History DeathSeeker / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': This, ''not'' vengeance against criminals like the ones who killed his family, has been the Punisher's ''true'' goal his entire career. That's the reason he's so reckless and cares little about the consequences of his actions. He hopes that someday he'll be killed in action so that he can finally be at peace, but if he can take as much scum off the street as he can before that happens, all the better. Unluckily for him, [[DeathIsCheap he lives in a comic book]].

* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'': In Martin Pasko's run, Swamp Thing became so distraught over his repeated failures to return to human form that he lost the will to live and desperately wished for his existence to live. Things didn't help much in Creator/AlanMoore's subsequent run when it was revealed that Alec Holland actually died and that Swamp Thing was really a plant elemental who obtained Holland's memories and therefore believed himself to be Holland.

** WordOfGod says [[spoiler:Rorschach]] is a Death Seeker. [[spoiler: He finds it.]]

* ComicBook/{{Deadshot}}, an assassin in Franchise/TheDCU. His death wish stems from an incident in his childhood; his wealthy parents hated each other, and mom tried to hire her sons to kill their father. The younger brother, Floyd, tried to prevent his older brother from doing so, but his brother kicked him out of the house. Floyd got his hands on a gun and stood on a tree branch, hoping to [[BlastingItOutOfTheirHands simply wound his brother]], but the branch snapped and he missed. So he killed the brother he loved to save a father he hated. Eventually, Floyd became an assassin for hire, assuming the Deadshot identity. After multiple stints on the aptly named ComicBook/SuicideSquad and a few fights against other badass assassins, he's still alive.
* Mr. Immortal of the ComicBook/GreatLakesAvengers is named for his one power, which is to come back to life after dying. He discovered this after his girlfriend Terri killed herself and he tried to follow suit. After dozens of suicide attempts, he finally realizes what's going on (little slow on the uptake) and decides to fight crime. However, he is still prone to depression (especially after his new LoveInterest Dinah Soar was killed) and occasionally goes on multiple suicide sprees. Since he now knows about his powers, it's unclear if he is actually looking for a loophole, or if it's just his way of blowing off steam.
* Yorick of ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'' is like this for the first few volumes, thanks to Survivor Guilt after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. It turns out that this is also [[spoiler:Alter Tse'elon's motivation for ''everything'' she does in the series -- she's trying to die in honorable combat ''with a man''.]]
* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'':
** [[spoiler:Morpheus]]. If he indeed was (his methodology makes it somewhat uncertain how much was planned and how much was not), he certainly went about doing it [[GambitRoulette in an]] ''[[GambitRoulette extremely]]'' [[GambitRoulette roundabout way]]. Further backed by WordOfGod. Gaiman once summarized ''Sandman'' in the sentence "[[spoiler:The King of Dreams learns that all things must change or die and makes his choice]]."
** Another story concerned a female counterpart of Metamorpho, who was DrivenToSuicide by her hideous form but whose body automatically protected itself from any attack. Naturally, the story features [[TheGrimReaper Death]].
** The anthology ''Endless Nights'' had a soldier whose life was empty, until he encountered [[PerkyGoth Death]] and actually helped her on a job by breaking down a magic gate so she could enter a castle and claim the inhabitants. Now, he enters battle with renewed vigor in the hopes he will meet her again.
* Daredevil (not Matt Murdock) of ''ComicBook/EarthX'' is unkillable due to his regenerative powers. It's not clear how he became suicidal, but he becomes the center of a circus act in which the audience is invited to kill him if they can. Later he tries to get several [[BigBad Big Bad]]s to kill him, culminating in his multiplying into many versions of himself when he is ripped apart. Late in the series he apparently finally gets his wish, but only after all of humanity has joined him in [[BlessedWithSuck painful immortality]] (due to the death of Death).

** ComicBook/{{Batgirl}} Cassandra Cain's guilt over reducing a living, thinking creature to a large mass of inert meat with her bare hand at eight years old drove her to seek her own demise protecting others. In ''ComicBook/Batgirl2000'', it can be summed up when Lady Shiva demands a duel to the death in a year's time as payment for helping her regain the body-reading skills she lost when a telepath enabled her to speak:

** Batman himself subconsciously slid into Death Seeker territory after [[DeadSidekick the death]] of Jason Todd, the second ComicBook/{{Robin}}, to the great worry of [[TeamMom Alfred]] and Dick, and prompting Tim Drake into becoming Robin, under the belief that 'Batman needs a Robin.'

