7 Most Horrifying Comics Deaths, Ranked

Characters die in comic books all the time. The death of an important friend or loved one is a classic way to either inspire or enrage a hero, villains dying can make for some of the most downright insane encounters and fallout, and a hero dying can be one of the most emotionally impactful moments of an entire run. Even with death being a revolving door in most modern day comics, some of the most important and remembered moments of all time are the deaths of beloved characters. However, not all deaths are remembered for being beautiful, climactic moments. Some stay in the public consciousness because of how horrific they are, and how they nearly made the readers puke all over their graphic novels.

Let’s take a look at seven of the most gruesome and stomach-wrenching ways comic book characters have met their makers over the years. If you’re squeamish or don’t want to see your favorite characters’ guts strewn across the panel, I suggest you look away. But if you clicked on this list you know what you’re here for, so let’s get into it.

7) Alex DeWitt Invented Fridging

Alexandra DeWitt was first introduced as the girlfriend of Kyle Rayner, then the new Green Lantern. In Green Lantern volume three #54, Alex is attacked and killed by Green Lantern’s then enemy Major Force. Major Force doesn’t just kill Alex, but instead brutally rips her apart and shoves her mangled, dismembered corpse into Kyle’s refrigerator. Beyond being an incredibly gruesome moment, Alex’s death caused comic legend Gail Simone to coin the “women in refrigerators” phrase, more colloquially called fridging, which represents when women are often savagely killed off for no other reason than to further the development of a male character and shock value. It was the final straw that started a movement to petition for better treatment of women in comic books, and while that is indisputably amazing, it only could have happened because of how downright atrocious this death was.

6) The Blob Ate Wasp Like a Chicken Wing

Speaking of fridging, this horrible act of cannibalism came in Ultimatum #2. Marvel’s original Ultimate Universe is well known for being very gorey and having far more gruesome versions of everyone’s beloved characters. In this infamous storyline, Magneto decided that humanity needed to be entirely wiped away, and used his vast magnetic powers to literally shake the planet’s continents, flooding the world with tidal waves unlike anything anyone has ever seen. In the midst of the chaos, Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, goes missing. Her husband Yellowjacket eventually finds her, but is horrified to see that villain the Blob has killed Wasp and is eating her corpse. Apparently, she tasted like chicken. It was a nauseating scene in a nauseating book, and was immediately followed up by the enraged Hank Pym biting off Blob’s head in a gratuitously bloody and ironic revenge.

5) Ma Gnucci Lost Her Limbs and Burned Alive

Ma Gnucci was the head of the Gnucci crime family, a mafia-like group that once commanded all organized crime in New York. Unfortunately for her, this drew Ma Gnucci the ire of the Punisher, who wanted to make a big splash in his return to “cleaning up” the criminal underworld. She tried to have her men kill Frank Castle in the Central Park Zoo, only for Frank to dispose of her men and toss her into the polar bear pit. Somehow, Ma Gnucci survived being eaten alive by a pack of polar bears, but lost all of her limbs and her scalp in the process. Her final fate came in Punisher volume five #12, where Frank tossed her back inside her safehouse after he lit it on fire. This horrible death had steps to it, and all of them were absolutely abysmal.

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4) The Flash Disintegrated Saving the Multiverse

Barry Allen was one of DC’s most popular and beloved characters and remains so to this day, which is what made his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 all the more shocking. The Anti-Monitor had nearly beaten all of the multiverse’s greatest heroes and villains in his quest to destroy everything, and was going to use his Anti-Matter Cannon to eradicate every world there ever was and ever would be. Only the Flash was able to stand against this plan. He found the Anti-Matter Core and raced around it, creating a speed vortex that absorbed all of the Anti-Matter energy into himself. Unfortunately, this led to Barry’s body literally falling apart as he ran. He withered away to skin and bones, every step infusing him with more energy that literally sapped his life force. Eventually, the Flash’s body completely fell apart, and he was nothing more than dust as he ran his final steps. What makes this even worse is that the hero had no rest, as his soul was accepted into the Speed Force, where he spent the next two decades running away from the Black Flash, the speedster embodiment of death. Tragic, powerful, and one of the best deaths in all of comics, period.

3) Spider-Man Ate Mary Jane and Aunt May

For some reason, there’s more than one act of cannibalism on this list, which is just a sign that things are not okay in comic books. Marvel Zombies is exactly what it sounds like, an entire universe of all of Marvel’s heroes and villains zombified and wanting to eat every living thing they can get their hands on. One of the most tragic and gut-wrenching deaths of all came just after Spider-Man was infected, when he went home to attempt to get Mary Jane and Aunt May out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, the infection became too strong to resist, and Spider-Man was consumed by the Hunger. Spider-Man ate Mary Jane, and told Aunt May to run away because he couldn’t control himself, but there was no way for an old woman to hobble away from Spider-Man. This one still kept me up at night when I was a kid, and frankly, it still might.

2) Lori’s Corpse Smothered Her Baby

The only non-superhero entry on our list, Lori Grimes and her baby daughter Judith were both killed in The Walking Dead #48. While trying to escape from Woodbury, when the Governor commands Lily to shoot her in the back. Unfortunately, not only did this shot instantly kill Lori, but she fell on top of her infant daughter, killing Judith as well.This double death is really one of the most horrible ones in all of comics, as it’s hard to imagine a worse fate than accidentally killing your own child, even if you die in the process. Even worse, after Woodbury was overrun both of their bodies were devoured by Walkers, only adding insult to their terrible deaths.

1) Multiple Man Absorbs His Baby

The only thing worse than accidentally killing your own child and dying with them is accidentally killing your child and having to live with it. Multiple Man is a mutant with the ability to create and later absorb duplicates of himself. One night while drunk, a duplicate slept with fellow mutant Siryn, and she wound up pregnant. In X-Factor volume three #39, Siryn went into labor, and the two even decided to get married and raise the child together, whom Siryn named Sean, after her recently deceased father. Unfortunately, as Multiple Man held his child, his body absorbed young Sean until he ceased to exist, his body treating him as nothing more than another duplicate. It was a truly horrifying moment that forever scarred both Multiple Man and Siryn, and I can’t imagine something more horrible than being unable to avoid erasing your own child from existence.

So there we have seven of the most brutal and horrible ways to go that have ever been shown in a comic book. This list definitely doesn’t cover anywhere near all the weird and horrible ways that people have perished over the comic years, so let us know what other strange comic deaths you know in the comments below!