Spared by the Adaptation in Western Animation.
- The Adventures of Tintin (1991):
- There is no mention of Mitsuhirato committing Seppuku in the adaptation of The Blue Lotus. In fact, he was arrested onscreen before that could even happen.
- Villains Alonso Pérez and Ramón Bada drown and go to Hell at the end of the album The Broken Ear. In the series, Tintin saves them from drowning and they get arrested.
- One episode of Animaniacs found the Warner siblings transported to the deck of The Pequod facing Captain Ahab, shortly before the whale showed up. Ahab managed to survive this time (but he was Swallowed Whole by Moby Dick, and as an added gag, met Pinocchio inside its stomach).
- Greta Attenbaum was killed by tomatoes in the original 1978 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! film, but Mary Jo Nagamininashy, her corresponding character in the 1990 animated series, remains alive and well throughout the series' run.
- The Falcon's mother is stated to be alive in Avengers Assemble (she even bakes cookies for the team, and appears in the episode "One Little Thing"), as opposed to the comics, where both she and her husband died when Sam was a child.
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
- The series did an adaptation of the Secret Invasion story arc, where one of the most famous moments was Skrull leader Queen Veranke getting shot in the head by Norman Osborn, thus leading to Osborn's rise to power. Here however, she is merely neutralized at the end of the invasion and taken to custody in 42. The Wasp also notably lives in the Secret Invasion adaptation; in the comic storyline she was killed off at the end and stayed deceased for a long time.
- The Korvac Saga in the comics ended with Michael being killed during the final battle, and Carina essentially committing Suicide by Cop out of grief. The show's version of the story instead ends with Michael Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence after Corrina rejects him.
- The Batman's rendition of the Wrath's backstory saw his parents go to prison for their crimes, not get killed after starting a firefight with a young Jim Gordon. Whereas the fate of the Wrath himself is left ambiguous after the Joker gasses him, his comic counterpart did die in his final fight with Batman, getting set on fire and falling off a building.
- There are some examples in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
- The second Firestorm's origin had Ronnie Raymond dying in an explosion with his energies being inherited by Jason Rusch. The revised origin from this series spared Ronnie by making the second Firestorm the first one and having Ronnie share the Firestorm Matrix with Jason in place of Martin Stein.
- Aquaman's son (see Justice League below). In the comics he was murdered as a child; in this continuity he's alive and well as a snarky teenager.
- Princess Laethwen and the other Katarthans in the episode "Sword of the Atom", who died in their first comic book appearance when Ray Palmer accidentally destroyed their village while returning to normal size.
- In Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, Junkyard Dog is killed by Doodlebug as part of a plot to unleash demons onto Arkham. In Beware the Batman Junkyard Dog is still alive, in part due to this version of Daedalus Boch being content being a petty vandal.
- The Brave Engineer, unlike the ballad of Casey Jones, has the protagonist survive (albeit sporting a few injuries.)
- Gordon and Waffle remain alive and well as major characters in Catscratch, when they both got killed in Gear, the comic book Catscratch was loosely based on.
- One of the main characters in James Gunn's Creature Commandos animated series is Rick Flag Sr., the father of the better known Rick Flag Jr. seen in the Suicide Squad comics and movies. In the comics, a major part of Jr.'s backstory is that he was orphaned due his father having pulled a Heroic Sacrifice.
- DC Animated Universe:
- The Batman: The Animated Series episode ''The Laughing Fish" loosely adapts a 2-part comic story of the same name. In it, The Joker infects two random victims with a lethal dose of his joker venom. In the TAS version, since broadcasting standards at the time wouldn't allow the writers to explicitly kill someone in a children's cartoon (at least, not directly); instead, Batman is successfully able to administer an antidote to the venom after both get infected.
- Justice League:
- In Aquaman's first appearance he sacrifices a hand to save his infant son from being killed by Ocean Master. In the comics, Aquababy was killed by Black Manta.