* This, ''not'' vengeance against criminals like the ones who killed his family, has been ComicBook/ThePunisher's ''true'' goal his entire career. That's the reason he's so reckless and cares little about the consequences of his actions. He hopes that someday he'll be killed in action so that he can finally be at peace, but if he can take as much scum off the street as he can before that happens, all the better. Unluckily for him, [[DeathIsCheap he lives in a comic book]].
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'':
** WordOfGod says [[spoiler:Rorschach]] is a Death Seeker. [[spoiler: He finds it.]]
** Edward Blake a.k.a the Comedian ended his life as a downplayed example. Everything indicates that in his last days, while not outright suicidal, Eddie was nothing but a sad, lonely, old man full of regrets about the life he'd led while knowing that it was far too late to atone for any of it. In the bits we see of the flashback of Ozymandias' murder of him, he doesn't put up any kind of resistance against his attacker as he whales on him, and just before Ozymandias lifts him up to throw him to his death, the beaten and broken Comedian just looks up at him with eyes full of both misery and resignation.

* Dashiell "Dash" Bad Horse from ''ComicBook/{{Scalped}}'' has an unconscious death wish. He constantly throws himself in dangerous gunfights with psychopaths and always alone. It's hinted that he suffers from PTSD [[spoiler:(child abuse, fighting in Kosovo and witnessing a massacre)]], suicidal behaviour [[spoiler:(flashback to a young Dashiell cry and put a gun to his temple, second time he does the same thing when he could've prevented the murder of a young boy)]] and from deep seated anger [[spoiler:(his fists are bruised most of the time and we see him slamming his fists against his own truck)]]. When Dash is confronted by [[spoiler:his father]], the conversation between them confirms all of this and more importantly his death wish.
* [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]], to a [[TheWoobie horribly painful degree]]. And, no, it didn't start during/after ''ComicBook/CivilWar2006'', either, though that certainly made it worse. It started when he was struck with [[SurvivorGuilt survivor's guilt]] over the [[MyGreatestFailure death of Yin Sen]] -- that's right, it started with his ''origin story'' -- and just kind of [[FromBadToWorse went downhill]] at breakneck speed from there.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Kaine, the imperfect clone of Spider-Man. He's not the typical death seeker as he sometimes changes his mind or even runs from a fatal fight. In the ''ComicBook/GrimHunt'' back stories it's revealed he's too much of a coward to commit suicide, yet when he has a pre-cog vision about his own death at the hands of Kraven the Hunter he still challenges him.[[spoiler:He finally got what he wanted by duping the Kravinoff hunters into thinking he was Spider-Man. They sacrificed him to revive Kraven the hunter. Afterwards, Kaine is resurrected with tarantula features, and is [[ComicBook/SpiderIsland ultimately reborn possessing Spider-Man's enhanced powers from Avengers Disassembled]].]]
* Dara Brighton in ''ComicBook/TheSword'' insists that she is already dead after the murder of her family. She just wants to hunt down and kill the demigods responsible for said murders before she actually dies. She does [[spoiler:and she does]].
* ComicBook/{{Thanos}} is a Deathseeker but not for the typical reasons. He wants to die because he is ''in love'' with the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Death.
* ComicBook/LadyShiva of Franchise/TheDCU is a Death Seeker like Cassandra Cain [[spoiler: her own daughter]] mentioned earlier. Shiva has always regretted that her sister was killed for the sake of her own potential as a martial artist and confessed to Cassandra that she misses her every day. As a result, Shiva is a mix of a BloodKnight and a Death Seeker. She continues to challenge and train gifted martial artists out of a need to validate her sister's death by proving that she is the strongest, but at the same time, she secretly hopes to die at the hands of someone better due to her guilt.
* In one ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Expanded Universe}}'' story arc, the crooked ex-Senate Guard Venco Autem learns that he has a terminal illness, and so takes on suicidal jobs like assassinating corrupt Senators because he has nothing to live for. At the end of the comic, he places himself in a situation that he has little hope of escaping from in order to kill the Senator, and is indeed shot dead by his brother.
* ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} wants to die. Death is in love with him and vice versa, so a jealous Thanos cursed him with [[WhoWantsToLiveForever eternal life]]. In the Age of Stryfe, an alternate future timeline Deadpool is still alive because of the curse and not his healing factor. The voices in Deadpool confirm his deathwish among other things: the only reason he desperately wants to be accepted is so his friends will care and put him out of his misery. If that doesn't work out he antagonizes them so they can exact their revenge on him. The later "Dead" storyline finally gives this to him via ComicBook/SpiderMan villain Tombstone. However, it doesn't stick - he comes back, but [[spoiler:he loses his healing factor, but his body is totally healed and he's regained his true face.]] More importantly, [[spoiler:he doesn't want to die anymore.]] Sadly, this has come back for poor Wade. After the events of ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' and the villain Stryfe forcing him to try to kill his friends, he's put a $20 million bounty on his own head with the hopes that someone will finally murder him as he feels he's not worth it anymore with all of his credibility shattered.
* ''ComicBook/KravensLastHunt'': Kraven the Hunter's main reason for hunting was to escape the harshness of life: "in the midst of pursuit... or a kill... I do not exist... all the petty pain of living falls away... all unrealized desires... until only the hunt is left". In the end, he killed himself with a rifle in his mouth. However, he was resurrected years later against his wishes by his remaining Kravinoff relatives. The ceremony of resurrection was corrupted so Kraven cannot die. Only the antithesis of a hunter (the spider) can kill him, so he hunts down spiders. Looking for a way to die with honor, he went after ComicBook/SpiderMan, who obviously refused to kill him.
