This year has been unique, and one aspect that defines 2020 is a relatively low superhero
body count. But saving the world is dangerous business, and there are still some heroic
sacrifices coming in under the wire. Here are the superheroes we've lost in 2020 so far.
During the CW's huge Crisis on Infinite Earths event, no one had a rougher time than Oliver
Queen. By the end of the event, he had died twice. Arrow's final season finds the hero
falling in battle against the Anti-Monitor's armies. Then, after his body is revived without
his soul, it, along with the rest of the multiverse, is destroyed by the anti-matter wave.
Still, Green Arrow isn't done yet. In Purgatory, Queen is recruited by Jim Corrigan to be the
new host for the Spectre, an immensely powerful being who, in DC Comics, is literally the
wrath of God. After using his new abilities to help Flash escape the Speed Force, Queen
gives more direct help in the battle against the Anti-Monitor. His new power allows him
to go toe-to-toe with the villain and to help create the new multiverse. Sadly, he doesn't
survive the battle for long. Dying, he tells Barry and Sara Lance that he's at peace, and
that the new multiverse will need them.
"You remember what I told you?"
"Dying is the easy part."
The entire world honors his sacrifice in both the Legends of Tomorrow episode that ends
the event and the Arrow series finale. Before the series ends, we see Oliver reunited in
the afterlife with Felicity Smoak.
Stargirl debuted in May with an explosive display of superhero carnage. The premiere
episode opens a decade before the events of the rest of the series, with the Justice Society
of America getting wiped out by the Injustice Society. At first it appears the only survivor
is the sidekick Stripesy, to whom Starman will later entrust his powerful Cosmic Staff.
Wildcat is killed, hurled from the headquarters, just as Stripesy arrives. Doctor Mid-Nite
is killed by The Shade, pulled away by a massive shadow hand. Starman fights off most of the
Injustice Society on his own before being dealt a mortal wound by Icicle. Flash's helmet
and Sandman's corpse are spotted during the melee. Many of the members aren't seen at
all. Stripesy flees the headquarters with Starman, who later dies from his wounds.
It's revealed in a subsequent episode that while Hourman survived the battle, the monstrous
Solomon Grundy killed him and his wife a year later.
In the animated feature Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, the ranks of DC's heroes are
thinned considerably. It all starts when Superman leads an assault on Apokolips, the planet
ruled by the evil New God known as Darkseid. After the events of previous films like 2014's
Justice League: War and 2019's Reign of the Supermen, Superman is convinced the only hope
against Darkseid is a preliminary assault.
"We have to attack."
Unfortunately, Darkseid is ready for the attack. Not only has he secretly been monitoring the
heroes through Cyborg, but he's developed a new army of powerful Paradooms, parademons
infused with the power of Doomsday. Darkseid's forces swiftly and brutally defeat the League.
Some Leaguers like Hal Jordan, Aquaman, and Zatanna are killed outright. Many are horribly
maimed and enslaved by Darkseid. Shazam escapes to Earth, but later dies fighting in the rebellion
against Darkseid along with Batgirl. In a flashback, we see the Titans suffer similar
fates on Earth.
Cyborg is the unwitting key to Darkseid's early victory, but he's also a big part of
the villain's defeat. After arriving on Apokolips, the heroes discover that Cyborg survived the
first battle with the Paradooms and was hardwired into Darkseid's fortress. They manage to break
him free of Darkseid's control, but he's too deeply integrated into
Apokolips to be physically removed.
Cyborg sacrifices himself to defeat Darkseid and save his surviving friends, teleporting
the heroes back to Earth.
"Looks like I get the last word. Suck it, b----es."
Once they're safely gone, Cyborg opens a boom tube large enough to draw in the entire planet.
It captures Darkseid and all of his Paradooms, sending them to "no destination at all" and
trapping them for all eternity.
Part of the reason the Earth heroes get as far as they do in Justice League Dark: Apokolips
War is because Darkseid is occupied elsewhere. Right after the mind-controlled Batman learns
that Lex Luthor has betrayed him and Darkseid, we cut to the planet Oa, home base of the
Green Lantern Corps, where Darkseid has already slaughtered the Guardians of the Universe
and fires rage everywhere. We see the corpses of Guy Gardner and Arisia among the rubble.
