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  • X-Men:
    • The Decimation event, in a non-fatal variant, involved the depowering of 90% of the world's mutant population, in an attempt to re-establish mutants as a "minority" (i.e., give newer writers and editors much less work and focus-splitting to do and newer readers less things to catch-up on, and also requiring writers to come up with a more varied Origin Story than just "he's a mutant" for any new superhuman they createnote ). Nearly all the depowered characters were fairly minor, and the major characters who lost their powers have mostly gotten them back.
      • With the 2011 repowering of Chamber and Rictor, the biggest-name character to still be powerless is probably low-B-List villain Blob, and with the 2018 repowering of Jubilee (who had multiple stints as a tech-based hero named Wondra and a vampire of all things), the only two major X-Men to remain depowered still are Dani Moonstar and Prodigy. While they haven't gotten their original powers back, they are once again superhuman.
      • When it was revealed that the appropriately named Random still had his powers (he can turn his hands into organic guns that shoot little blobs of... himself), it was hard not to wonder if anyone was C-List enough to actually be affected by the Decimation.
    • Marvel's "Mutant Massacre" storyline promised big changes, but ended up killing off only a bunch of Morlocks (tunnel-dwelling mutants), most of whom had never appeared before the issue in which they died. There were at least some serious injuries to A- and B- list characters, though.
    • Three characters died in Necrosha, each of whom was more obscure and minute than the other: Onyxx, Meld and Diamond Lil. Lampshaded soon after by Namor, who wonders why they were even worth noting. Cyclops responded by claiming that with the mutant population so small, each death in their small band mattered. Diamond Lil at least had the distinction of being a B-lister in a title that in all fairness was itself B-list. Still averages out to C-list overall, but unlike the other two, she actually had a fanbase.
    • The poor New Mutants and their co-stars were often victims of this, pre-dating the Teen Titans' over-use of the trope. Doug "Cypher" Ramsey and Warlock didn't survive the 100-issue run of the series, Magik/Illyana was de-aged and then killed later, and nearly the entire team of Hellions (a few had quit since then, and Roulette and Empath both escaped) were horribly killed by Trevor Fitzroy's Sentinels in one fell swoop, wiping away several beloved (but little-known or referenced) characters. The New Mutants later returned, but the Hellions didn't. What is frustrating with the Hellions is the manner that they died. They were killed as part of a wider storyline featuring the Upstarts wiping out the old Hellfire Club members in order to replace them. The story had Sebastian Shaw killed, Emma Frost comatose and Selene captive. All to prove the Upstarts were badasses. Guess which three Hellfire Club members returned and guess how poorly remembered the Upstarts themselves are two decades later. And as if to give Fitzroy the middle finger, some of the Hellions have been ressurected by Krakoa.
    • Similarly, Generation X has had a pretty rough time of it as well. Aside from being reduced primarily to extras, we have the aforementioned Jubilee and Chamber depowering (Chamber got better), the limbo placement of Penance (who was called Hollow for a while to not be confused with Speedball's new identity), as well as the deaths of Synch, Maggot, Mondo and Skin. That's more than half of everyone who's been on the team! Skin's case was particularly bad because they ended up getting his name wrong on the tombstone for his funeral! Thankfully, just like the Hellions Skin was ressurected via Krakoa.
    • New X-Men: Academy X:
      • Craig Kyle and Chris Yost kicked off their run with an arc where a whole bunch of classmates of the protagonists whom it would probably be generous to call C-list get blown up by the Purifiers. The least obscure character to die in this scene was Tag, who was The Generic Guy in the Jerkass posse. Another character, DJ, got last words that were the only thing he has ever said in any comic ever. Kyle and Yost would go on to kill two main characters (main for this title, anyway) and were responsible for the aforementioned Necrosha, so at least that's something.
      • Since then, the New X-Men have become the go-to for just-recognizable-enough-to-care X-characters to torture or kill for shock value. Elixir has been killed at least twice (once in The Logan Legacy with an Unexplained Recovery only a few months later in Bendis' All-New X-Men. And again during Bunn's Uncanny X-Men, with a self-resurrection about a year after during the annual). It helps that his powers essentially lets him die and come back at the writer's whim. And while Hellion hasn't been killed, he has: lost his hands, become a pariah for killing Karima to protect Utopia when he was the only one who could act, been coldly dumped by his sorta-girlfriend, his parents abandoned him, and most recently he tried to go down guns blazing after being infected with M-Pox.
