Presence. He then advises Firebird to be careful about forming bonds, as it will only be that much more painful when her friends and family inevitably pass away.

[[folder:Marvel]]
!!General/Unsorted

* In ''ComicBook/AlphaGods'', Cravely's main motivation for serving Malak is so that he can honor his end of their bargain and finally be allowed to die.

* In ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperboy'' comic book series tie-in with the TV series, the title character and his friend Lana Lang meet Ponce de Leon in the modern age, who was cursed with immortality, and ended up dying at the end of a story where he leads somebody to the fabled Fountain of Youth and gets shot because its waters actually had no power to revert or stop aging.
* ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica:

* ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' eventually makes this a plot point with Mina Harker and Alan Quatermain after they become immortal and eternally young after the events of Volume 2 (by bathing in the Fire of Immortality from ''Literature/{{She}}''). Unlike fellow immortal Orlando, who's well over 3000 years old in present day and personifies LivingForeverIsAwesome, Mina and Alan barely make it past 100 years before the pressure starts getting to them. In Alan's case it's even worse because he was already well into his 70's before he got his youth back and had been dealing with drug addiction for years on top of that.

* Multi-Man is "sort of" immortal. Any time he is killed, [[ResurrectiveImmortality he comes back to life]] with a [[RePower new superpower]]. It's never explicitly stated whether or not this can happen throughout eternity, or if he will otherwise have an ordinary lifespan. Other super villains frequently take advantage of this, killing him repeatedly until they get a power they want, most notably [[spoiler:[[Characters/BatmanTheJoker the Joker]] during ''ComicBook/JokersLastLaugh'']] and [[spoiler:[[Characters/NewGodsOther Shilo Norman]]]]. Needless to say, Multi-Man is pretty traumatized by his power.
* There's also ComicBook/ResurrectionMan ,who has the power not only to [[ResurrectiveImmortality come back to life after dying]], but also manifest a new power related to prevent the last thing that killed him from killing him again. He went through the 'repeated killings' technique, thanks to Hitman, three years before Multi-Man.
* In ''ComicBook/GreatTen'', the Seven Deadly Brothers' powers are derived from a curse placed upon him, that he would have seven lifetimes of mastery in the martial arts. This gave him the ability to split into seven bodies that are each unparalleled grandmasters of a different style, but he is fated to live out all seven of those lifetimes. When he is one person, his mind is a jumble, housing so many different personae that all want different things; only when split and in combat does he know peace. He's been living with this for over 300 years and he's got a lot more mileage in him yet. He admits, however, that he feels he deserves it.
** Contrast Immortal Man in Darkness, who will eventually be killed by the technology of the Dragonwing and replaced by another pilot. There are dozens of men waiting desperately in the wings for the chance.
* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': The eponymous character is fond of reminding the less valiant warriors around him that they never wanted to live forever anyway, during the heat of battle. This is particularly prevalent in his more suicidal periods.
* One of the reasons Dr. Manhattan from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' isn't all there anymore. The other one being his [[NonLinearCharacter non-linear sense of time]].
* ''ComicBook/{{Xombi}}'': Dumaka is an African Xombi who finds despair in how his eternal life has resulted in him outliving all his loved ones over the centuries. Fortunately, Xombis apparently die once they lose the will to keep living.
!!''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
* In ''ComicBook/TheImmortalSuperman'', Superman cannot die of old age, and he has become all but indestructible because of several well-meaning aliens removing his usual weaknesses. By the end of the story, Superman has lived one million years, and everybody who he has cared for has been dead for a very long while.