A number of Lanterns, including Kilowog, make desperate assaults on Darkseid, but he easily
kills them all.
The final Lantern we see alive is John Stewart. Badly wounded, he drags himself to Oa's main
Green Lantern battery, hoping to use its power to defeat Darkseid. The villain barely seems
to notice Stewart as he speaks with Batman. Just as Stewart is about to finish the famous
Green Lantern oath, Darkseid orders a portion of the Earth's molten core to be teleported
to Oa. Batman does as ordered, and the molten liquid kills John Stewart and destroys the
Green Lantern battery.
No longer controlled by Amanda Waller, who Harley Quinn says died of cancer, the Suicide
Squad agrees to help the heroes take out Darkseid. Cheetah is killed during the initial assault
on LexCorp, riddled with bullets by the building's human protectors.
The rest of the former bad guys stay on Earth with Lois Lane and Lex Luthor to protect LexCorp
so the heroes on Apokolips have a way to return, and Lex arms them with Kryptonite-infused
weaponry. When Batman learns of Lex's betrayal, he sends hordes of Paradooms to Lexcorp, where
the Suicide Squad makes its last stand.
"Buckle up, Suicide Squadies. Today's the day we earn our name."
Bane is devoured by a swarm of Paradooms while Black Manta is ripped in half by one of the
monsters. The surviving members of the squad, Captain Boomerang, Harley Quinn, and King
Shark, fall back behind a force field with Lane and Luthor. Eventually the barrier fails
and Lex Luthor is killed by one of the Paradooms. Lois Lane calls Superman on his signal watch
to say goodbye to him as they detonate a bomb, destroying LexCorp and killing everyone inside it.
It's likely, however, that all these deaths will be undone. At the end of the movie, after
the heroes' costly victory, John Constantine convinces Flash to use his powers to go back
in time and change the events. But we never see exactly how the events are changed or
how the world is altered. Flash runs from the gathered surviving heroes, there's a blinding
flash of light, and the film ends.
The fiery mystic Witchfire first showed up in 2002's JLA #61, right before the introduction
of the short-lived Power Company series. In Power Company, she was one of a group of heroes
who decided to monetize their crime-fighting careers.
Unfortunately for Witchfire, the last few years haven't been a good time to be a mystically-themed
hero or villain in DC Comics. Early in the current volume of Justice League Dark, the
horrific villain Upside-Down Man, leader of the Otherkind, declares war on DC's wizards
and witches while consuming the magic of his victims.
In Justice League Dark #15, in order to stop the machinations of the witch Circe, Justice
League Dark leader Wonder Woman has Doctor Fate and Zatanna send her spirit to Hecate's
realm, where Witchfire is as well. Unfortunately, Circe is prepared for this. She takes over
Diana's body while she and her newly formed Injustice League Dark lay siege to Wonder
Woman's teammates. Upside-Down Man appears to Wonder Woman and Witchfire at the end of
Justice League Dark #17.
In the following issue, Diana makes a deal with Upside-Down Man so he'll get her back
into her own body. Before sending her back, the villain reaches for Witchfire. Wonder
Woman protests that hurting her isn't part of the bargain, but before she can do anything
to stop him, Upside-Down Man rips out Witchfire's throat.
Kate Pryde, the mutant formerly known as Kitty, suffers a watery fate in Marauders #6. In
the new mutant nation of Krakoa, mutant heroes have so far kept largely at peace with some
of the worst mutant villains you can think of. Earlier in the series, Emma Frost had
named Kate the Red Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company, a position Sebastian Shaw wants for
his son Shinobi. The peace between mutants ends with Marauders #6, when Shaw uses fast-growing
vines to drag Pryde underwater, drowning her.
A lot of X-Men have died and come back in the past year because of one of Krakoa's unique
advancements. A group of mutants called the Five have found a way to combine their powers
to resurrect any mutant. But while her friends discover her death in Marauders #8, by the
end of the ninth issue, the Five have tried multiple times to bring Pryde back with no success.
In the beginning of the series, we learned that for some reason, Kate can't travel through
the portals to Krakoa like all mutants are supposed to be able to do.
"Oh my God. What's going on?"
It led some to speculate that this was all a build-up to a reveal that somehow Kate isn't
a mutant. By Marauders #11, however, it's discovered that Kate had just been "out of
phase", and simply required a little extra help to make her way back. So, in this case
at least, death was only temporary.
