Times where the idea that You Can't Fight Fate comes up in Comic Books.
- 2000 AD: In a Tharg's Future Shocks story, an American actor sees a vision of his death: Being hit on the street by a characteristic yellow New York taxi cab. In an effort to avoid this fate, the actor moves to Great Britain and manages to continue his successful acting career there. Some time later he's acting in a movie which takes place in New York but is filmed locally, so the studio has built a reproduction of a New York street, and the production also involves a yellow taxi cab. I'm sure you can guess what happens next.
- Age of Bronze: Achilles is fated to be killed if he ever kills a descendant of the sun god. Thetis tells Memnon to stick close to Achilles to point out any of them so Achilles can avoid them, but naturally Achilles runs ahead and kills two of them before Memnon can catch up. It gets him killed.
- Booster Gold: This is present throughout the series, but particularly in the issue where he tries to keep Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) from getting shot by The Joker. He tries and fails to stop the event from happening multiple times before accepting that there are some things he isn't capable of changing because of solidified time (i.e. changing the past purposely, already extremely dangerous in "normal" cases, becomes impossible because certain events are too important to change, such as preventing Barbara Gordon from being crippled, thus preventing her from becoming Oracle, or saving Blue Beetle, preventing the Max Lord/Checkmate conspiracy from being revealed).
- It later turns out, as revealed in DC Rebirth, that time can be changed in regards to these events, whether changing their outcome (so Barbara regains the use of her legs), or rewinding/removing them so they haven't happened (so Ted Kord is alive, but hasn't become Blue Beetle) - but only when the timestream's vulnerable, such as in the aftermath of Flashpoint.
- The Department of Truth: When Cole asks why they need to prevent the concept of school-shooting crisis actors from being real if it meant preventing the deaths of school shootings, Ruby makes a point that the odds of the kid staying dead in the new reality far outweigh any likelihood of them being alive and well, citing the theory that they were killed after they did their job as one example.
- Fantastic Four: The "Marvel NOW" relaunch, Fantastic Four 2013, reveals this for Doctor Doom: Ben Grimm had carried the guilt of altering Victor Von Doom's work — something that Reed Richards had caught and tried to warn Victor about — and, when he had the chance to stop Victor from performing his experiment thanks to the wonders of time travel, he takes it only to be stopped by dozens of other Dooms watching his birth. Reed gets Ben to calm down and allows the experiment to continue. As he later ruefully tells Ben, "Doom is inevitable."
- Hellboy: Hellboy gets this a lot from demons who want him to assume his role as The Antichrist. His response is usually rather realistic: "Says who?" followed by a punch to the face.
- Hound: Halfway through the story, Cú Cullan attempts to settle down with Emer on her father's farm after exile on the Isle of Skye, where Morrigan cannot reach. In response to his act of defiance, she orchestrates the invasion of his homeland to force him back into fighting.
- Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe: The Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee one-shot, set in this continuity and published years after Stan Lee's passing, has the Flash's story consist of her attempting to use her powers to prevent her father's death. None of her attempts are successful, so she accepts in the end that she must move on and focus on being a hero so her father's death won't be in vain.
- The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: In "Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies", Magica de Spell goes back in time to the day Scrooge earned the dime so she can get it before he ever owns it. After some hijinks she succeeds, and it's while waiting for the return trip to start that she realizes the implications — by preventing Scrooge from ever owning the dime, it's no longer the first coin owned by the richest duck in the world, therefore it's worthless to her, and she's forced to give it back to him and return to the future empty-handed.
- The Metabarons: The Metabarons are fated to never be happy and lead a tragic existence; son slaying father to succeed as Metabaron, wives dying, mutilation and general unhappiness.
- My Little Pony: FIENDship Is Magic: A key part of King Sombra's Start of Darkness. As a child, he and a friend see visions of their future selves; his friend as a princess, and himself as a monster. When it appears that his friend's future is coming to pass, the realization is a large part of what drives him over the edge.
