Which comic book characters are actually easy to kill?

Cafe Society
1

I was watching some super hero movies recently and was wondering which super heroes are formidable with powerful abilities and yet could potentially be killed quite easily.

Can Captain America and Spider-Man simply be killed by a bullet to the head? Let’s go down the list, if you want. Are there comic book characters that are incredibly powerful beyond the middling characters that can actually be killed quite easily with some Batman style planning?

Feel free to cite movies or original source canon or even different iterations and universes of the same characters.

I don’t need answer fast, I promise I’m not a super villain! :slight_smile:

2

I would think Spidey, DareDevil and any Flash can be killed by bullets, provided you catch them unaware. But spidey has the danger sense thing, and can dodge, Daredevil can deflect a bullet with his billy-club, and Flash can outrun it, or vibrate through it.

3

Hawkeye and Black Widow. The Wasp. Cyclops, Angel (original)

Batman, Shazam/Captain Marvel in kid form. Green Arrow.

4

Basically any superhero that doesn’t have Invulnerability or Healing Factor in their power set can be killed by a bullet. Kal-El, Kara Zor-El, all the other -Els, Deadpool, Wolverine, Hulk and such are bullet-proof. Everybody else not so much. That doesn’t mean they are easy to kill by any means. Just that it is possible.

5

Dr. Strange is not bulletproof. But in a fight, a shield is one of the first spells he will deploy. Who knows what invisible magical defenses he may have running on autopilot? Probably depends on which writer is telling the story.

In The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller had Batman say this: “Why do you think I wear a target on my chest? I can’t armor my head.” (The fact that he wears a bulletproof vest is a trope that actually dates back to the 1940s.)

Physically, the Scarlet Witch is ordinary flesh and blood. But, if her defenses are up, your probability of hitting her is near zero.

6

Keep Aquaman out of water for an hour. At 50 minutes, he’s fine. At 59 minutes, he’s fine. At 59 minutes, 59 seconds, he’s fine. One second later? He’s dead.

7

You can’t shoot the Heckler. Bushwack’r tried, but the Heckler’s Roadrunner power only makes it bad for the shooter.

8

For a long while — and, for all I know, it’s still so — a glowing ankh would appear to Strange if he was heading into a life-or-death situation. So if it didn’t pop up, writers could do Adam-West-As-Batman stories where our hero gets bested and put in weird scenarios upon being caught off-guard, and then scramble to play catch-up; but if he’s about to just get shot in the head, and that’d be the end of the comic, he’d know that it’s time to conjure the multicolored forcefields.

9

I could probably kill any Archie character. Well, maybe not the Spellmans, that would be unwise.

10

Casper the Friendly Ghost, on the other hand, is already dead.

11

Any opinions on Hot Stuff the Little Devil?

12

Just a few years back, Captain America waskilled by a sniper.

He got better, of course.

13

From the Legion of Super Heroes – Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater Lad.

Of course, you shouldn’t try to, say, push Bouncing Boy off a cliff, or poison Matter Eater Lad, but you’d think that you could dispatch either of them in a number of simple ways.

14

There was a storyline where Galactus was nearly killed by what Dr. Strange called a very simple spell (it caused remorse for all of the target’s violent deeds, which for Galactus were overwhelming). So of course the Avengers had to save his life, because allowing anyone at all to die would violate the Comics Code Authority.

15

To be fair, Captain America spotted the sniper in time but (a) was minus his shield, and (b) had his hands cuffed behind his back.

16

One-third of Triplicate Girl was killed off in the sixties, leaving her as the slightly less stupidly named Duo Damsel.

17

Marvel did a “What If?” comic called “The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe” and as I recall, the Punisher was able to take out quite a number of superheroes using guns before he had to switch to more exotic weapons.

18

Any comic book character is easy to kill if you catch them unawares and use an appropriate weapon. All of them have writer-imposed vulnerabilities because a completely invulnerable character is boring. Note that the weapon need not be an actual physical object. It may be exploiting an emotional/psychological weakness.

19

There are literally too many comic book characters to list who could, in theory, be killed with a bullet to the head. There are a lot of characters without any super powers at all, for example, who are “normal” humans who just have training and/or gadgets.

For the most powerful characters that could be killed that simply, just with some planning, there are quite a few powerful magic users and reality manipulators who are otherwise normal humans who could be killed by a bullet they just didn’t see coming. Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

Dr. Strange
Zatanna
Scarlet Witch
Franklin Richards
Shaman
Dr. Fate
Arion of Atlantis
Molecule Man

There are also a number of characters who transform into powerful forms, but have normal humans as alter-egos (again, just off the top of my head, in no particular order):

The Hulk (Bruce Banner)
Thor - sometimes (Dr. Donald Blake; I think in more recent continuities, he usually no longer has a mortal form)
Other wielders of Mjolnir or Stormbreaker: Beta Ray Bill (powerful cyborg alien even without the hammer, but probably could be killed by a bullet to the head), Thunderstrike (Eric Masterson), and others, depending on the continuity
The whole Marvel Family: Captain Marvel (Billy Batson), Captain Marvel, Jr. (Freddie Freeman), Mary Marvel (Mary Batson), Black Adam (Teth-Adam), and others, depending on the continuity

Since Captain Marvel is tag-lined, “The World’s Mightiest Mortal”, but has a human alter ego that could be killed by a bullet, he’s arguably the most powerful character that could be killed by this tactic, but several of the magic users/reality manipulators above are often portrayed in ways that make them seem significantly more powerful than the Big Red Cheese.

20

I have it all figured out. If Dr Manhattan gives me any trouble, I’ll just remove his intrinsic field. That’s sure to work!