* The Cyborg Superman seeks to end his life after the loss of his human body and suicide of his wife. An immortal {{Energy Being|s}}, he is able to survive any injury, including disintegration or being thrown into a black hole, without being destroyed. As such, he purposely antagonizes Superman, ComicBook/GreenLantern and other powerful beings in the hope that one of them will find a way to kill him. The whole reason he agreed to join the Sinestro Corps in the ''ComicBook/SinestroCorpsWar'' was because the Anti-Monitor promised to kill him. After that whole fiasco, he actually did die, [[YankTheDogsChain only to be revived by the Manhunters]].
* In "ComicBook/SupermanRedSon" this is the ultimate fate of [[spoiler: the Earth, which turns out to be Krypton]]. After [[spoiler: defeating Superman]] Lex Luthor brings about such an age of prosperity as to solve all the world's problems, increasing the individual lifespan to centuries and then to millenia; and leaves [[spoiler:Earth civilization with "nothing left to do but die"]] which it eventually accomplishes only after a billion years, when [[spoiler: its people allow the Sun to destroy their planet via complete inaction except for one scientist, who sticks his infant son in a space ship and sends him back in time ...]]
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanVsShazam'', [[BigBad Karmang]] manages to make himself immortal, but in the process he accidentally kills one billion of Martians whose souls become bonded to him, and who will haunt him forever unless he finds a way to set them free.
* In ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'', [[spoiler:Mxyzptlk]] says that one problem with immortality is that one becomes bored. The first two thousand years he tried doing nothing, being carried on inertia, the next two he was good and after that another two thousand years of being mischievous (as usually portrayed). [[spoiler:Things go very bad when he gets bored again and tries to be plain evil.]]
!!''ComicBook/WonderWoman'':
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Dalma is able to find a whole contingent of Amazons who want to give up their immortality with her and leave Paradise Island to live in the wider world. None of them are permitted to, being treated as criminals by Aphrodite and locked in Venus Girdles to brainwash them into enjoying their position.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanBlackAndGold'': {{Discussed|Trope}} in "I'm Ageless", with Batman and Wonder Woman having a back-and-forth on how serious she actually takes being a superhero given that her immortality makes it so that she'll outlive virtually every friend, ally, and even enemy she'll ever know. At the end of the story she passes Batman's grave on her way to put flowers on the headstone of an even older friend.

* ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} falls in love with [[TheGrimReaper the cosmic entity representing Death]] and is cursed to never die by a magic-using mercenary named T-Ray. In one comic, Deadpool waits in a refrigerator for nearly 1000 years, spawning a second personality out of boredom to play hangman with. On several occasions, many characters talk about how Deadpool despises his own immortality. His psychologist Doctor Bong states that he is afraid to live. Deadpool himself says "You know what else is boring? Immortality." Meanwhile, he throws a bucket of blood to the sea and dives for a little shark fishing.