    • Averted in X-Men: Second Coming. A-Listers Nightcrawler and Cable both die (even if you argue that they're not A-Listers, they're still definitely two recognisable and fairly popular characters), in addition to Vanisher (C-List, although arguably B-List since moving to X-Force), and Ariel (couldn't be more C-List if she tried). Cable, Vanisher and Ariel were all revived in relatively short order, though Nightcrawler had to wait several years for his resurrection.
    • The X-books do this a lot. In the leadup to the Messiah CompleX Bat Family Crossover, it was revealed that Mr. Sinister had ordered the execution of all mutants with knowledge of alternate futures. The final kill tally? Quiet Bill (a character who'd appeared in Gambit's solo series from the '90s and nowhere else), the Witness (an elderly version of Gambit who'd settled down in the present in 2001 and hadn't been seen since), Vargas (an Arc Villain notable only for temporarily killing Psylocke and being created by Chris Claremont), the Dark Mother (a forgotten Dark Age Arc Villain) and Gateway, who in all fairness was a high C-Lister, mostly forgotten in the present but having been a supporting character in A-List books in the '80s, and who was later revealed to have survived the attempt on his life anyway.
    • Wolverine: In the "Enemy of the State" storyline, a Brainwashed and Crazy Wolverine goes around hunting and attacking heroes to be used as resurrected minions of HYDRA and The Hand. He only ends up killing two - Northstar, a member of Alpha Flight who is resurrected and returned sometime later and Hornet, a member of the oft-forgotten group Slingers. To add insult to injury, when Nick Fury and Elektra discover Hornet's corpse, Fury laments that they couldn't even get his name right.
  • The villain Scourge's whole point was the killing-off of C-list Marvel villains, something that creator Mark Gruenwald later came to deeply regret. Some of the characters have since been resurrected and upgraded, others are mostly forgotten. The kill list included both obscure types and once prominent characters who fell out of favor.
    • Basilisk was created in 1973. He had fought against Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Mr. Fantastic, the Mole Man, and the Thing. He could (among other things) create volcanic risings, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. He had last appeared trapped underground in 1976. They brought him back in 1986 just to kill him. He was later resurrected by The Hood as part of a batch of Scourge victims to go after the Punisher, and has made a few appearances since.
    • Bird-Man was a Legacy Character. The original villain of this name debuted in 1965 and was killed in combat with Iron Man in 1978. The replacement debuted in 1979 but was barely used. They brought him back in 1986 just in time to die. He was later resurrected by The Hood to help fight The Punisher, but hasn't been seen since.
    • Black Abbot was created in 1984, as a telepath and telekinetic who was seeking to control the minds of entire groups of people. He fought Spider-Man, Nomad/Jack Monroe, the Human Torch, and Thor. They added him to the list of Scourge victims in 1991, killing him offscreen. He was later resurrected by the Hood to fight the Punisher, but hasn't been seen since.
    • Blowtorch Brand was created in 1984 as a one-shot foe of The Defenders. He was an arsonist who was immune to the effects of fire. They brought him back in 1993 just to kill him. He holds the dubious distinction of being the final victim of the original Scourge organization.
    • Blue Streak was created in 1978 as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. At the time there was a long ongoing storyline concerning "the Corporation", a Nebulous Evil Organisation, and Blue Streak was revealed to be one of its agents and a Mole in the S.H.I.E.L.D. ranks. The storyline lasted from 1976 to 1979, and Blue Streak was one of the few Corporation agents to survive the downfall of the organization. They brought him back in 1986 just to kill him. He was later resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher, and killed again by the vigilante. A Legacy Character version has since become a recurring villain.
    • Cheetah was created in 1977. He was a revolutionary who got mutated by Kree technology and received Animal Abilities. He fought against Captain Marvel and was supposedly Brought Down to Normal. In 1986, they brought him back, with powers seemingly restored, just to kill him. He was later resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher and died again when the vigilante snapped his neck.
