History Main / WalkingWasteland

* ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}'': [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/hollowile.htm Hollowile]] has a lesser version of this, having a moisture draining aura surrounding it that turns leaves brown and brittle in its wake.
* Website/SCPFoundation:

* ''Manga/GetBackers'': Natsuki Amon. It was his tribal ability, and it led him to shun human touch for fear of draining the life of anyone he hung around with. [[KansaiRegionalAccent Couldn't happen to a nicer guy]].

*** ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': One issue focuses on a mutant with the highly unfortunate power of producing a combination of acids and poisons that can kill anyone in his vicinity. He ends up killing his entire high school before fleeing to the desert; Wolverine is sent in to "[[MercyKill take care of him]]", which the kid willingly accepts.

* ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesGrimm'': v makes things around him as dark and ugly as he is as he walks around: pretty flowers become ugly weeds, cute animals become twisted and scary, happy and brightly dressed people become drab and mean (or just depressed), and many things start oozing blood or ichor. The more things he "grimmifies" in a stage, the more powerful the effect gets.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', ghouls can sometimes be radioactive enough to become living conduits of radiation, can emit bursts of it at will, harming people and healing ghouls. Even dead, they still emit a few rads while you're close enough to loot the body.

** Admirals Aokiji and Akainu similarly can devastate their surroundings as collateral damage when they utilize their Logia fruits; the Chilly-Chilly Fruit and the Mag-Mag Fruit respectively.

* ''Literature/JourneysOfTheCatechist'' briefly features the living essence of Corruption. One character hits Corruption in the neck with his sword, which promptly rusts and rots away in seconds. A similar being, called the Drounge, is encountered in the third book. Descriptions of its travels before encountering the heroes tell of mysterious plagues, withered crops, and epidemics. Even touching the thing rots away all the flesh on one character's hand.

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' gives us Chat Noir, a [[BadPowersGoodPeople hero]] whose superpower, ''Cataclysm'', withers and rots anything he touches. [[ThouShaltNotKill He never uses it on people]].

*** ''ComicBook/NewXMen'': Elixir. One hand heals, the other kills.

* ''LightNovel/{{Campione}}'': Heretic Gods cause disasters wherever they appear simply by existing in the mortal world. The severity of the disaster varies based on their nature. A war god triggers wars, a sun god brings drought and wildfire, a death god spreads pestilence, etc.
* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', when Ayu Mitsuari suffers extreme bouts of emotion, like during her VillainousBreakdown, she emits a field where everything except herself quickly dries up. Living beings within the field desiccate and crumple apart like paper.

* ''LightNovel/RestaurantToAnotherWorld'': Black Queen/Kuro is a dragon who uncontrollably releases death magic, killing and disintegrating weaker beings, forcing her to exile herself to her world's moon to spare the inhabitants. She ''is'' capable of enacting a PowerLimiter by VoluntaryShapeshifting into a much weaker elf form, allowing her to interact with the weaker populace, but there's implications that it wears off after a while, so she stays on the moon when not working at Nekoya to avoid risking killing anybody.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/{{Brimstone}}''. In "Carrier" the VillainOfTheWeek was a Typhoid Mary-expy who causes infection in anyone she exchanges bodily fluids with (before she "died" she killed a bunch of people by throwing up in a reservoir). Her time in Hell has caused the disease she's infected with get worse, making even ''The Devil'' nervous!
* In ''Series/TheBoys2019'', ArcVillain [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Soldier Boy]] is turned into one of these after being captured by the Soviets, making him radioactive and prone to explosive {{Super Power Meltdown}}s when stressed.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "Amends", Buffy learns that the Bringers (priests to [[GodOfEvil the First Evil]]) will cause "''nothing to grow, above or below''" them. She remembers seeing an inexplicably dead patch at a Christmas tree lot, and finds their hideout buried beneath it.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In one episode, a group of scientists create a highly advanced group of humans that are telepathic and could never get sick. The main problem is that their immune systems are so aggressive that anyone who gets close to them starts aging rapidly and dies. They have to be kept in isolation forever.

** In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS15E19InheritTheEarth Inherit the Earth]]", : Jack's newfound parasitical power causes plants to wither in his presence.
* ''Series/Titans2018'': [[Characters/Titans2018Villains Trigon]] immediately begins causing all plant and animal life to die once he transforms into his true form and gains its power. We see him striding across the land with grass and trees turning brown and dead birds falling from the sky.

** Gildarts specializes in "Crush" magic, which destroys anything he runs into. He's actually pretty nice, but he's so [[TheDitz absent-minded]] that he runs through buildings so often, the town was forced to mechanically change their landscape so he had a clear path through.

Now, you may be a NiceGuy or girl. You may be someone who's [[TheChick sweet]], [[PrinceCharming charming]], and [[TheHeart always nice to everyone]]. But, see, here's the thing: wherever you go, people and things tend to [[MakeThemRot wither and die]].

** [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1440 SCP-1440]] once [[ChessWithDeath won a card game against Death]] and is now immortal. The problem is that every human and human-made thing in his vicinity is killed/destroyed. Combined with a compulsion to wander around, impossibility to be contained and an evergrowing human population...

