10 Marvel Characters With the Highest Body Count (and Thanos Is Only #2)

Marvel redefined what a superhero comic could be in the Silver Age. By adding in more human elements to the characters, fans got stories that they weren’t getting from Marvel’s distinguished competition. This led superheroes and supervillains in new directions and that included their actions. Marvel brought the first anti-heroes into comics and their villains were more noticeably evil in their actions. Marvel heroes and villains go hard in their battles, and this had led to rather high body counts among heroes and villains both. Readers have gotten to see some acts in Marvel comics that revolved around the deaths of countless innocents, and have been introduced to characters with unimaginable body counts.

We’ve gotten some amazing events in Marvel stories, and have seen characters who have literally bathed in the blood of their enemies. These characters devour life like a little kid eats chicken nuggets. The ten Marvel characters have killed many, many beings over their existence, with some being universal forces of destruction.

10) Romulus

Romulus is Wolverine’s oldest foe, with a history that, from what he tells us, reaches back to ancient times. At the very least, Romulus has existed since the birth of Rome and has been killing ever since then. Romulus has the same powers as Wolverine (closer to Sabretooth, actually, as he has finger claws and not the kind of claws Wolverine has, as well as super strength), and has used those powers slaughter his way through the ages. Romulus has almost certainly killed hundreds of thousands of people over the many, many years of his existence.

9) Kang the Conqueror

The Avengers have fought many deadly villains, but none of them can match the body count of Kang the Conqueror. Kang grew up in a future that he found boring, so he packed himself up with weapons and armor, and started conquering everything he could. Kang didn’t even have an army at first; he just blasted his way through everything himself, then started traveling through time, killing more people and conquering the survivors. Kang has killed millions of beings over his long life, whether they be in the past, present, or future. In fact, Kang has even killed alternate versions of the Avengers. Kang’s body count is stupendous, and the fact that the Avengers of Earth-616 can defeat him at all is pretty shocking.

8) Apocalypse

Apocalypse is one of the X-Men’s greatest foes, and he has the body count to prove it. Apocalypse has been alive since the days of ancient Egypt (where he was pitted against Kang the Conqueror when he was posing as Rama-Tut, an Egyptian pharaoh). Apocalypse learned that the only the strong survived from a young age, and used his mutant powers to be one of the strongest beings on Earth. His powers increased by Celestial technology, and so began his journey through the ages, killing any who tried to destroy him. He eventually found the mutant of Okkara, helped them battle against the demons of Amenth, and then kept fighting as the millennia went on. Apocalypse is another villain who has a body count in the millions, his long existence and beliefs spurring on his destructive impulses.

7) The Golden Helm of Annihilation

The Golden Helm of Annihilation is the leader of Amenth. Amenth is a part of Otherworld, a micro multiverse of magical dimensions that has been ruled by Merlin and his daughters Roma and Opal Luna Saturnyne for millennia. Amenth is ruled by demonic monsters, and tried to invade the Earth, but was stopped by Apocalypse, his wife Genesis, their children , and the mutants of Okkara. The Golden Helm of Annihilation possesses whoever wears it, its spirit controlling them and putting them at the forefront of an army of demons. The Golden Helm of Annihilation was created during the blockbuster Krakoa Era, where we learned that the Amenthi had been attacking worlds across the multiverse for eons. The Amenthi were one of the most fearsome demonic armies ever, so the Golden Helm of Annihilation has been responsible for countless millions of deaths over the years.

6) Annihilus

Annihilus is the ruler of the Negative Zone, a force of destruction unlike any out there. Annihilus is strong, nearly invulnerable, and savage. Annihilus’s greatest weapon is the Cosmic Control Rod, which allows him to harness powerful cosmic energies, as well as allowing him to control the minds of those around him. This allowed him to create the Annihilation Wave, a swarm of interdimensional insectoids like himself that devoured everything in their way. The Annihilation Wave was unleashed upon the universe and ate whole planets, forcing the heroes and villains of cosmic Marvel to team up to stop it. Annihilus has killed killed billions over his long life, and will keep killing as long as he has the Cosmic Control Rod.

5) The Builders

Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers/New Avengers run was perfect, taking the sci-fi aspects of the Avengers and the Marvel Universe and using them beautifully. The run introduced readers to the Builders. The Builders are the oldest race in the multiverse and helped to create everything, from planets to the structure of the universes. The Builders sent Engineers, Alephs, and Voids into the universe to create new, powerful races, as well as to destroy weak ones. When the Incursions started, the Builders started a genocidal war to destroy every being in the 616 universe. This war was cataclysmic, and billions upon billions died as the Builders destroyed entire worlds. The Avengers, working with the empires of the universe, were able to turn the tide and stop the war, but the Builders were still able to kill an unfathomable amount of beings.

4) The Celestials

Before the introductions of the Builders, the Celestials were thought to be the oldest race in the cosmos. These inscrutable cosmic giants traveled the universe, playing with the building blocks of life. Celestials perfected lifeforms across the cosmos, yet they also destroyed countless races, those too weak to survive. On top of that, as established in Earth X (and used by the MCU), Celestials are gestated in planets and burst out of them when they are ready to be born. These planets are usually teaming with life, meaning that every Celestial’s existence cost billions of lives, and that’s if you only count the sentient beings on those worlds. The Celestials see nothing wrong with their actions, and will keep killing as long as they exist.

3) Galactus

Galactus is older than the current iteration of the universe. Galan of Taa was a scientist in the last universe and witnessed the end of all things. He was bathed in the energies of creation and became Galactus, keeper of the Power Cosmic. Galactus is a force of nature, of balance, destroying world after world. While not every world Galactus devours has life on it, those worlds that do have more energy and keep him sustained longer. Galactus has been destroying planets for as long as the universe has existed. The amount of beings that have fallen to Galactus’s hunger is incalculable. However, I would say that it is theoretically more than Thanos killed with the Infinity Gauntlet (basically, we believe that eight billion humans have died since humanity began, which is the same amount of humans currently on Earth; so, you can extrapolate from that idea that on a universal scale, there are the same amount of dead sentients as currently exist everywhewre, so Galactus easily could have killed the same amount over the eons as Thanos did with his snap), but I have no way of proving that.

2) Thanos

Thanos is rightly feared as one of the most dangerous beings in the Marvel Universe, and has killed an insane amount of people. It’s up to you whether you count the deaths he caused in Infinity Gauntlet, since all of them were resurrected afterwards, but even if you take those out of play, Thanos has been destroying planets for a very long time and has a body count in the trillions. Thanos is well-known the universe over as a killer of the highest order. Every sentient being is afraid of him, because they know that there is very little hope of their survival if he shows up, unless the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, or Silver Surfer happen to be close enough to stop him. I personally do count Infinity Gauntlet in his body count, on top of all of the other deaths, making Thanos one of the deadly beings in comics.

1) The One Below All

The One Below All is the flip side of the One Above All. The One Above All is the ultimate force of creation in the Marvel Multiverse, so the One Below All is the ultimate force of destruction. It’s entropy personified, and has empowered many beings over the years to destroy everything. The Immortal Hulk shows us the end of the universe, with the Hulk being transformed into an entropic agent of the One Below All destroying worlds with a punch. The One Below All exists to cause destruction and has, meaning that it has killed more than anything else. In fact, one could say that every other being on this list is just an extension of the One Below All, meaning that all of there kills can be attributed to it.

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