Heads blowing up in Comic Books.
- In Beasts of Burden, one of Lundy's spells is capable of making a brain burst out of its skull.
- A common fate for minor villains in The Boys. Considering how brutal some of the deaths in that series are, an exploding skull is quite merciful.
- In Contest of Champions (2015), Madame Hydra's head blows up after she loses her telepathic duel with the Maestro.
- Monty loves doing this in Death Sentence.
- El Toxico: After cracking a giant ant's head open with a hammer, El Toxico fires a shot into the wound, causing its head to explode.
- Used in Fables when Snow White is shot in the head by Goldilocks. Since Fables are much stronger than normal people, she survives.
- Fantastic Four: The Invisible Woman claims she could do this to somebody if she had to by creating a force bubble in the center of the victim's brain and making it expand; she once threatening to do so to Doctor Doom when she was very angry (and it may have been the first time in his career anyone had truly frightened him). To date, she has never been angry enough to do this in mainstream Marvel, but she has in the elseworlds series Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe.
- In the alternate timeline series The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect, this is said to be the only way to reliably kill the Hulk. Unusually, it's then subverted by using Time Travel to blow the Evil Hulk to Ludicrous Gibs instead.
- At the end of I Am Not Okay With This, Sydney uses her telekinetic powers to blow up Brad's head after he rapes her best friend Dina, then does the same to herself out of a belief that she's a bad person who brings nothing but pain to the world.
- Infinite Crisis: Happens in the penultimate issue when Black Adam kills Psycho-Pirate by gouging out his eyes with his fingers then pushing his mask through his head (which asplodes). Complete with Bond One-Liner "No more silly faces."
- In Justice League: Generation Lost, Maxwell Lord succeeds in his mission to kill Magog. Max takes control of Magog's body and forces him to blow his own head apart with his own energy staff. What makes it even more horrifying is that Magog is completely aware of what's happening and spends his last moments begging for his life.
- In Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, the prime benefit of getting into Heaven is the ability to make other people's heads explode, and the highlight of Johnny's trip there is setting off a massive chain reaction of "head-a-splodey" violence, which is stopped only after a nun gets angry and detonates everybody's head simultaneously. People familiar with Jhonen Vasquez's work would probably not find this sort of thing out of place. Referenced in The Simpsons, as Homer explodes the head of a tour guide angel.
- In an Intercontinuity Crossover with Judge Dredd, called Die Laughing, The Joker gains the power to explode people's heads with his laugh.
- In Marvel Zombies, the only way to make sure a zombie is dead is to destroy the head. Perhaps the most notable instance was when Invisible Woman exploded She-Hulk's head.
- In Nextwave, Tabitha avoids Forbush Man's mental powers because she has no mind for him to exploit. She retaliates by making his head go boom.
- In Pitt, this is one of Timmy's primary uses for his Psychic Powers. It was especially useful against the Zombie Apocalypse in the Intercontinuity Crossover with The Darkness.
- Planetary: Pops up in The Drummer's backstory; he was one of about a dozen child prodigies tied to computers in an attempt to create a human system for secretly controlling the internet, all of whom wore bomb collars as extra security measures. He was the only one to survive escape.
- In Reyn, Seph sticks her staff into Brother M'Thall's mouth and zaps him with a magical spell. While we don't fully see what happens, it's clear that his head was blown to pieces.
- Savage Dragon is rather fond of asploding heads. The dozens of separate instances and minor characters that die this way aside, Dragon himself had his brainpan asploded multiple times, twice by himself.... or his Evil Twin, really. Wait, that was an Evil Twin killing another Evil Twin before the surviving Evil Twin killed Dragon and then was shot in the face afterward. By Dragon. It Makes Sense in Context.
- Sin City has different instances in which people get their heads blown off but the one that takes the cake is actually a dream sequence. John Hartigan is handcuffed to a chair, getting beaten to a pulp. He somehow finds the urge to break the cuffs and attack his tormentor. He punches him in the face so hard... his head explodes into a mushroom cloud. Then he wakes up.
- This is a regular threat for the Suicide Squad, as Amanda Waller won't hesitate to set off the bombs in their heads if they get out of line.
- Superman:
- Invoked in Red Daughter of Krypton when Supergirl thinks she has to talk the newest Red Lantern down quickly before she blows more heads up.Supergirl: I have to make this quick before she finds more heads to explode.
- In Crucible, Comet crushes villain Vax's head telekinetically until it bursts out.
- Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom: Darkseid's soldier Cyberpak dies when the titular villainess shoves one grenade into his mouth.
- In the final part of Time and Time Again, one of the reporters on the Earth's moon reporting Dev-Em's rampage is killed by a piece of debris flung at him at bullet-speed by Dev-Em that rips through his spacesuit helmet and also through his head, causing this to happen.
- Invoked in Red Daughter of Krypton when Supergirl thinks she has to talk the newest Red Lantern down quickly before she blows more heads up.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): This happens a few times to various thugs in the miniseries "Body Count".
- Trakk: Monster Hunter: In chapter 3, Trakk kills a monster by suqeezing its head until it bursts in his hand.
- The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers: One of Ironfist's inventions is cerebro-sensitive bullets, which are designed to seek out the heads of targets, then blow them up. Guzzle enjoys this.
- The Transformers: Robots in Disguise:
- The Deceptions all have inhibitor/deterrence chips in their heads to prevent them from using their powers and transforming. If they get out of line, their heads will explode. When Horri-bull almost beats a neutral to death, Bumblebee detonates his chip. Ultimately subverted with the Constructicons in Issue #4: They show up alive and well later, despite Prowl detonating their chips, but it turns out they were Faking the Dead with a little help from Prowl himself.
- Wheeljack barely survives this in Issue 14.
- Shockwave shoots an already badly wounded Metrotitan in the face, blowing up his head.
- Transmetropolitan: Happens — over three panels, no less — with the assassination of Dr. Vita Severn.
- In Über, the titular superhumans can suffer a gory cranial explosion if their Eye Beams are used for too long without rest.
- In Ultimatum, Doctor Strange is subjected to the "squeezing until the head bursts" variety, courtesy of Dormammu's only appearance in the entire damn Ultimate Marvel universe.
- In Watchmen #4, Dr. Manhattan is seen in a flashback using his powers to blow up the head of a gunman who opened fire in a nightclub.
- In The Wicked + The Divine, Lucifer snaps her fingers and saves Laura by doing this to would-be assassins. She's also framed (maybe) for doing it to a judge, and it's later explained that any god with domain over fire could also pull that trick. It's also how Ananke punishes Luci.
- In the X-Wing Rogue Squadron arc Requiem for a Rogue, the bad guy, failing to kill the Rogues, is interrupted by a new bad guy with a stronger connection to the Force. The new bad guy shoots his own hand off and telekinetically uses it to strangle the old bad guy while monologuing, then removes the hand and makes the old one's head explode. Why not just shoot him, just strangle him, or just blow up his head? Because that's not ridiculous and overly elaborate enough, apparently.