- Subverted in the crossover Spawn/Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm), where future versions of Grifter and Zealot (the former being the original's future self but the latter being a new Zealot) are sent into the past to slay Spawn to prevent him becoming a ruthless dictator known as the Ipsissimus. When they fail to kill him, the present WildC.A.T.s and Spawn agree to go with them into the future to defeat the Ipsissimus, but it turns out this was part of a predestination paradox, as the Ipsissimus uses the opportunity to give Spawn the medallion that corrupted him and caused him to turn evil to begin with. When back to the present, the influence stats, and Spawn starts Evil Gloating... until the future WildC.A.T.s realize their mistake and make a last attempt to modify a minor action in the past. This causes Spawn to recognize future Zealot as an adult version of his widow's daughter Cyan, come back to his senses and hand the medallion to her, thus preventing the future.
- Star Wars: In one comicbook, Boba Fett was hired by Darth Vader to capture an Imperial officer who went rogue after killing his superior. He later learns the true reason Darth Vader was so interested in this case: the rogue officer had in his possession the severed (but still alive) head of an alien seer. Every prediction she makes comes true, no matter what. She predicted that Boba Fett would kill the rogue officer, and despite his attempts to avert his death, it comes to pass. Boba Fett was wise enough to refuse to listen to anything she has to say, claiming that he would make his own future. The only plans he has for her is to auction her off. Boba Fett eventually loses the seer to Vader. The seer warns Vader against trying to exploit her power by first showing him two false visions. The first depicted Vader being brought to Palpatine in chains, accused of treachery, and casually shocked to death with Force Lightning. The second depicted Vader triumphantly slicing Palpatine in half. The seer explained that she spared Vader the truth because she hoped he would kill her. In the end, he does kill her to keep her away from Palpatine...just as she predicted.
- Superman:
- In Superman (1939) comics, it was established that although Superman could time travel by flying faster than light, he was physically incapable of changing the past - some obstacle would always crop up to prevent it, even a highly improbable obstacle.
- He first learned this lesson in Superboy (1949) #85 when, after having just discovered he could time travel, he went back to prevent Lincoln's assassination. Against all likelihood, Superboy bumps into the adult Lex Luthor, who had simply been time traveling to take a break from the stresses of supervillainy. The encounter with Luthor delays Supes so he can't stop Booth's bullet. When Luthor realizes that he has inadvertently helped kill Lincoln, even he is aghast, and he goes home, badly shaken.
- In War World, The Spectre tries to show this to Superman, so he gives him a chance to save Krypton and prevent his foster parents' deaths. Superman fails both times.
- Supergirl also travels back in time sometimes to try to change the past, and she always fails.
- In Superman's Return to Krypton, Superman accidentally time-travels and ends up in pre-destruction Krypton. Albeit depowered, he sets out to prevent future tragedies, but he's unable to get the Science Council to listen to his father, he can't build an evacuation fleet, he can't stop Brainiac from stealing Kandor, and he can't save his family. Then Superman's launched into space due to a weird accident, and instead of flying back to Krypton he reluctantly accepts he can't change the past and travels back to his own time.Superman: If I return to Krypton, I will lose my super-powers again! Fate can't be changed! It's impossible for me to save Lyla or my parents! Earth needs me!
- In A Mind-Switch in Time, Superman swaps minds with his Superboy self. While in the past, Superman escapes from still another of Lex Luthor's deadly traps. Nonetheless, Superman's patience at last has been exhausted, and he actually considers to get rid of young Lex "before [he grows] up to be an even greater menace", but he's talked down by Smallville's chief cop. Feeling ashamed, Superman reminds himself once again he can NOT change the past.Superman: Wh-What came over me? I... I almost killed him...! B-but that's insane! As Superman, I know I couldn't have done it! I can't change the past... and Luthor is still alive in my time!
- In Many Happy Returns, Linda Danvers goes back in time to save the original Supergirl's life, but she's told she only succeeded in creating a parallel reality and cannot save Kara, no matter what. Overwhelmed by her failure to change Kara's fate, Linda gives up her hero identity.
- In Convergence, Barry Allen and the original Supergirl find out they'll die battling the Anti-Monitor if they leave Brainiac's domed cities. They become convinced that their deaths are inevitable but they find comfort in knowing they'll help save the universe. Ultimately averted, since they do get to change the end of the original Crisis.
- The Death of Lightning Lad: Saturn Girl learns the computers from planet Mernl have predicted one Legionnnaire will die fighting one alien conqueror called Zarya. Since the Mernlian computer-generated prophecy cannot be wrong, Saturn Girl decides to manipulate events so she will be the one who dies.