* The events of ''Target: X'' (and possibly ''ComicBook/{{NYX}}'', the timeline isn't clear) leave ComicBook/{{X 23}} in this state, and she tracks down ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} intending to kill both him and herself in order to put a permanent end to the Weapon X project. Logan talks her down, but even after Laura has shown a very poor sense of self-worth and a suicidal disregard for her safety, constantly putting her life at risk to protect others (such as taking a full-force blast from Nimrod that otherwise would have struck Hellion) or otherwise expressing a willingness to sacrifice herself (IE, taking the Legacy Virus into herself and then intending to commit suicide without a second thought. Even though Elixir, who could completely eradicate the virus from her body when her HealingFactor failed to stop it, was ''right there'', and ultimately did end up healing her before she could kill herself). Her solo series has helped her learn to value her life, but she at times still struggles, and it's not helped that every time she seems to be turning the page on the pain in her past, something happens to threaten everything she's rebuilt.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
** ''ComicBook/TheImmortalSuperman'': After living one million years and outliving everyone and everything he cared for, Kal-El wants to die, but he is nearly completely unkillable. So, he dives right into the trajectory of Comet Magnor when he is told nobody can survive that.
** In ''ComicBook/DemonSpawn'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} fights Nightflame, a villain who is actually [[EnemyWithout her dying wish's embodiment]].
** In one 90's story, Doomsday becomes this millions of years in the future. Filled with self-loathing, he has gone back in time to remove every last trace of himself from the past, present, and future. Since people on Earth know how to clone him, he figures he needs to get rid of Earth as well.
** ''ComicBook/TheDominatorWar'': Subverted. When Light Lass meets the Wanderers, the army of metahumans raised by her big brother Mekt Ranzz to battle the Dominators, she warns them that Mekt -like most of Winathians who are born without a twin sibling- was born with a huge death wish. Hence, their "commander" is most likely leading them on a suicide mission. Later, though, Mekt states he is not thinking of dying anymore because he does not want to get the Wanderers killed.
** Hank Henshaw, aka the Cyborg Superman, became one of these, tired of the tragedy in his life and his near invulnerability. It got to the point where he joined the Sinestro Corps in the ''ComicBook/SinestroCorpsWar'' just because they agreed to kill him once their work was done. [[spoiler:He eventually did die, much to his delight. Unfortunately for him, his minions resurrected him at the first opportunity. The first thing he did was shed a SingleTear over being alive.]]
* In ''ComicBook/TheGoon'' comics the immortally weary Buzzard agrees to go kill a monster terrorizing the countryside, hoping it will be able to kill him. When he arrives he learns that the ancient creature was doing this with the hope that they would fight back and kill it. They agree to fight it out and let fate decide which one of them...wins.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', after losing his girlfriend, Chase Stein tried to kill himself by offering his life to the Gibborim in exchange for Gert's resurrection. They weren't interested, because his soul wasn't pure, but they used him to draw in the other Runaways so that they could try and take Nico. Thankfully, their plan failed, and Chase decided not to kill himself after all.
* In ''ComicBook/TheSpirit'' story "Wild Rice", Rice Wilder [[RunawayBride ran from her wedding]] into the arms of a bank robber after years of rebelling against the GildedCage of her family's wealth. In the end, when the Spirit offered to take her home, she broke away and made a run for it, only to be shot by the bank robber who thought she had betrayed him to the cops. She died with a smile on her face, her last words being, "I'm finally free..."
* Jack Russell a.k.a. ComicBook/WerewolfByNight comes to suffer from his curse so badly that he reaches the point he no longer cares whether he lives or dies. He signs up for what will very likely be a suicide mission, which results in a fight with best friend ComicBook/{{Morbius}} whom he tells to do him a favor for once and just kill him.
* ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} has become one of these as of the ComicBook/New52. It has [[BrokenBase caused a rift among fans.]]
* ComicBook/TheJoker is sometimes implied to be one, his monstrous acts being attempts to court death. Over time it's evolved a bit; he still wants to die, but he now wants Batman specifically to be the one who does it. ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' explores this in more detail. When he first arrives in Gotham, he's obviously expecting/hoping to get killed by the numerous people he's provoked. His obsession with Batman comes about when Batman refuses to kill him and even saves him despite the horrible crimes he committed; Joker is so [[EvilCannotComprehendGood confused]] that he becomes enamored with Batman, viewing him as his perfect opposite.
** In the ''ComicBook/{{Joker}}'' graphic novel, Joker's henchman Jonny Frost seems to be one as in one scene during the story's midpoint, he is standing on the roof of his apartment building, looking down with a sad expression on his face. [[spoiler: He finds it during the story's climax, jumping off a bridge after being shot in the face by the Joker.]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'': In the Flashpoint timeline, Gorilla Grodd, without the Flash to stop him, [[TheBadGuyWins has won]]. He now rules not just Gorilla City, but ''all of Africa'', with everyone too focused on the Amazonian-Atlantean War to stop him - but [[VictoryIsBoring he’s really bored out of his mind]] and he's hoping someone, somewhere will finally put a stop to him. When a ChildSoldier group finds him, he uses his powers to make one of them kill the others - but he spares that last one, hoping that the surviving ChildSoldier tries to kill him again.
* In ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', Chromedome certainly seems less than eager to continue living. During the War, he was actively suicidal, to the point where he met his current conjunx endura, Rewind, at an assisted suicide clinic. In the plot, he has continued to engage in mnemosurgery despite its tendency to slowly kill its practitioners, and he got so reckless when performing it on a near-unstoppable captive Decepticon SuperSoldier that he stopped telling anyone he was going in. [[spoiler:When he finds out that Rewind's former conjunx endura has been {{Mode Lock}}ed as the Pet of the DJD, he attempts to bring back Dominus at the cost of his own life; Rewind has to sever his arm to get him to stop.]]

