7 Marvel Heroes with the Highest Body Counts

In Marvel Comics, most superheroes are unwilling to kill because they believe that it breaks an inviolate moral code and makes them no better than the villains whom they’re trying to stop. However, Marvel is also well-known for some of its heroes crossing moral lines for what they consider the greater good. Numerous anti-heroes have racked up impressive body counts over the years, killing anyone they think will threaten the innocent. However, there are time when these morally grey heroes go too far and even commit literal genocides. Sometimes these atrocities are done for the sake of survival, while other times they’re done in a fit of madness. Still, these heroes have taken more lives than even some of Marvel’s biggest villains.

Superheroes exist to protect people; that is the responsibility that superpowers convey, but sometimes they can be the greatest threats to humanity and the universe. These are the Marvel heroes who have claimed the most lives. Deaths that were undone either through time travel or resurrection will be included, because while the victims may have returned to life, their murders still occurred one way or another.

7) Punisher

Unsurprisingly, the Punisher, who has dedicated his life to killing criminals, has racked up a serious body count over the years. Using only his military training, wits, unstoppable willpower, and arsenal of guns and blades, the Punisher has slaughtered numerous members of the criminal underworld. In 2011, Marvel counted a whopping 48,502 people that the Punisher had killed, and that number has gone up significantly since then. While at first it seems hard to believe that one man with no powers could kill so many people, if there’s one thing the Punisher is good at, it’s mass murder. From bombs to machine guns, the Punisher will use anything to kill criminals.

6) Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch has always been defined by the debilitating effects on her sanity caused by her trauma and infinite Chaos Magic. After suffering numerous losses, including her own children, Wanda snapped and recreated the universe so that mutants were the ruling class. And when the false reality began to fall apart, Scarlet Witch spitefully uttered three words that changed the world: “no more mutants.” In an instant, almost every mutant in the universe lost their abilities. Even worse, hundreds of thousands of mutants died either because they fell to their deaths while flying or were in other situations where they needed their powers to survive. When she cast that spell, Scarlet Witch turned mutants into a species on the verge of extinction.

5) Thor

Thor is the God of Thunder and the ultimate protector of not just Asgard, but the Nine Realms. Given Asgard’s warrior culture, Thor has no qualms with smiting legions of enemies with his mighty hammer Mjolnir. For thousands of years and across the Nine Realms, Thor has slaughtered countless monsters, demons, aliens, dwarves, giants, Dark Elves, and anyone else who opposed Asgard. While Thor has toned down his propensity for killing after becoming an Avenger, he still won’t hesitate to take a life if he’s left with no other option. In recent years, Thor has killed many villains including Radioactive Man, Loki, and the Serpent.

4) Bishop

Even though Bishop is a time-traveler who’s always trying to fix the future, he would eventually be responsible for the apocalypse. When the mutant Hope Summers was born, Bishop tried to kill her because he thought that she would bring about the end of the world. Luckily, fellow time-traveler Cable saved Hope and took her to the future. To ensure that the pair couldn’t hide, Bishop hopped through humanity’s future and instigated various tragedies, including nuclear wars, bio-weapon attacks, and plagues. By the end, Bishop had wiped out all of humanity under the assumption that they would be restored after he killed Hope. However, in the end, it was Hope herself who, after returning to the present, undid the horrible future and the billions of deaths that Bishop caused.

3) Genis-Vell

The cloned son of the original Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell, inherited his father’s mantle and Nega-Bands. Unfortunately, after gaining cosmic awareness and omniscience, Genis-Vell’s sanity quickly began to unravel under the strain of the informational overload. In his insanity-induced state, Genis-Vell helps the cosmic villain Entropy destroy the universe and everyone in it by killing the omnipotent being known as Eternity. Afterwards, the only people left are Entropy, Genis-Vell, and his friend Rick Jones. Luckily, Rick convinces Genis-Vell to betray and kill Entropy, thereby recreating the universe and restoring everyone who was lost. Still, all those people wouldn’t have died if not for the maddened Genis-Vell helping Entropy in the first place.

2) Valeria Richards

Valeria may be the daughter of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman, but sometimes she’ll display ruthlessness more akin to her godfather, Doctor Doom. After the Fantastic Four went on a botched time-travel mission to the past, Valeria finds herself alone in a completely rewritten timeline. In this new timeline, her brother Franklin had become Galactus and rules over the universe with an iron fist. Anyone who commits crimes or protests is brainwashed to become a loyal citizen. With her vast intelligence, Valeria develops a machine that allows her to send a psychic warning to her past self, alerting the Fantastic Four and preventing them from going on their time-travel mission. While this action restored Marvel’s timeline, it also destroyed the altered timeline and its trillions of inhabitants.

1) Namor

Despite his role as one of Marvel Comics’ very first superheroes, Namor the Sub-Mariner has the blood of countless innocent people on his hands. Having acted as both a hero and villain, Namor has flooded Wakanda, killing thousands. Yet his worst atrocities began when he joined the Illuminati, and an Incursion Event threatened to slam another universe into Earth-616. Although the Illuminati designed a machine capable of destroying the other universe before it hit, Namor was the only one with the resolve to push the trigger, ending trillions of lives. When more Incursions arrived, Namor left the Illuminati and founded the Cabal to save the Earth. Under Namor’s leadership, the Cabal eradicated every universe that came their way, making it one of the worst genocides in Marvel Comics history.

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