    • Commander Kraken was created in 1970 as a Sub-Mariner foe. He was a modern-day pirate, with depiction combining traits of centuries-old piracy with modern technology and ruthlessness. In the 1970s, he was occasionally used as a foe for Tigra and Iron Man. He made his last prominent appearance in 1977. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Cyclone was created in 1975 as a Spider-Man villain. He was a Maggia (Mafia) enforcer who wielded a costume generating "tornado-force whirlwinds about himself" which he used to various effects. He faced Moon Knight in a subsequent storyline and was last used in 1978. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. He has since inspired a couple of Legacy Characters of his own. The original was resurrected by the Hood to help in fighting the Punisher, but was killed again by the vigilante.
    • Death Adder was created in 1980. He was originally a common human who was enhanced with bionic technology. He served as a Professional Killer in the ranks of the Serpent Squad and (later) the Serpent Society. His most notable victim was M.O.D.O.K., who stayed dead from 1986 to 1995. He was killed in 1986, but not because Gruenwald thought him lame. He wanted to have at least one legitimate threat terminated by the Scourge, to convince readers that Anyone Can Die, and chose one of his own pet characters. Since then, at least two new versions of him have joined the Serpent Society. The original was later resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher and killed again by the vigilante.
    • The Enforcer was created in 1977, serving as a foe for the Los Angeles based Marvel heroes of the time: Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Werewolf by Night (Jack Russell), and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew). He was played as a legitimate threat for a while and was a recurring character to 1983. By 1985 these heroes themselves had lost their titles and were Out of Focus. The Enforcer resurfaced just to become the first Scourge victim. His nephew briefly adopted his identity and joined the Young Masters.
    • Firebrand was created in 1970 as an Iron Man foe. He was a political activist who wore Powered Armor to achieve his goals through campaigns of terror. Basically a Well-Intentioned Extremist with lethal powers. He was used as a serious foil for Iron Man for much of the 1970s, and his sister Roxanne Gilbert was a key love interest for Tony Stark. He returned in 1983 as a relic of a more radical time. Then they brought him back in 1986 as a disillusioned man, a recovering alcoholic, and a shell of his former self, serving as an agent for costumed villains. Then they killed him. He has since inspired a couple of Legacy Characters. He was later resurrected by the Hood to fight the Punisher, but was killed again by the vigilante.
    • The Fly/Human Fly note  was created in 1978 as an insectoid villain for Spider-Man, a sociopathic criminal given fly-themed powers by the brother of the guy who created the Scorpion. While not a major character, he had scored victories in combat with both Spidey and Moon Knight, leaving the latter paralyzed for a while. His character arc was that his mutation gave him Animal Abilities but was progressively making him feral. He was a recurring character up to 1984. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. He was later resurrected by the Hood (and given acid spit as part of his powers) to help battle the Punisher, and eventually joined the Secret Six to fight Venom (Flash Thompson) and was most recently seen in the Hunted story, which he survived.
    • The Grappler was created in 1981 as a one-shot enemy for She-Hulk. He was a champion martial artist who turned to crime for profit. Grappler reportedly already got rich through investing the loot of his robberies in the stock market, but continued his criminal career for the thrill of it. His only appearance landed him in prison. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Hammer and Anvil were created in 1974 as an Odd Friendship duo of villains. A Misanthropic African-American and a White Supremacist try to escape prison together. After they saved a random alien while attempting to kill it, he rewarded them by bonding them with a high-tech chain that gave them superpowers but left them in a symbiotic relationship. They were created as Hulk foes and went on to face Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew). They were last seriously used in 1981. They brought them back in 1986 to kill them. Uniquely, for this kill, the Scourge only shot one of them- the chain also linked their lifeforce, and so the other died holding his partner in his arms.
    • The Hate-Monger killed was not the original, an Adolf Hitler clone, but a creation of Psycho-Man. He debuted in 1985 as a Fantastic Four foe. He had both Shapeshifting and Emotion Control powers. His main claim to fame is creating Malice, a Brainwashed and Crazy personality for Invisible Woman. He was killed two months following his first appearance, as Jim Shooter thought that someone had to kill this guy.