- Green Lantern Corps member Katma Tui is still alive by her final appearance, when her comics counterpart was killed by Star Sapphire.
- Aztek appears as a member of the League in Justice League Unlimited and is still alive by the end of the series when his comics counterpart was killed off during the "World War III" arc that served as the conclusion of Grant Morrison's run on JLA (1997).
- Static Shock:
- Edwin Alva, Sr. remains alive to the end, when his comics counterpart sacrificed himself during Milestone Comics' Long Hot Summer Crisis Crossover to save some people from being crushed to death when Hardware was unable to rescue them in time.
- Blood Syndicate member Tech-9 was killed off in issue four and an apparent resurrection that happened later in the comic was actually Masquerade impersonating him, while his equivalent in the Static Shock animated series, Nightbreed member Tech, remains alive by the end of their episode.
- DC Super Hero Girls (2019):
- Lex and Lena Luthor's parents are still alive. In most continuities, they died when Lex was still a young man (with at least one origin showing that Lex caused his dad's death on purpose and used the insurance money to start his company).
- Zatanna's father Giovanni Zatara is shown to be still alive, when in the comics he sacrificed his life in the "American Gothic" storyline of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing.
- The Duck Dodgers episode "The Green Loontern", a crossover with Green Lantern, depicts Ch'p, Katma Tui and Tomar Re as still-living members of the Green Lantern Corps, when they were killed off years ago in the comics.
- DuckTales (2017):
- In the comics, Scrooge's parents had passed away long ago — Downy during the Klondike Gold Rush and Fergus after his children moved to America. Here, they're still alive because Scrooge used mystical druid stones while rebuilding the castle, giving them immortality.
- It's played with in regards to Grandpa Waddlemeyer. In the original Darkwing Duck, it was unambiguously clear that he had been murdered by Taurus Bulba so the villain could obtain the Ramrod. Here, he was tossed into another dimension by Bulba, meaning that he might still be alive somewhere.
- In Family Guy Presents: Laugh It Up, Fuzzball Biggs Darklighter was spared because he was played by Joe, and therefore was already paralyzed and unable to participate in the Battle of Yavin.
- In Finn Family Moomintroll, the giant fish known as the Mameluke is caught, cooked and eaten by the Moomins. In the Moominvalley episode based on this, the fishing trip is entirely unsuccessful and the Mameluke survives (or would have done if it existed and Moominpapa's story of how they nearly caught it was even slightly true).
- Garfield and Friends:
- In "Hansel and Garfield", Jon catches Garfield trying to send Nermal away, and threatens never to feed him again unless he can be nice to Nermal, so Garfield tells Nermal the story of Hansel and Gretel. Garfield tries to tell Nermal about how Hansel and Gretel shoved the witch into the oven, but Nermal finds this too scary, so at his request, Garfield gives the witch a happy ending where she franchises a chain of daycare centers.
- "Puss in Hi-Tops" is a retelling of Puss in Boots, with Garfield in the role of Puss. In the original story, Puss tricked the ogre into turning himself into a mouse, then ate him. In "Puss in Hi-Tops", Garfield tricks the ogre into turning himself into a cockroach, then squishes him. At the end of the episode, the ogre is revealed to have survived getting squished, and chases Garfield away as retribution.
- Pops Venkman, Peter Venkman's Con Artist father from the Ghostbusters franchise, is a unique example. Richard Mueller created him as a Posthumous Character for his novelization of the original film. In the Animated Adaptation The Real Ghostbusters, Mueller was allowed to not only bring Pops back to life, but use him as a Recurring Character in three episodes.