** Characters/DoctorDoom achieved immortality at one point with the intention of trading it away -- as he put it,

* ''ComicBook/Eternals2006'': [[spoiler:Sprite (the only child Eternal)]] goes to enormous lengths to make the Eternals into normal people who age (and can die) because [[spoiler:he's sick of being stuck at the same age]]. (In the end, he only [[spoiler:makes himself mortal, the others are restored by the Dreaming Celestial]]). A later [[AllThereInTheManual Marvel handbook]] would say that Sprite was suffering a form of dementia for Eternals called [[https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eternals_(Homo_immortalis)#Mahd_Wy.27ry Mahd Wy'ry]], which is described as being due to the fact that they're made to be immortal but psychologically are still human enough to eventually break under it. Periodic [[FusionDance Uni-Minds]] are intended to stave this off.
* The Elders of the Universe in the are immortal [[PurposeDrivenImmortality due to their fanatical devotion to a specific aspect of life]] (gardening, playing games, running, fighting). While none of them seem depressed, they're pretty much irretrievably insane.
* Averted with [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen Moira [=McTaggart=]]], what she really hates about her power is the GroundhogDayLoop effect of her so-called ResurrectiveImmortality (she only has 10 lives and lost her first one to old age). She became extremely pissed when her power was permanently removed even though she doesn't have any extra lives remaining. Moira is in fact very pleased to find herself being uploaded into an immortal, powerful robotic body.
* Varnae, the [[MonsterProgenitor first vampire]] in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, ultimately succumbed to this. Choosing Dracula as his successor in 1459, Varnae passed on nearly all of his power to the young vampire before committing suicide via sunlight.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In the graphic novel ''Hooky'', Spider-man meets a sorceress named Mandy who is cursed not only with immortality, but eternal childhood, and she hates it. Every now and then, she leaves her home dimension to educate herself, and finds a family to adopt her, but eventually, people realize that she isn't aging, at which point they either give her hormone treatment or try to burn her at the stake (depending on which dimension she's in) forcing her to flee and start over again. [[spoiler:During the course of the story, she and Spider-Man face and ultimately defeat a creature that she believes was sent by an enemy of her family to kill her; in truth, defeating it breaks the curse, and she is able to start growing up.]]
* ''ComicBook/VenomTheEnd'': Venom is doomed to tragically outlive especially, Eddie Brock, after years of desperately trying to extend his life.
* ''ComicBook/{{X23}}'': {{Downplayed|Trope}}: Laura has yet to seriously examine the fact that she will remain young and live on long after her friends and loved ones grow old and die. However it does get subtly referenced when, while trying to cope with [[ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} Logan]]'s death during her focus issue of ''The Logan Legacy'', Laura remarks to Kitty how she thought Logan would always be there for her because of his (and thus by extension her) mutation making him functionally immortal. His death severely rocks her view of her own future as a result, not least of which because it leaves her feeling alone.

!!''ComicBook/TheAvengers'':
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] during ''ComicBook/TheAvengersKurtBusiek''. [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] states that as a god, he realizes he's destined to outlive most of his friends on the team, but that doesn't stop him from going absolutely berserk when he thinks that ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, ComicBook/{{Black Knight|MarvelComics}} and Quicksilver have been killed by the Presence. He then advises Firebird to be careful about forming bonds, as it will only be that much more painful when her friends and family inevitably pass away.
* Mister Immortal of the ''ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers'' has tried suicide numerous times using increasingly drastic means. It's not until he finds out his true destiny that he finally accepts his "condition".
* The Vision suffers from similar feelings in Creator/MarkWaid's ''Avengers'' run. [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] is the one to pull him out of his funk, telling him that as long as he remembers and cherishes his friends, their memories will make them immortal long after they are dead.

!!Subsidiaries:
* ''ComicBook/ElfQuest''. Any elf not descended from Timmorn Yellow-Eyes is by default immortal. They react in different ways as the years progress; Rayek's reaction was to eventually perfect the art of angsting about it.

[[folder:Vertigo Comics]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'': John Constantine's Cromwellian ancestor Harry Constantine wound up cursed with immortality by a supernatural entity. It wasn't a particularly strong curse though, so he was buried alive to keep anyone from ever finishing the job. Over three centuries later, he would be exhumed by his descendant twice, with the second time resulting in his death. Having been left underground for so long to the point that his body was half-rotten and festering with worms, he gladly submitted when John took his head off with a shovel.
* ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'': A minor character from one issue is cursed with immortality by her gods several thousand years ago. Every day, her body is reverted to the way it was the moment of the curse, which means that [[spoiler:she has had the same miscarriage every day for thousands of years]].
* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'':
** "Facade" depicts Elemental Girl as a washed-up superhero who takes no joy from life, but finds it impossible to commit suicide due to her powers.
** [[OurDemonsAreDifferent The demons of Hell]] while away their endless time in Hell by coming up with wordplay and slang to use when speaking to each other and the damned. (e.g., [[GratuitousIambicPentameter speaking only in iambic pentameter]]).
** The trope is, however, {{averted|Trope}} by Hob Gadling, a regular man who was granted the gift of immortality. He has his ups and downs, but he persistently refuses the offer of death, because dying would be ''stupid'' [[LivingForeverIsAwesome when there's always so much more to see and do]].
** In "A Winter's Tale", [[TheGrimReaper Death]] says that at some point in her younger days she got so tired at living creatures getting angry at her when their time was up so that she quit her job and let everyone live. She later changed her mind after seeing that the alternative to things dying "wasn't very nice".
[[/folder]]