    • Hellrazor was created in 1979 as a Black Panther foe. His main power was absorbing kinetic energy. Otherwise he had little to distinguish him from the average mercenary of the Marvel Universe. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. The folks at the Appendix of the Marvel Handbook cite him as easily the dullest and most forgettable Scourge victim.
    • The Hijacker was created in 1963 as an Ant-Man foe. He had no real powers, but drove a specially-equipped tank which could handle combat situations with ease. He spends the 1970s and 1980s as a minor foe for The Thing, last used in 1983. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. He was later resurrected by the Hood to help battle the Punisher and was killed again by the vigilante. A Legacy Character version since appeared as an Ant-Man villain.
    • The Jaguar was created in 1975 as a HYDRA agent. He had Animal Abilities and sharp claws. He was part of a storyline pitting HYDRA against Black Widow, Daredevil, and Nick Fury but was soon forgotten. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Keegan was pretty much a nobody, only appearing once in 1986. A Mook working for the Melter, he was killed as part of a Dead Person Impersonation plot. Scourge used Keegan's identity to approach the Melter.
    • Letha was created in 1979 as part of the Grapplers, a group of female professional wrestlers who were given cybernetic enhancements to serve as mercenaries. They were recurring foes of The Thing and Dazzler, last used in 1986. In an early episode of the Scourge storyline, Titania the leading Grappler was killed in the showers of their arena. Months later, Letha was seeking to avenge her friend and payed for it with her life. She was resurrected by The Hood with her former partner. Together (along with original Grappler Poundcakes) had a short appearance involving the fourth member Screaming Mimi who became the hero Songbird after a Heel–Face Turn.
    • Lionfang, a Beastmaster type, is a bit of an unusual case. He was created in 1973 as a foe for Luke Cage, and was seemingly killed in an accidental fall at the end of his debut issue. In 1991, he was revealed to be still alive just to be killed by a Scourge. In 2010, he was again revealed to still be alive, though paralyzed from the waist down. At this point Staying Alive seems to be his secondary power.
    • Megatak was a Fad Super created in 1983. He was an industrial spy who was somehow merged with a video game, gaining various electronic-related powers. He was at first used as a one-shot foe for Thor. They brought him back in 1985 to kill him. He later was resurrected by the Hood to help battle the Punisher, then was recruited into a new version of the Secret Six to battle Venom (Flash Thompson), (the same one as the Human Fly, mentioned above), who bit his head off.
    • The Melter was created in 1963 as a Iron Man foe. His main ability was melting metal. He was one of the founding members of the Masters of Evil and was relatively prominent in the 1960s. He was later still a recurring foe for Avengers related characters, but of increasingly diminished importance. He was last seriously used in 1983, then they killed him in 1986. A new version later appeared as a member of the Young Masters villain team.
    • Mind-Wave was created in 1976 as a one-shot telepath foe for Daredevil who teamed with real-life alleged psychic Uri Geller. Seriously. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. He was among the many Scourge victims resurrected by the Hood to fight the Punisher and died again at the hands of the vigilante via Slashed Throat.
    • The Miracle Man was created in 1962 as the third-ever Fantastic Four villain (right after the Mole Man and the Skrulls). He was originally only a Master of Illusion. He was eventually upgraded to a magic-user whose arsenal of powers included telekinesis, animating and restructuring inanimate matter. He was used as a serious threat to The Defenders in 1983, but then forgotten. They brought him back in 1985 to kill him. He was later resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher, but has made no significant appearances since.
    • Mirage was created in 1976 as a Spider-Man foe. His main power was projecting Holograms. He was last used in 1983, as a minor foe for The Thing. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. Subsequently, he was resurrected by The Hood, before getting shot soon afterward. He later appears as a supporting character in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, and has the problem of being an Un-person, since most people think he's dead. At the end of the series, Boomerang pushes him off of a building. As Mirage falls, Boomerang first asserts that this may be a hologram rather than the real Mirage, but when Mirage lands with a loud splat, Boomerang rationalizes to the reader that he's being faithful to Mirage's character arc, as Mirage is bound to turn up alive later on.
    • The Phone Ranger was a parody character introduced in 1985. In a chaotic brawl between heroes and villains, the Phone-Ranger joined the heroes' ranks... only to be killed by a present Scourge who mistook him for a villain. In 2006, the character was revealed to have survived being shot in the head.