- In the Christmas Special Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, Grandma turns out to be Not Quite Dead, fulfilling the letter of the song (mostly) while sparing her. Instead she just went missing after Santa took her to the North Pole for medical attention, and her Easy Amnesia kept him from knowing where to return her. This, however, is Older Than They Think: In the music video for the song
, Grandma also went missing after she disappeared outside the family home, and the scene cuts to the cops obtaining hoof marks and showing them to Santa (who's in handcuffs), implying her death. This, too, turns out to be a Disney Death, as toward the end of the video, Grandma slides down the chimney to their surprise, alive and well, but also fazed, and delivers her line in the end of the final verse: "They should never give a license / To a man who drives his sleigh and plays with elves." - Green Lantern: The Animated Series:
- Queen Iolande's brother Ragnar was a minor villain in the Green Lantern comics (specifically the first arc of the 2006 Green Lantern Corps series), and was executed at the end of his third appearance for murdering a Green Lantern in an insane attempt to get his ring. Here, Iolande spares him and merely has him imprisoned, allowing him to return in a later episode as a Red Lantern.
- Given that the series only ran for one season, and assuming there weren't plans to kill him off later on, the show ends with the Green Lantern Ch'p alive and well, avoiding his comic counterpart's fate of getting killed from a yellow truck running him over in Green Lantern: Mosaic.
- The HBO Storybook Musicals adaptation of The Little Match Girl has the titular character survive and get a Happily Ever After.
- In Invincible (2021), it's revealed that Shrinking Rae narrowly survived being Eaten Alive by Komodo Dragon, which killed her comic book counterpart.
- In Warren Ellis' Iron Man: Extremis, Mallen is decapitated by Tony at the end of the story. The Iron Man: Armored Adventures adaptation of the arc changes the ending so that Mallen is simply taken into custody by Nick Fury. Far more notable examples of characters remaining alive in the series when they died in the comics would be Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane, the former was thought dead from a plane crash, but really was captured by Mandarin the whole time, the latter ends up knocked into a coma due to Justin Hammer's manipulations rather than dying outright.
- Ivanhoe: The King's Knight features neither Brian de Bois-Guilbert nor Reginald Front-de-Boeuf dying. Other animated adaptations feature only Front-de-Boeuf dying.
- The Looney Tunes short "A Gander at Mother Goose" features a bit where Humpty Dumpty survives falling from the wall, the only damage done being that his buttocks are exposed because of the impact of the fall cracking that part of his shell.
- The Muskrat lives in the animated film adaptation of The Mouse and His Child when he didn't in the original book.
- The Oblongs had the Debbies remain alive by the end of the series (barring occasional hazardous mishaps played for comedy), when Creepy Susie and 13 Other Tragic Tales for Trouble Children, the book the show is loosely adapted from, had Helga's story end with her decapitating them in their sleep.
- A few of the parody episodes of Phineas and Ferb:
- In "The Wizard of Odd", Little Suzy Johnson is cast as the Wicked Witch of the East. She keeps trying to tell the other characters that she's fine, but no one listens to her.
- In "Troy Story", the kids reenact The Iliad and after much Hilarity Ensues, they decide that it was a draw.
- And in Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars, a Running Gag is all of the average joes working on the Death Star, like operating the tractor beam or working at the Imperial Credit Union, reacting to all the nonsense that goes down around them. These innocent baristas, bank tellers, bowling alley attendants et al. are rescued by the Firestar Girls before Luke can fire the proton torpedo.
- Porkins (the fat guy who got Killed Mid-Sentence in A New Hope) also survives, much to the annoyance of Gretchen.
- The first RoboCop cartoon showed Clarence Boddicker still alive and well despite RoboCop (1987) showing Boddicker getting killed by Murphy.
- If the "King Homer" segment of the "Treehouse of Horror III" episode of The Simpsons can be considered an adaptation of King Kong (1933) (most would consider it an Affectionate Parody) then the giant ape survives. (But as Mr. Burns says, his career likely won't.)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) In the episode "Game Guys", Ari gets sucked into The Void. In Sonic: Friend or Foe?, a book based on that episode, he escapes with Sonic. Ultimately subverted when Ari escapes from The Void in a later episode.
- In The Spectacular Spider-Man
- More of a "just trust me" example, but Greg Weisman is on record for saying that, had the show managed to complete its planned 65-episode run instead of getting Screwed by the Lawyers, Gwen Stacy would not have been killed off.
