DC Comics was once the less mature of the Big two, but all of that changed in the Bronze Age. As comics became more mature, DC became the leader of the pack, bringing a healthy dose of gravitas and hiring writers who would take the characters in more mature directions. This changed the way heroes and villains operated in the DC Multiverse. Suddenly, brutal villains and violent anti-heroes started to pop up, and we got stories that were more violent than what we got in the old days. Heroes killed, villains killed, and readers got to see stories unlike anything had ever seen in DC Comics. While DC was more into villains killing than otherwise, characters suddenly got way higher body counts than they used to have.
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The DC Multiverse has given readers some of the most cataclysmic events in comic history, and this has led to some characters killing countless other beings. Planets getting destroyed is old news for some of these characters, as they’ve destroyed entire universes. The ten DC characters have the highest body counts, with some of them reaching numbers that are at this point only theoretical.
10) Black Adam
Black Adam was chosen by the Wizard Shazam a couple of millennia ago to be his champion. As Mighty Adam, Back Adam was the violent protector of the country known as Kahndaq, battling against every enemy that tried to attack the people of the nation. Black Adam came from a different time, so he killed a lot of people. Entire armies fell to his power, and eventually he became the ruler of Kahndaq. It’s impossible to figure out just how many people Black Adam killed in the ancient world (also, I’m not sure his most violent act in the present — destroying Bialya — is still canon), but the numbers is definitely somewhere in the tens of thousands, perhaps even the hundreds of thousands. Black Adam has no qualms spreading death, and has long been one of DC’s most prolific killers.
9) The Joker
The Joker is DC’s most popular villain, and has earned his place among DC’s most bloodthirsty villains as well. The Joker has been killing in Gotham for years now, using basically everything you can think of as a instrument of death. The Joker has shot, stabbed, blown up, doused with acid, burnt, and gassed countless people. In fact, the Joker is a prime example of why Batman’s “if you kill a killer, you leave the same amount of killers in the world” idea is wrong. The Joker has killed thousands of people around the world, and will continue to do so for as long as he can. Killing him would save countless people (well, since this is a superhero universe, until he was resurrected that is), because lives mean nothing to the Joker. He may not have the highest body count, but the Joker kills as easily as some people breathe.
8) Ra’s al Ghul
Ra’s al Ghul is one of DC’s most versatile villains. Need a shadowy manipulator with power and prestige? Use the Demon’s Head. Need an ancient menace in a story set in the past? Bring in Ra’s al Ghul. Need a smart villain who can challenge anyone out there? Ra’sl al Ghul is the one you want. Ra’s al Ghul has lived for centuries, using the power of Lazarus Pit to keep himself alive. Ra’s al Ghul has been killing his entire life as well, and has been responsible for the death of millions. Ra’s al Ghul has destroyed entire cities, and wiped cultures off the map. He has spent hundreds of years dealing death to his enemies, and will keep doing it as long as he can find another Lazarus Pit.
7) Vandal Savage
The Justice League has battled some deadly foes, but few of them have the body count that Vandal Savage has. Vandal Savage was a Neanderthal who found a meteorite that made him into a superhuman, enhancing his strength, speed, and intellect, and making him functionally immortal. Savage lived up to his last name and has been killing for the last 100,000 years. Much like Ra’s al Ghul, Savage has been responsible for the deaths of cities and cultures, but he’s been doing it for way longer. Vandal Savage has killed countless millions of beings, treating the lives of those around him as the cheapest commodity of them all. Vandal Savage never learned the value of anyone else’s life, and has proven that with every life he takes.
6) Brainiac
Superman has faced some harrowing threats, but few of them are as frightening as Brainaic. The Coluan cyborg is one of the most intelligent beings in the universe, and he got that way by traveling the stars and stealing the technology of species that he comes across. Brainiac will find a planet with life on it, steal a city, and then launch a missile at the solar system’s primary star, detonating it and destroying everything but the city he shrank and kept on his ship. We’ve never gotten a number of how many cities are in Brainac’s collections, but the vast of majority of them mark the graves of entire civilizations, billions of alien lives snuffed out in Brainiac’s quest for ultimate knowledge.