    • The Rapier was created in 1980 and resembles protagonists of the Swashbuckler genre. According to his backstory, he used to be the best friend and business partner of Silvio Manfredi (Silvermane) until his buddy got greedy and decided to gain sole ownership of their business activities, by having the Rapier assassinated. The assassin left the man for dead, but he survived and returned to seek Revenge. He was effectively a one-shot character, but they brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Red Skull/Albert Malik was created in 1947, served as the communist Red Skull in the 1950s, and in the 1960s was revealed to have killed the parents of Spider-Man. His main character arc afterwards was his rivalry with the Nazi Red Skull (Johann Schmidt). They used him in one serious storyline in 1988 and then killed him.
    • The Ringer was created in 1977 as a Nighthawk foe. He really used rings as weapons. He faced Spider-Man in 1981 and was then forgotten. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. Curiously he has inspired a couple of Legacy Characters and his widow was the user of the Beetle armor until her death at the hands of Gravitron in Thunderbolts. He tends to get more mentions and connections than villains with longer careers. It was later revealed in Thunderbolts that AIM rebuilt him as a cyborg named "Strikeback" and he served with the titular team until his robot parts broke down and he died again.
    • Shellshock was created in 1967 as a Fantastic Four foe and one of a trio of specialized henchmen for the Psycho-Man. He had no powers but had a Ray Gun with a seemingly endless list of uses. He served as a minor but persistent foe to the Thing until 1983. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Steeplejack was a Legacy Character. The original Steeplejack was introduced in 1974 as a foe for Luke Cage. He was an ordinary man who used construction tools as weapons. He was killed at the end of his debut story. In 1978, the second Steeplejack debuted. He had been introduced in the Luke Cage story as a would-be victim of the original Steeplejack. When the original died, this "victim" picked up the mantle to advance his own agenda. He served as a minor Ms. Marvel villain and was then forgotten. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him.
    • Titania was created in 1979 as part of the Grapplers, a group of female professional wrestlers who were given cybernetic enhancements to serve as mercenaries. They were recurring foes of the Thing and Dazzler, last used in 1986. She was killed in the showers of the arena. She was resurrected along with her former partner Letha by The Hood. However she changed her codename to Lascivious since another supervillan and wife of the Absorbing Man currently uses the Titania name and given new powers allowing her to stimulate people's passion and make them fall in love with whomever she chooses. She has had a few minor appearances since then.
    • Turner D. Century was created in 1980 as a Spider-Woman foe. A young man who seeks to return the world to the ideal (in his view) Edwardian Era. He was brought back in 1982 to face aging hero Dominic Fortune, then forgotten. They brought him back in 1986 to kill him. He was (sadly) resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher and was last seen getting his ass kicked by Superior Spider Man.
    • Vamp/Animus was introduced in 1978 as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Mole for the Corporation. The character could shape-shift between two forms: A feminine form with regular human features, and a masculine giant form with monstrous features. Beast and Beauty in a single package so to speak. The Corporation storyline lasted from 1976 to 1979, and Vamp was one of the few Corporation agents to survive the downfall of the organization (Blue Streak, mentioned above, was another). They brought her back in 1986 just to kill her. She was brought back in 1996 by Armin Zola for a Deadpool comic (mentioned below) and was promptly killed by the Merc with a Mouth.
    • The Wraith was created in 1976 as the villainous brother of Jean De Wolff, with various psionic powers. He was mentally unstable, sometimes acting as a vigilante hero, others as a typical mercenary, and others as a crazed killer. He was last seriously used in 1978. In 1986, he learned that his sister was killed and blamed the NYPD for it. He was prepared to start a killing spree against them when killed by the Scourge. He was later resurrected by the Hood to help fight the Punisher and killed again by the vigilante.
    • The Wrench was created in 1977 as a foe for Omega the Unknown. He was simply a Serial Killer who kills victims by beating them to death with a wrench. He was very strong but not super-humanly so. Since the Omega series ended, the guy was Out of Focus. They brought him back in 1991 just to kill him.