- Emily Osborn is also alive and well; in the comics, she died when Harry was a baby.note The change was made because Weisman thought it was strange to have all of the three friends come from single-parent families; such a thing was too deeply ingrained in Peter and Gwen's backstories and characterization to change, but could be easily done for Harry due to it being more of a footnote.
- Sally Avril as well, as she died while Peter was still in high school.
- Joan Jameson is also alive and well, despite dying in the comics well before Peter became Spider-Man.
- Fredrick Foswell is also still alive and well by the end of the series, as opposed to his comic counterpart who died saving Jonah from the Kingpin.
- Black Cat's father in the comics was terminally ill when she broke him out of prison, and died shortly after being reunited with his wife. In the series, Walter Hardy refuses to leave prison, and there is no mention of him being ill.
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
- Thunderbird was killed off in the X-Men comics after only three issues, but was still shown alive and well in the cartoon. This is due to the episode being a Backdoor Pilot for an aborted X-Men cartoon where he would've been one of the main characters. Presumably, this was for the sake of diversity, since the only other non-white X-Man at the time was Storm.
- Sunfire's uncle as well. Sunfire killed him at the end of his first appearance in the comics, but the show ended with him hospitalized instead.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series
- Emily Osborn divorced Norman and left, but is still very much alive. Again, this example fits the trope at the time, given the aforementioned retcon in Go Down Swinging that Emily faked her death.
- John Hardeski, the counterpart to Walter Hardy, is also alive, having gone into protective custody because he memorized the super-soldier formula.
- Dr. Farley Stillwell makes several appearances through the first two seasons as the expert on the science of "Neogenics" which leads to the creation of several villains and Spidey's eventual mutation; at the end of Season 2, he simply chooses to disappear to keep the science from being used for evil purposes, and, while never seen again, is never confirmed as dead. In the comics, Stillwell didn't survive his debut, dying after falling off a building trying to give the Scorpion (who, like in the show, he created for Jameson) the antidote for his condition, since comics Scorpion relished his new powers.
- Likewise, Stillwell's brother Harlan appeared in "Make a Wish" (even voiced by the same actor, the late Michael Rye)and was never shown dying. Comics Harlan, like his brother, died in his first appearance, after empowering the villain the Human Fly, who killed him when he had served his purpose.
- Another adaptation of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, as retold on the Timeless Tales series, actually retains the original ending of the tin soldier and the ballerina going into the fire, only to reveal in the next scene that they survived with little more than spots of soot all over them.
- Subverted with Methuselah in the animated adaptation of Redwall. He appears to survive being injured by Chickenhound, only to pass away a few days later.
- Strawberry Shortcake: Even though Prince Charming killed Maleficent during the climax of the Sleeping Beauty, the Brambleberry Fairy is taught that listening really helps and pulls a Heel–Face Turn as a result thanks to Prince Huckleberry in the episode "Sleeping Beauty".
- Teen Titans (2003)
- Terra was turned to stone, not crushed to death as in the "The Judas Contract" comic story. Cyborg mentions that it may even be possible to reverse her condition. The girl in the final episode is heavily implied (and confirmed in the comic tie-in) to be Terra, but its never explained how she turned back to normal.
- Beast Boy in the comics joined the Titans after his original team, the Doom Patrol, died fighting the Brotherhood of Evil. In the cartoon, the Doom Patrol is alive and well, and Beast Boy simply left by choice.
- Kole and Gnarrk both live when in the comics, Kole was created solely to be a casualty in the Crisis on Infinite Earths and both the Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis incarnations of Gnarrk died.
- Madame Rouge survives and gets frozen with the other villains, when her comics counterpart died fighting Beast Boy.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Shredder in the Mirage comic was killed in the first issue, resurrected once, then killed again. All the animated adaptations turn him into the Turtles' Arch-Enemy, giving him Joker Immunity to match.