* Averted with [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen Moira [=McTaggart=]]], what she really hates about her power is GroundhogDayLoop effect of her so-called ResurrectiveImmortality (she only has 10 lives and lost her first one to old age). She became extremely pissed when her power was permanently removed even though she doesn't have any extra lives remaining. Moira is also very pleased to find herself being uploaded into an immortal, powerful robotic body.

* Averted with [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen Moira [=McTaggart=]]], what she really hates about her power is GroundhogDayLoopeffect of her so-called ResurrectiveImmortality (she only has 10 lives and lost her first one to old age). She became extremely pissed when her power was permanently removed even though she doesn't have any extra lives remaining. Moira is also very pleased to find herself being uploaded into an immortal, powerful robotic body.

* Averted with [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen Moira [=McTaggart=]]], what she really hates about her power is Groundhogs Day effect of her so-called ResurrectiveImmortality (she only has 10 lives and lost her first one to old age). She became extremely pissed when her power was permanently removed even though she doesn't have any extra lives remaining. Moira is also very pleased to find herself being uploaded into an immortal, powerful robotic body.

* Professor Anthony Ivo, an old foe of the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica, started out an ImmortalitySeeker, and successfully came up with a viable ImmortalityInducer. However, while he succeeded in making himself immortal, the serum he came up with had the serious drawback of progressively and painfully hardening his body to the point of immobility. These days he pingpongs between this trope and ImmortalitySeeker -- while he's terrified of living forever in pain, he's [[MortalityPhobia just as equally terrified of dying]].
** From the same book, the Grey Man was a Middle Ages sorcerer who figured a way to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence high enough to be noticed by the Lords of Order, who set him to the task of collecting the remains of energy dropped by dreaming minds across the globe. After centuries of doing this, he was dreadfully bored of his existence to the point of carrying out a BigBad-worthy plan to recreate the original ritual and demand the Lords lift their punishment and let him die. It turned out they had been [[WowingCthulhu impressed]] by the original ritual and his existence was supposed to be a ''gift''. They offered to rescind it, and the tearful Grey Man's existence ended, with the Lords barely phased by the entire hoopla.

*** Characters/DoctorDoom achieved immortality at one point with the intention of trading it away -- as he put it,
---->''"My years already feel like eons. I fear the eons themselves cannot be endured."''

* ''ComicBook/ElfQuest''. Any elf not descended from Timmorn Yellow-Eyes is default immortal. They react in different ways as the years progress; Rayek's reaction was to eventually perfect the art of angsting about it.

* ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'': John Constantine's Cromwellian ancestor Harry Constantine wound up cursed with immortality by a supernatural entity. It wasn't a particularly strong curse though, so he was buried alive to keep anyone from ever finishing the job. Over three centuries later, he would be exhumed by his descendant twice, with the second time resulting in his death. Having been left underground for so long to the point that his body was half-rotten and festering with worms, he gladly obliged when John took his head off with a shovel.

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'': The eponymous character is fond of reminding the less valiant warriors around him that they never wanted to live forever anyway, during the heat of battle. This is particularly prevalent in his more suicidal periods.

* ''ComicBook/XTwentyThree'': {{Downplayed|Trope}}: Laura has yet to seriously examine the fact that she will remain young and live on long after her friends and loved ones grow old and die. However it does get subtly referenced when, while trying to cope with [[ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} Logan]]'s death during her focus issue of ''The Logan Legacy'', Laura remarks to Kitty how she thought Logan would always be there for her because of his (and thus by extension her) mutation making him functionally immortal. His death severely rocks her view of her own future as a result, not least of which because it leaves her feeling alone.