History Main / FromASingleCell

%%* Serleena from ''Film/MenInBlackII'' seems to have this ability. (ZCE, and Examples Are Not Arguable; does she REALLY have this or only "seems" to have it?)

* Serleena from ''Film/MenInBlackII'' seems to have this ability.

** [[TropeNamers Cell]] from ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' is a biological android with [[AllYourPowersCombined many of the main characters' abilities coded into his DNA]], including Piccolo's regeneration and Freeza's ability to survive in very harsh conditions. Therefore, he doesn't have to worry about dying if... say... the upper half of his body gets blown off. In fact, after initially losing to Son Gohan, he tries to blow himself up and destroy the planet. After Goku sacrifices himself to teleport Cell somewhere far away from Earth, Cell surprises everyone, including himself, by regenerating after the explosion. In the original manga and Japanese anime, it's explained that Cell can only regenerate from a group of "core cells" in his brain that have to remain intact, averting the AsteroidsMonster problem. However, this created a different PlotHole, since Goku actually blows up the entire top of his body at one point (as mentioned above), so the English dub of the anime kept the visual of the "core" in his brain but changed the dialogue so that ''any'' of his cells could reform his body (back to square one on the AsteroidsMonster thing). Cell also has an extra twist on this; his Saiyan cells grant him a Zenkai boost whenever he recovers from gruelling injuries (such as losing a limb), with the power boost being proportional to the injuries sustained. Applying that to his coming back ''from a single cell'' (or the core cluster in the Japanese, as noted above) results in him becoming several times more powerful.

* ''Franchise/{{Tohoverse}}'':
** The titular monster in ''Film/{{Dogora}}'' originated as a single mutated cell, and it can restore itself when reduced to this.
** FrankensteinsMonster from ''Film/FrankensteinConquersTheWorld''. In fact, this results in the creation of the two monsters in the sequel, ''Film/WarOfTheGargantuas''.
** In ''Film/RebirthOfMothra3'', King Ghidorah regenerates from a severed tail.
** In ''Film/ShinGodzilla'', the scientists note that the little chunks of Godzilla's flesh that broke off are slowly growing.
** ''Film/GodzillaMinusOne'': At the end of the film, [[spoiler: Godzilla is a slowly descending chunk of flesh following his defeat, and it begins to grow before the credits roll.]]

This is rarely an ability of the hero; it is more often a power a villain has that marks him as being too powerful and resilient for the heroes to overcome, forcing them to find a creative way to beat the villain or gain a PlotRelevantPowerUp.

[[quoteright:350:[[Manga/DragonBallZ https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nbmtcak.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Not ''quite'' one single cell, but it ''is'' [[PunnyName one single Cell...]]]]

* Slippery B'eeef, the villain of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority: Kev'', has this ability.
* Rampage in ''ComicBook/BeastWarsUprising'' proves to be virtually, if not totally, unkillable due to his regeneration. His efforts as a "living crumple zone" who saves other 'bots from fall damage by being crushed were impressive enough, but at the climax he [[TakingYouWithMe blows himself and the villain up with a nuke]] and wakes up in the crater a bit later with a [[DeathSeeker frustrated groan]]. It ''might'' also protect him from aging; many, many years later, when the events of the main plot are the subject of intense historical dispute, "Pontiff General Rampage" is noted as a historian with a particular expertise on the subject, and while it's not ''said'' it's the same guy, Uprising [[OneSteveLimit generally doesn't reuse names]] and Pontiff General Rampage sure seems to agree with a lot of the opinions Rampage expresses during the stories proper.
* ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'': Black Lanterns are [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]] with power rings that can regenerate them back to full health, even if their entire body is destroyed. The rings themselves are MadeOfIndestructium.

* ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'': Unfortunately for Characters/{{Deadpool|WadeWilson}}, his regenerative properties cause his cancer cells to regenerate rapidly too, causing him to be horribly disfigured and, well, not exactly sane.
* ''ComicBook/EarthX'''s version of ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} can do this -- including ending up as many copies of himself after being torn apart by a mob. He even makes it into a circus act in which people try every method imaginable to kill him. [[BlessedWithSuck Too bad for him]] he's a DeathSeeker.

* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'': The Hulk's [[FutureMeScaresMe future incarnation]], the ComicBook/{{Maestro}}, was capable of regenerating from dust.
* One of the potentially toughest ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' foes is the Shaggy Man, a nearly invulnerable, ten-foot-tall bionic android that can regrow any limbs it loses almost instantly. Luckily, it's utterly mindless and therefore easy to trick. Eventually, a crazed general dying of brain cancer transfers his mind into it. He hasn't shown up very often since, probably because they're running out of ways to get rid of an unkillable, unsubduable villain with the mind of a brilliant tactician. Part of this may be because General Eiling found out too late that TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody. The Shaggy Man's tiny brain did not have a good effect on his mental facilities, and the Shaggy Man mostly just slept a lot, and yes, this does show a bizarre combination of the mind as the brain and as something beyond physical.
* ComicBook/{{Lobo}} of Creator/DCComics, an alien mercenary who deviates back and forth from a PsychoForHire to a HeroicComedicSociopath, can revive himself from a single drop of blood. He once cloned himself an army this way, but, y'know, being all "sociopathic," they all killed each other until one remained (in non-bloody ways, like suffocating each other).
* In the ''Franchise/MonsterVerse'' graphic novel ''Godzilla: Awakening'', [[Characters/MonsterVerseKaiju Shinomura]] is TheWormThatWalks, and so a new Shinomura can grow if even one of the individual organisms making up the whole kaiju are left alone.
* Isstvan from ''ComicBook/MythAdventures'' gets blown up by a spell, and then rather squelchily reassembles. Nothing remotely like this happens in the original novel.
* Jimmy Marks a.k.a. [[HalfHumanHybrid Hybrid]], from the original 1970s run of ''ComicBook/RomSpaceKnight''. He's killed by being torn apart on a molecular level and having those sundered molecules banished to another dimension ''twice'', and both times he literally wills himself back together and back into reality. Downplayed in that it does take him weeks on both occasions. On his third occasion, he's skewered with [[Characters/{{Magik}} Ilyana Rasputin]]'s Soulsword and seemingly killed for good. Then he comes back in both ''ComicBook/XMan'' and ''ComicBook/AvengersAcademy'', where he's vaporized and banished to Limbo again in each run. By the time of ''Avengers Academy'', nobody is even pretending that this will actually kill him for good.
* ComicBook/TheSentry has been able to unwillingly and unconsciously regenerate his entire being from nothing. He does have his limits, though, as he was eventually killed (and then revived into an undead horseman of [[Characters/MarvelComicsApocalypse Apocalypse]]).

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'''s higher-end baddies tend to have this ability. They include:

* ComicBook/SwampThing once lost an arm, which grew back (for the first time in his book). Later, he met a mindless clone of himself which had grown from the lost arm. During the later Creator/AlanMoore run, he could dissolve his body at will and re-appear from any form of plant life whatsoever, anywhere in the world. (He later got exiled into space with help from Lex Luthor, though, but he managed to find a way to return.)
* Modular Man from ''ComicBook/TomStrong'' isn't quite at this level. He is technically mortal, and can be killed, but functionally he's identical: if even one of his modules exists, he can use it to make more, and he posted the plans for free download all over the internet...
* In the ''ComicBook/UltimateDoomsday'' trilogy, Ben Grimm manages [[spoiler:to kill the Maker/Reed Richards... or so he thinks. It turned out that the body Ben destroyed was merely an extra body spawned from a hair-thin tendril from his central mass which is quickly regenerated. When Reed is finally cornered by the Ultimates and his former teammates, he implies that so long as a microscopic bit of him remains, his bacterial stack can grow back]].
* Dr. Manhattan in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' puts all these guys to shame. [[spoiler:As Jon Osterman, he got disintegrated by radiation, to the point that [[NotEnoughToBury they had nothing to bury]]. Somehow [[TheDisembodied his consciousness survived]] and, in a few months, mastered command of matter to the point that he could [[SelfConstructedBeing remake himself]] from essentially ''nothing''. Later, he is completely disintegrated ''again'', and is back (and [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever huge]]) in 5 minutes.]]

** [[Characters/WolverineJamesLoganHowlett Wolverine]] once regenerated from a single drop of his blood landing on an incredibly powerful MacGuffin that was making the villain of the month all powerful. As a result, his healing abilities were supercharged to the point that he could regenerate from a single cell. He was also still touching the item when he popped his claws, (to destroy it) making it reasonable to assume he either deliberately or subconsciously used its power to re-adamantiumize his skeleton.

** Mister Sinister. As an aside, quite apart from this healing factor, he has back-up plans in the event that someone does manage to kill him, namely that he secretly experimented on several characters in their childhoods (including Juggernaut, Professor X and Sebastian Shaw) to allow his mind to be transferred to them telepathically while their DNA is overwritten with his, so even if you stop him returning from a single cell, he'll still come back. Not helped by the fact that all three of those characters are quite hard to kill anyway, and one is nigh-invincible.

** The [[MechaMooks Imperisers]][[note]][[SpellMyNameWithAnS Imperizers, Inpelaizers, Imperializers, etc.]][[/note]] from ''Series/UltramanMebius'' have to have their entire body vaporized to kill them -- otherwise, they will regenerate, even from having their upper half totally destroyed. Later on in the finale, this is toned down to having to destroy a certain part of their body to prevent complete regeneration, but the damn things are still [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] beforehand. Worst part, the Imperisers are the BigBad's ''mass-produced'' '''[[BossInMooksClothing minions]]'''.