- In the comics, Triceraton Leader Zanramon was (apparently) accidentally killed by his own men as they tried to rescue him from the turtles, who were holding Zanramon hostage. When the second cartoon adapted this story, however, they manage to recover him alive, and Zanramon was left free to plague the turtles a second time. Curiously, however, after the cartoon aired its adaptation, the still-ongoing comic retconned Zanramon's death again, revealing that he had apparently not died at all!
- In the original comics, Splinter was the pet rat of dead ninja master Hamato Yoshi; in the first, third, and fourth cartoons, Splinter is Hamato Yoshi. (The IDW comics came up with a creative way to split the difference: Hamato Yoshi died and was reincarnated as Splinter). That said, in the 2012 series's case, this only goes so far as while this version of Yoshi did live to see the Turtles' feud with Shredder start, it still ends up with Yoshi being killed by Saki and the Turtles getting revenge for his death.
- The Rat King died after his first fight with the Turtles, and Splinter comes across his dead body in the comic books. Most adaptations prefer to keep the character around alive and well.
- In the Mirage comics, the Foot Elite were killed by the Turtles during the City At War storyline. While there is some ambiguity over whether or not they died at the hands of the Demon Shredder during the fifth season, their 2003 incarnations survive the events of "City At War" and stay as recurring minor villains until the fifth season.
- In "Oliver the Great Western Engine", the twenty-fourth book from The Railway Series, the third chapter, "Toad Stands By" features S.C. Ruffey, a private owner ballast wagon who teases Oliver for his accident in the turntable in the book's previous chapter, "Resource and Sagacity". Near the end of the chapter, S.C. Ruffey is torn apart by Oliver when he tries to hold the latter back. When Sir Topham Hatt inspects the damage, he decides to Scrap S.C. Ruffey. In the Animated Adaptation, Thomas & Friends, Sir Topham Hatt rebuilds S.C. Ruffey, who in return, never teases Oliver again.
- The villains in the Broken Ear episode of the Tintin animated series.
- In Ultimate Spider-Man, Squirrel Girl has two named squirrels leading her squirrel army: Tippy-Toe and Monkey Joe. In the comics, Tippy-Toe became her lead squirrel after Monkey Joe was killed by Leather Boy in Great Lakes Avengers.
- In the original Voltron Sven gets incapacitated early on and sent for recovery. In Voltron: Legendary Defender, his counterpart Shiro stays on as The Leader of the Paladins. However, this doesn't stop him from disappearing... a lot. Only for Season 6 to split the difference between the fates of Sven and their collective GoLion counterpart Takashi: he died back in the season 2 finale with his spirit living inside the Black Lion (standing in for Takashi's death), was replaced by a clone in the meantime (his brother Ryou's function), and is revived by transferring his soul into the clone's body (literally making him the still-living Shirogane, just as Sven was a Composite Character of the two).
- What If…? (2021) has multiple examples thanks to its What If? premise:
- The first episode stars a version of Peggy Carter who becomes her world's equivalent of Captain America after taking the Super Serum meant for Steve Rogers. In the Exiles comics, this occurred because Steve was assassinated by a Nazi spy, while in the cartoon, Steve is still shot, but ultimately survives the wound and later becomes Peggy's sidekick by piloting a Mini-Mecha.
- Episode 2 is loosely based on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), but with T'Challa as Star-Lord rather than Peter Quill. Korath the Pursuer is spared and undergoes a Heel–Face Turn as a member of T'Challa's crew, while Carina isn't killed by the Power Stone and is instead able to take revenge on the Collector. Thanos of all people also underwent a Heel–Face Turn and abandoned his plans for universal genocide in this timeline, meaning he most likely never winds up embroiled in the conflict with the Avengers that ultimately led to his death in Avengers: Endgame.
- In The White Seal, the seals herded together by the Aleut are clubbed to death. In the Chuck Jones adaptation, Kotik is able to scare the men away before they can start clubbing the seals.