  • X-Statix, a series about a team of superheroes with their own reality show, lampshades the prevalence of this trope in superhero fiction. Both U-Go Girl and the Spike are killed during a mission, and while U-Go Girl's death gets a candlelight vigil and round-the-clock media coverage, the Spike's death is treated as a footnote, with a reporter saying he wasn't around long enough for the audience to care.
  • New Avengers: When the Collective showed up, he killed off the entirety of Alpha Flight — a superhero team with over thirty years of history in the Marvel Universe — before taking on the Avengers. Sure, that history consisted of being "Canada's premiere superhero team", but they were still mainstays of the setting. To add insult to injury, the guy who was possessed by the Collective at the time ends up on the new version of Alpha Flight and wears the same costume as its former leader.
    • They've since done a major amount of backpedaling on Alpha Flight: Sasquatch was upgraded from dead to just injured after the "Collective" storyline and only Shaman and James MacDonald Hudson (the original Guardian) have been officially declared dead in the aftermath.
    • Their defeat (and this trope) was amusingly referenced in Mighty Avengers #27, when a new supervillain named the Unspoken (non-lethally) wipes out a Chinese government team — USAgent (who was briefly a member of Omega Flight, believe it or not) whispers in horror "Oh my God... he Alpha-Flighted them."
    • And finally, they all came back. Except for the second Puck.
    • This has become a Running Gag at this point. A new Omega Flight showed up during the Marvel NOW! relaunch, only for the entire team except for Validator to be violently killed off in the span of a few pages.
  • The New Warriors started primarily as an attempt to move youthful has-beens like Nova and never-weres like Speedball from this to Ascended Extras. A later incarnation continued the tradition with minor depowered mutants like Jubilee and Chamber.
  • Civil War:
    • A grand total of four superpowered characters — not counting the cloned cyborg Thor, the New Warriors (before the actual war) or Captain America (after the war, but he didn't really die anyway) — are killed during the war. They consist of Goliath, Bantam, Typeface, and Stilt-Man. Most readers would need to look at least three of these up in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe before being able to properly mourn. Luckily Stilt-Man would eventually be cloned back to life.
      • People may remember that the Civil War was kicked off by Nitro blowing up when the New Warriors were tracking him down as part of their reality show. What they may not remember is that Nitro was hiding out with 3 other C-list villains- Coldsteel, a Spider-Man foe & former government operative turned villain after her son died and used a pair of ice-generating swords, Speedfreak, a 2-time Hulk foe who was a hired killer with Powered Armor, and Cobalt Man, an old X-Man/Defenders enemy who hadn't been seen for years prior to this. While all three were stated to have died in the explosion, Coldsteel & Cobalt Man have since shown up again with no explanation as to how they survived.
    • The next event was the Initiative, an attempt to give every state a team of superheroes. Realistically, they're not always up to scratch. The Great Lakes Initiative is probably one of the best known and strongest teams. Entire teams have been all but wiped out, notably Florida in Marvel Zombies 3 and Nebraska in Iron Man. They don't do very well in their own series, either; cadet fatalities have included MVP, Dragon Lord, two Scarlet Spiders, Proton and Crusader (though MVP continues to be a huge part of the storyline after his death and Crusader was the viewpoint character of the Secret Invasion issues). Recent graduate Gorilla Girl put it best:
      I'm black. I'm female. I turn into a gorilla, and nobody's ever heard of me. I might as well have cannon fodder stamped on my forehead.
    • The Punisher doubled the casualty list by himself. He killed the super villains Jester, Jack o' Lantern, Goldbug, and Plunderer. Referring to them as C-List would probably be a promotion for those four characters. Punisher's next move at the start of the War Journal relaunch was to blow up a super villain bar where villains were holding a wake for Stilt-Man, though it's eventually revealed that everyone in the building survived with injuries. Later Plunderer (Ka-zar's brother) was revealed to be alive, noting that the guy Punisher killed was his "American representative."
  • In Marvel Zombies 3 this happens to Siege and Conquistador, two heroes almost nobody heard of. Similar with Ogre, Razor Wire and Lighting Fist, murdered in Marvel Zombies 4 and combined into one zombie. Subverted with Night Shift, a team of C-listed villains — Dansen Macabre, Tatterdemallion, Needle and Digger — who were killed and resurrected as zombies only to later be cured and left unharmed.