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': Derek Powers, being a walking piece of radioactivity whose proximity was both toxic ''and'' hot enough to soften metal. When making his first appearance in his superpowered form, he delivers a BadassBoast about how powerful his power of death was. Powers is also a great case of irony, since he was already a "blight upon the land" when he knowingly and illegally dumped toxins in the environment in his position as a CorruptCorporateExecutive. His subsequent transformation is really the metaphor made literal.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation:

** Zeref suffers from a curse that causes him to kill anything in his vicinity whenever he values life. The only way he can avoid this is by completely disregarding the value of life...in which case people around him are screwed anyway.
** [[spoiler:Mavis]] suffers from the same curse during the events of the prequel ''Fairy Tail Zero'', but dies herself before she can do too much damage to her own side.

%%* ''Anime/{{Memories}}'': Nobuo, from the ''Stink Bomb'' segment.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** [[AnimalisticAbomination Dire Miralis]] from the third generation. Its [[MagmaMan body]] is [[MyBloodRunsHot so superheated]] that the ocean it lives in, the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Tainted Sea]], is [[PersonOfMassDestruction completely devoid of life]] because everything in it was ''boiled to death.'' And that’s when Dire Miralis isn’t [[DeathFromAbove actively]] [[ApocalypseHow rampaging.]]
** Also from the third generation, [[DraconicAbomination Alatreon.]] Having control of [[AllYourPowersCombined all four (five as of Iceborne) elements at once]] sounds like a cool power for a monster to have, right? Not so much when said powers [[PowerIncontinence constantly leak out of it]] and scorch or freeze everything around it. Because of this, Alatreon [[TheHermit seeks the most desolate, inhospitable places around so that no one can reach it;]] everything else in the vicinity would croak in short order if it tried living with most other monsters.
** Black Veil Vaal Hazaak is covered with a growth of symbiotic spores which produce the effluvium it utilizes in combat. Said spores infect the regions it wanders through, producing noxious fumes that disrupt the local ecosystem and drive local monsters insane.
** Safi'jiiva, the adult from of Xeno'jiiva, can absorb the life energy of the surrounding land and reshape ecosystems to its own benefit. The Secluded Valley where it has been maturing is completely bare of any other life as a result.

Additional points if you can spread other havoc: souring wine, spoiling food, rotting wood, rusting metal, breaking mirrors/glass, etc. Often a side effect of ILoveNuclearPower.

* ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'' has the [[NuclearNasty Radio Zombie]] which has the ability to cause a fallout ridden wasteland wherever they walk when they hit a rank 8 in magic. They can add metaphorical corruption to the mix at level 10.

* [[ILoveNuclearPower Being irradiated]], if media is to be believed. That depends primarily on the type of radiation the person has been exposed to. Gamma radiation is the smallest type and the most destructive, whereas alpha radiation (He 2+) can be blocked by clothing, and beta radiation (free electrons) can be blocked by slightly thicker objects. All can turn something else radioactive, though gamma is the most likely to do so due to its high energy.

* ''Film/{{Warlock}}'': The title character has a power often attributed to witches in RealLife: when he's in the area milk turns sour.

** While Hazel is an all-around nice girl, she was CursedWithAwesome at birth. Gemstones and riches underground tend to pop out whenever she's around, but anyone who takes and tries to get rich off of them meets horrible ends. Pluto seems to imply that, while most of his children are like this to some extent, Hazel takes it UpToEleven.

* ''Series/{{Brimstone}}''. In "Carrier" the VillainOfTheWeek was a Typhoid Mary-expy who causes infection in anyone she exchanges bodily fluids with (before she "died" she killed a bunch of people by throwing up in a reservoir). Her time in Hell has caused the disease she's infected with go UpToEleven, making even ''The Devil'' nervous!

** Taken UpToEleven with the atrophal, a type of abomination (a class of evil creatures with godlike powers detailed in the ''Epic Level Handbook''). Its a stillborn god, basically a giant flying fetus animated by a spark of divine will and utter hatred for all things that live while it will never be able to. As part of its power it radiates a negative energy aura that affects all living creatures in 500m radius, suppressing their level by 10 until they leave. That means anything level ten and below will keel over dead ( and rise as undead) before they even see it.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'''s King Sombra is so powerful that the sky automatically turns a Hellish red just to signal his incoming presence, and his BlackMagic enables him to spread TheCorruption (primarily in the form of massive dark crystals) over the entire land around him. Furthermore, his what-if BadFuture in the Season 5 finale takes this UpToEleven by revealing that he's now powerful enough to spread said effects over all of Equestria while his army invades it.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': The Smoky Progg leaves a trail of deadly fog that will kill your Pikmin.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': Muk is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a giant sentient blob of toxic...well...muck]]. Its Pokédex entries state that it leaves a trail of contamination wherever it goes, and even a single touch of its body is enough to turn an entire pool of water rancid. However, in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime, we see Ash's Muk wandering the grounds of Professor Oak's ranch and sometimes smothering Professor Oak or even Ash himself, but neither the grounds or the humans are ever harmed by Muk's touch. Perhaps they can choose whether or not to use that "power"? Of course, the Pokédex entries tend to be hard to believe sometimes (species of Pokémon that are often described as downright dangerous, are depicted as harmless or even friendly in the anime), making you wonder if some of the entries were more myth and rumor than fact.

* The "Stink Spirit" from ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' has a downplayed version of this. When Lin gets within a certain distance of the spirit with a couple bowls of food, the food rots away within a few seconds.