- "Brainiac Rebirth": When Brainiac sees that Superman has survived his latest set of traps against all odds, the android wonders whether he is really doomed to be destroyed by Superman, no matter what.Brainiac: "Superman lives. Red solar radiation dissipated, returning his powers. I...feel a prisoner of my destiny— the images I saw, the grasping hand of the Master Programmer— the threatening gaze of his Angel of Death... There seems to be no way to alter that future."
- Valor: Mon-El is told this by the Waverider:Waverider: "Like it or not you are a child of destiny[...]Haven't you wondered about the familiarity of this Khund attack? Before Glorith fouled history, this was young Valor's very next mission! He—you—vaporized this prototype craft![...]Despite your best efforts your flight here wasn't random. You're still at fate's mercy. You can't reject your destiny Valor. You're seizing it...whether you realize it or not."
- Superman & Batman: Generations: Superman's adoptive father Jonathan Kent actually tries to prevent the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne after seeing the events unfold on the Chronoscope, but Thomas and Martha choose to let their murders happen anyway after Jonathan Kent warns them because the knowledge that their deaths would result in their son Bruce growing up to become Batman convinced them that it was necessary to sacrifice their own lives to ensure Gotham City would have someone to help defend it from crime.
- The Brave and the Bold: The "The Lords Of Luck" storyline averts this when Destiny of the Endless (who is the Anthropomorphic Personification of Fate) state that, because they didn't die when they were supposed to, the Challengers of the Unknown are literally Immune to Fate, and their destinies — and theirs alone — are not written in his book.
- Universal War One: When the group of heroes are trapped in the past, one of them realises that all the attempts to avoid the death of one of them is in fact leading to his death.
- Teen Titans: Brother Blood is a strange Legacy Character. Back in the time of the crusades, he got Power at a Price: he would be powerful, charismatic and immortal, but only up to the age of 100, when his son would kill him and become the new Brother Blood (with a similar curse to die at the age of 100 at the hands of his own son, and so on). Brother Blood Nº 6 and his son were both aware of this curse, and they both tried to escape from it. The father wants to be truly immortal and be Brother Blood forever, and the son despises his father and his activities. He escaped from him, to avoid that, but when Brother Blood killed his mother (who was just one of his several wives) the kid began a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and killed his father next to the pool of blood. And, after the deed was done, he accepted his fate, got into the pool of blood, and became Brother Blood.note
- Watchmen: Doctor Manhattan states that he can't change the future that he sees because when he sees it, that means it's "already" "there"; the future is ostensibly present to him like the present is, so changing it would be like making something unhappen that already happened. This applies even to his own reactions, since sometimes he reacts with surprise to things he already knew about because that's what causality has him do. Thus, he has no free will. ("We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.") But while he claims he can't react to information from the future, he does do so when he explains to people things he sees will happen. At around this point at the latest, it all turns into a huge Mind Screw if you try to think about how it should really work. It helps that he's so absolutely neutral he's not really motivated to change the future anyway.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman (1987): Hippolyta learns that Wonder Woman is prophesied to die, so she arranges The Contest and rigs it so that her daughter is stripped of the title and Artemis becomes the new Wonder Woman. In the end this ensures that both Diana and Artemis die. (They get better).
- Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark is told repeatedly by her half brother Hercules that she can't alter her fate of serving and protecting their father Zeus. Her Screw Destiny goes much better than Hippolyta's, but Zeus does manage to manipulate her actions far more than she'd like anyway.
- X-Men:
- Averting this was the goal of the original Days of Future Past: Kitty Pryde was sent back in time to prevent the assassination of Senator Kelly, which would result in a sequence of events leading to the virtual extermination of mutants. Kitty succeeds in saving Kelly's life, but she returns to the future to discover that nothing had changed. It turns out, the "future" was a completely different universe altogether (Earth-811), and because of the laws of time travel in the Marvel Multiverse that one cannot alter their own reality's past, her actions were only able to prevent the same catastrophe from befalling the main Marvel Universe (Earth-616).
- The villain Vargas (the Big Bad for part of the X-Treme X-Men (2001) title) was seeking out the diaries of Destiny, a long-dead Blind Seer with the ability to predict the future. Being convinced that the prophecies favoured him, he boasted to the X-Men that they couldn't fight fate. When he comes across a diary that depicts Rogue killing him in battle, he changes his tune. Vargas changed destiny... only to be killed around X-Men #200 by one of the Marauders.