- Wolverine and the X-Men (2009):
- The entire nation of Genosha. In Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, the whole island was destroyed by a Sentinel invasion, leaving only a handful of survivors. The attack is far less severe in the cartoon, with no onscreen fatalities.
- In the comics, Angel was still a teenager and part of the original X-Men when his father was murdered. In the show, Angel's dad is still alive in the present day, and appears as a recurring character.
- In Wunschpunsch, in the episode directly based on The Night of Wishes, the show's villains are merely being forced to live together instead of being Dragged Off to Hell.
- W.I.T.C.H. has Yan Lin, Will's dormouse, Halinor, Cassidy and Nerissa either still alive or (in Cassidy's case) resurrected by the end of the series.
- Professor Erskine was presumably not assassinated in X-Men: Evolution, since Wolverine explains that the Super-Soldier Serum was scrapped due to being fatal to non-mutants, rather than its creator being killed.
- X-Men: The Animated Series:
- The show did an adaptation of The Dark Phoenix Saga. One of the most enduring, powerful moments in the original comic-book Dark Phoenix saga was when the Phoenix has a Heroic Sacrifice. In the animated adaptation, she died, but the rest of the X-Men were allowed to bring her back to life by each sacrificing a small part of their life force. It was like instead of Jean dying, everybody else had a head cold for a week or two.
- Proteus was killed by Colossus in the original comics, but in the show, he gets a happy ending where he returns to his human form and reconciles with his parents. Ditto for his victims, thanks to the censors. In the comics, possession by Proteus was fatal, but in the show, it only resulted in extreme fatigue.
- Bolivar Trask still pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in an attempt to destroy Master Mold, but unlike his comic book counterpart, he survives. (Unfortunately, similar to his counterpart, it doesn't stop the Sentinels from returning.)
- Young Justice (2010)
- Cheshire's mother, largely because she was made into a Composite Character with the Golden Age Huntress.
- Also, Martian Manhunter's family and the entire population of Mars. (This is actually how it was in the Silver Age; Greg Weisman says that he never saw a reason to make J'onn the Last of His Kind, since that is just copying Superman's shtick). The fourth season alludes to the near destruction of the Martian species with the gene bomb provided from Apokolips for Ma'alefa'ak, the original killer of the Martian race who is depicted as loyal to Apokolips. The only reason it is found and destroyed before it can harm the Martians is because Lor-Zod hijacks the would-be disaster, alerting Superboy via his super hearing, and attempts to disguise an assassination attempt on him as a Heroic Sacrifice. Since Lor-Zod was a time traveler, this implies all non-A'ashenn Martians were still destined to be killed if it wasn't for this.
- Zatara... technically. He is now Dr. Fate's host. However, in the show, the Helmet of Fate contains the Lord of Order known as Nabu, and Nabu has a much less equitable relationship with his host than in most continuities, keeping absolute 24/7 control as surely as any villainous Puppeteer Parasite might. Zatara isn't dead, but he's gone forever just as surely and Zatanna mourns for him, a fate eventually fixed after ten in-universe years with a new deal allowing Doctor Fate to alternate hosts every week with Zatanna, Thirteen, and Khalid Nassour. It comes off as crueler than any actual death in the series (and it has a few.)
- In Brightest Day, it is shown that Aqualad's birth mother died after being experimented upon by rogue scientists from Xebel. The show's tie-in comic reveals that his mother is still alive in this continuity, and she eventually makes a full appearance in the third season.
- Harm as well. He was shot dead by his own father in his debut story, but was simply captured by Zatanna and Artemis in the show.
- In the New Gods comics, Highfather is a widower, with his wife Avia having been killed in the past (by either Steppenwolf or Darkseid, depending on the continuity). In the series, Avia is instead alive and serves as the Highmother of New Genesis.
- Shockingly, Terra ends up living as well at the end of Season 3, even performing a Heel–Face Turn, due to many of the heroes being far more aware of her mole plot but letting her make her own choices, which leads to her becoming a genuine hero at the end.