* The entire plot of ''ComicBook/{{Druuna}}: Morbus Gravis'' is initiated because Captain Lewis is sick and tired of being unable to die and existing as nothing more than [[ManInTheMachine a disembodied head plugged into the ship's systems]]. He tricks Druuna into believing that deactivating the MasterComputer responsible for running the massive city-ship, which has gone rogue, will solve the ViralTransformation plague that is wrecking it. It instead triggers the self-destruct, but Lewis ultimately can't bring himself to let Druuna die along with the rest of the human race simply because [[ThePowerOfLove he loves her so much]].
* In the graphic novel version of ''ComicBook/MythAdventures'', this is [[spoiler:Isstvan's]] goal after being cursed with immortality. Everything he does as a villain is in pursuit of this goal. The novel never gives him a real motive besides a hunger for more power.
* ''ComicBook/EternityGirl'' is a comic-book miniseries about a washed-up old superheroine called Chrysalis who's been trying to kill herself for years, but has been thwarted because her own superpowers make her nearly impervious to any injury.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': During the fight which eventually ends with Circe actually being captured she keeps trying to goad Diana into killing her. When Diana and Lyta call out Circe for recklessly seeking her own destruction Circe just laughs madly without bothering to get up from where she is laying.
* In ''ComicBook/SecondComing'', Satan thanks Jesus for ending his life when he corners him, Satan having reached this point when God turns down his plea for redemption.
* Lili Niagara from ''[[ComicBook/InspectorCanardo Canardo]]'' wants to die for most of the story she appears in, but she specifically wants a quick death because she can't stand her pain.
* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk:'' On his bad days, Bruce Banner has tried to kill himself, either because he can't stand being stuck with the Hulk, or an attempt at TakingYouWithMe (No Bruce, no Hulk). For a variety of reasons, they've never succeeded. On other days, some versions of the Hulk have felt like this as well.
* In ''ComicBook/DrBlinkSuperheroShrink'', Major Amazing continually seeks out the most dangerous and deadly enemies he can battle, because his [[FlyingFirepower cosmic]] [[TheOmniscient omniscience]] and NighInvulnerability have left him ''bored''.
-->'''Athena:''' Of course, they're inscrutable opponents and fearsome reptillian warriors, battle-hardened and aided by the most advanced military technology our galaxy has ever seen. It'd be suicide to launch a frontal attack on th--\\
'''Major Amazing:''' I'll be right back!
* The Creator/GarthEnnis war comic ''War Story: Johann's Tiger'' stars a German tank commander in the final days of World War II (only four or five weeks before V-E Day). A veteran of the Eastern Front, he's not proud of the things he did there -- executing prisoners, burning villages... he just wants to die in battle and make sure his RagtagBunchOfMisfits crew can be safely captured by the Americans. [[spoiler:The opposite happens [[FateWorseThanDeath and he has to live not only with the guilt of his misdeeds, but his failure to shepherd his men to the end of the war alive.]]]]