    • Marvel Zombies Destroy features the Ducky Dozen - Howard the Duck, Dum-Dum Dugan, Battlestar, Red Raven, Eternal Brain, Blazing Skull, Dynaman, Breeze Barton, Flexo, one of the Lion People and another of the Dragon Men, and a new incarnation of Taxi Taylor. When Howard the Duck and Dum-Dum Dugan are your most famous members, you know you're in trouble; the majority of the rest had appearances in the single digits, and a good number hadn't been seen outside of guidebooks since the Golden Age. It should come as no surprise that only Howard, Dum-Dum, Taxi, and Battlestar (who is pretty deep into C-list territory himself, but still several marks above his teammates) make it out. Overall, the only casualty most readers could name would probably be Blazing Skull, known mostly as a second-tier member of The Invaders. Red Raven somehow managed to recover from being turned into a zombie and decapitated to pop up a few years later, though.
  • In The Mighty Thor, the death of C-list villain Skurge the Executioner is widely regarded as one of the series' Crowning Moments Of Awesome—in the middle of one of the comic's better runs, no less.
  • In the "Underbase Saga" in The Transformers, almost all of Starscream's victims are characters who had not appeared in a couple of years and whose toys were no longer available. This was explained by having organic components grant some protection from the Underbase energies; thus, the Headmasters, Powermasters, and Pretenders were safe, though the fairly recently introduced Seacons bought it. The runup to Transformers: Generation 2 involved an Autobot team being sent to deal with a revived and powered-up Megatron. The characters: Hot Spot, Override, Chase, Steeljaw, Brawn, and Skydive. Not only is it a really random team (every member is part of a different subteam), but it's basically made up, bar Hot Spot, of the smallest and cheapest toys on the Autobot roster. Predictably, only he and Skydive (the only ones who had new toys on the way) make it out; Overdrive in particular was so much smaller and weaker than Megatron that the latter ripped him apart with his bare hands.
  • Ultimate Marvel: Averted in the Ultimatum crossover event, which killed large numbers of very big-name characters in extremely graphic ways.
  • G.I. Joe scribe Larry Hama was finally given permission to kill off some of the members of the Joe cast who did not currently have a toy to sell. The result? Arc after arc featuring side-characters and various Fodder getting killed. At one point, Duke led a mission that resulted in a glorified Mook offing a squadron of once-sold toys! Quick Kick, we hardly knew ye... A dozen other characters (including Dr. Mindbender, Crocmaster and Raptor) were given a horrible demise after Cobra Commander left all of the people who had betrayed him to die in a freighter on Cobra Island. Though Zartan and Firefly, both higher-profile Cobras, managed to escape, and Dr. Mindbender was revived thanks to leaving behind the means to clone himself, a side-effect of his developing the process to create Serpentor, when Cobra Commander decided he needed his services once again.
  • Lampshaded in Stan Lee Meets Doctor Strange:
    Impossible Man: Who are you?
    Surge: Don't worry about it. I'll be dead in six issues, tops.
  • There was a Spider-Man/New Warriors Crossover through their annuals with the title "Hero Killers", which hinted at the prospect of well-known heroes getting killed off. The finale even contained the cover blurb, "Inside - A Hero Dies!". The issue in question showed two members of Gamma Flight getting captured with only one of them dying. For those of you who don't know, Gamma Flight is the B-team of Alpha Flight. Yeah.
  • Avengers: The Children's Crusade: The two major casualties within the Young Avengers: Stature and Vision II. While major characters in their own series, they're not well-known outside the comics and are overall minor in the 'verse. The meta reason was that Marvel decided to bring back Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and The Vision I (likely because they planned to have them star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), and thus they were bumped off at the end in order to "make room" for them. Though Cassie was eventually brought back to life in AXIS (two years after Crusade in real time) and adopted the new name Stinger... Jonas wasn't so lucky. He is still dead to this day, and in fact during the resurrection of Cassie by Doctor Doom he said he could only right one wrong and explicitly chose Cassie over him. The fact that he's the lesser of the two in terms of popularity didn't help.