5) Darkseid
Darkseid is the lord of Apokolips, and the God of Evil. Darkseid has been fighting an unending war against the New Gods of New Genesis since taking the throne of Apokolips from his father Yuga Khan. Darkseid has been responsible for a massive amount of deaths over the years. Anyone who doesn’t follow his orders to the tee on Apokolips is killed. His Parademons are disposable cannon fodder, with Darkseid ordering them to die in ridiculous numbers in order to fight his wars. His attacks on New Genesis and other worlds have been barbaric, costing the lives of every defender. And all of that is before we start counting how many people died on the Absolute Earth thanks to Darkseid controlling the world and making it the place where evil wins. Billions have died in the name of Darkseid over the centuries, and that number will keep increasing.
4) Mageddon
Mageddon is a living weapon created in the deeps of time. Mageddon is the primordial destroyer, created by the Old Gods to end their wars. Mageddon did its job very well; it destroyed everything in its way every time it was used and eventually was chained in the Underverse. Mageddon is an interesting weapon; it taps into the minds of its targets and make them mad with rage. By the time Mageddon reaches its target, it’s already began killing. After that, it destroys the world that it was targeting. Mageddon is basically an unstoppable weapon of destruction; the only way it was stopped was because every person on Earth was given superpowers. Mageddon was partly responsible for the destruction of the Third World, the last iteration of gods in the years since. Mageddon has killed entire worlds, billions of lives snuffed out nearly every time it was used.
3) The Batman Who Laughs
The Batman Who Laughs is from Earth-22 in the Dark Multiverse. On this Earth, the Joker used a Joker toxin on Batman that transformed the Dark Knight into the Joker. Batman tried to find a cure in time and failed and then ended up killing the Bat-Family. After that, he turned his attentions to the rest of superheroes and supervillains, killing them all. Finally, he destroyed every single living being on his Earth. He was the king of the ashes when Barbatos found him, and joined the dark god in his quest to replace the Multiverse with the Dark Multiverse. The Batman Who Laughs was imprisoned by the heroes, then escaped, joining with Perpetua and helping her take over the Multiverse. When he became the Darkest Knight, he and Perpetua fought, with the two of them throwing Earths at each other. The Batman Who Laughs’ body count was already in the billions, and he killed billions more in his battle against Perpetua.
2) Perpetua
Perpetua is a Hand, an order of being that creates multiverses. Perpetua wanted to control the entire omniverse, and created the DC Multiverse, setting out to weaponize an entire multiverse. However, with the help of the Monitor, Anti-Monitor, and the World-Forger, Perpetua’s children, the Hands were able to imprison her outside the Source Wall. When the Source Wall broke, she made her way back into the DC Multiverse and set out to conquer it. She finally did and started to combine Earths, making a composite of the regular and Dark Multiverses. Countless beings died, and that’s before we get to her battle with the Darkest Knight. Perpetua’s body count is inconceivable, and yet it’s still not the biggest body count in DC Comics history.
1) Anti-Monitor
Crisis on Infinite Earths is comics’ greatest event, and it introduced readers a being that has the greatest body count in the DC Multiverse (and honestly, probably in comics as a whole) — the Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor is the son of Perpetua, and the embodiment of anti-matter. The Anti-Monitor eventually decided that he wanted to destroy the positive matter multiverse, reducing them to anti-matter energy to make himself stronger. The Anti-Monitor destroyed entire universes, more than we can ever possibly know. By Crisis on Infinite Earths, it seemed like there were only about four Earths left. The Anti-Monitor basically destroyed an infinite amount of universes, taking down every living thing in each of them. We don’t have a name for the number of beings that the Anti-Monitor killed.
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