  • The Infinity War: At the end of the mini-series, a few of the Evil Doppelgangers created by Magus survive. The Evil Doppelgänger for Spider-Man, Doppelganger, is killed when he appears in an issue of the adjective-less Spider-Man (1990), comes back for Maximum Carnage only to be killed off near the end of that, then comes back for a Carnage mini-series and temporarily dies again in the first issue.
  • Micronauts: In issue #49-50, the first series killed off a lot of supporting characters such as Argon, Pharoid, Slug, Margrace, Duchess Belladonna, and Devil. Microtron and Nanotron (who was never a popular character) sacrificed themselves so that a resurrected Biotron could have their memories. Bill Mantlo did this in order to tie up a lot of the subplots and return the Micronauts to a small-knit group constantly on the run from Baron Karza.
  • Infinity kicked off by liquidating the entire supporting cast of Rom: Spaceknight, a character Marvel is no longer allowed to legally mention for copyright reasons. Though in a bit of a subversion, a few of the Spaceknights were later revealed to have survived.
  • Deadpool: The page image comes from a specialnote  where Arnim Zola, who's certainly high C-list/low B-list, snatched up DNA samples of dead characters (many of them victims of Scourge, from the list above) and resurrected them. Deadpool considered it early Christmas and gleefully killed them all again (yep, even Bucky) before nearly killing Zola for snookering him into looking at a naked Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
  • Spider-Man:
  • During Dark Reign, after Daken does some PR-damaging slaughter, Norman Osborn arranges for a few D-list villains, many of whom weren't seen in years, to get together and target him so Daken could come up as a good guy again. Three of them wound up killed, and the ones a bit less obscure managed to survive.
  • Contest of Champions (2015), the post-Secret Wars (2015) version, both lampshades and deconstructs this concept. The Collector and the Maestro yank various people from either alternate dimensions or periods of time. One hero who hails from Korea is brought in and subsequently dies. He's dismissed as being so low-tier that no one would miss him, but it turns out that he's popular in his home country, prompting another hero to investigate. As well, Night Thrasher is yanked mere moments before his death in Civil War and is quite pissed off that someone decided to take away his dignity of dying alongside his teammates.
  • The so-called "Bar With No Name" (best known as the location for Scourge's most famous massacre) is described as a drinking establishment exclusively for costumed supervillains. The 1992 issue of Marvel: Year In Review both parodied and lampshaded this, pointing out that it was mostly frequented by supervillains who were regarded as obscure, has-beens, or failures. When an interviewer remarked that he had never heard of most of these guys, one of the patrons responded that "if you had heard of them, they'd probably have better things to do than hang out in a place like this".
  • When Gwenpool guest-starred in the In Name Only Civil War II tie-in of Rocket Raccoon & Groot she lampshaded that for a C-lister like her the best thing to do in case of events is staying as far away as possible, and that the shocking deaths are unlikely to happen in the book of the squirrel and the talking tree which is probably written by some no-name newbie anyway.
    • Gwen was at it again in War of the Realms. Recruited by the Superior Spider-Man (i.e. Otto Octavius on a heroic bent) to try and win the war, she pointed out that it was unlikely they'd be allowed to have a meaningful impact on the event in an "ancillary tie-in comic." And speaking more directly to this trope, she noted that "gimmick legacy characters" were at greater risk of being killed off in an event, recommending that she and Otto just go hide until the war blew over.
  • Deconstructed in Runaways (Rainbow Rowell). The kids run into Doc Justice, a hitherto classic hero who had been functioning in Los Angeles, who decides to revive his defunct team, the J-Team, with the kids taking up their old mantles (except Gert, who ends up as Mission Control of sorts). However, Gert smells something fishy and ends up discovering files on the previous members of J-Team, learning that he sends them to die when he feels they no longer have purpose and boosts his popularity to boot.
  • Ziggy Pig - Silly Seal Comics: Most of the guests at the Alley Behind A Closed-Down Laundromat Comic Con fall into this trope. Attendees include Brute Force, Wundarr the Aquarian, Captain Ultra, Spider-Ham, Combo-Man, Forbush-Man, Mosquito Man, the Phone Ranger, Hawk-Owl and Woody, Obnoxio the Clown... and Frank Tieri.

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