In 2019, DC Comics launched a new volume of Suicide Squad, and it's proving to be as blood-soaked
a series as you'd expect from the name. As early as its third issue, one of Task Force
X's most well-known members bites the dust, and his death comes with a few different levels
of poetic justice.
In Suicide Squad #1, the squad is sent to take down a group of metahumans called the
Revolutionaries. After the battle, the Revolutionaries who survive are folded into Task Force X,
including the aquatic metahuman Fin. Before that battle ends, however, Fin's brother Scale
is torn in half by King Shark. In the following issue, Fin makes it clear he isn't happy about
working with the man who killed his brother. While a few electric shocks from the new team
leader Lok temporarily keeps Fin at bay, it doesn't last long.
While Fin and King Shark are on their way to another mission in Suicide Squad #3, Fin
stabs King Shark, then uses his telepathic abilities to make the nearby sharks aware
of the blood pouring into the water. As King Shark is eaten alive by the sharks, Fin uses
his psychic abilities to force King Shark to watch his own death through Fin's eyes.
The gods of Olympus were killed in the 2019 mini-series Avengers: No Road Home, but at
the very end of the series it's revealed the gods have been reborn as space-faring deities.
In the beginning of the new volume of Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova seeks out the Guardians
to help him stop the reincarnated Olympians, who are now waging war on innocent worlds
all across the cosmos. The Guardians embark on a stealth mission to stop them, but when
Moondragon's psychic cloaking fails, things go bad for the space heroes very quickly.
With the exception of Star-Lord, all the Guardians are able to make it back to their ship with
the rescued hero Hercules in tow. Meanwhile, Star-Lord enrages Zeus and the other gods
by killing Hephaestus. Knowing the Guardians won't willingly leave without him, Star-Lord
uses his mask's controls to launch the ship and send it away from Olympus.
"This is a terrible plan."
"Hey, you're the one who said you wanted to die among friends."
As Zeus confronts Star-Lord, he detonates the Black Hole Bomb the Guardians brought
into the floating city, destroying Olympus, killing Star-Lord and presumably the rest
of the Olympian gods.
In the pages of Justice League Odyssey, things have not gone well for the original four heroes,
Jessica Cruz, Cyborg, Starfire, and Azrael, who formed their team back in 2018's Justice
League Odyssey #1. All but Jessica Cruz have fallen under the sway of Darkseid, and Cruz
has formed an alliance with other cosmic heroes working with Epoch, the self-styled Lord of
Time. Epoch has promised to use his Revision Mechanism to rewrite Darkseid's recent crimes
out of history, and those promises lead Blackfire to take a lethal liberty with her sister in
Justice League Odyssey #19.
After Epoch shows them visions of their deaths at the hands of Darkseid's servants, Cruz's
new Justice League splits up to take them down one-by-one. It's Cruz and Blackfire who
face the Darkseid-controlled Starfire. In spite of Cruz's pleas to show restraint and
try to free Starfire from Darkseid's control, her sister Blackfire says that because of
Epoch's plan to remake time, "there is no reason to spare her now." Before Cruz can
stop her, Blackfire kills her sister with a single powerful blast of energy.
In Justice League Odyssey #20 Jessica Cruz, still reeling from watching her former teammate
Starfire get obliterated by Blackfire, races back to the Revision Mechanism. While Cruz
and the rest of her team were dealing with Darkseid's other servants in the previous
issue, the Darkseid-controlled Azrael was on his way to kill Epoch.
Cruz battles Azrael and seems to gain the upper hand fairly quickly. While she didn't
have a chance to speak to Starfire before Blackfire killed her in the previous issue,
Cruz desperately tries to reach Azrael as they fight. But Darkseid's control over the
Gotham hero is complete and her words fall on deaf ears. Azrael knocks Cruz to the ground
and appears to be about to deliver the killing blow when Blackfire arrives and vaporizes
Azrael with a single energy blast.
Azrael is best known as Jean-Paul Valley, the man who, before DC's line-wide New 52
event rewrote continuity, took over the mantle of Batman when Bruce Wayne's back was broken
by the villain Bane.
For most of the first season of Stargirl, the new JSA's teenage recruits manage to survive
despite some dicey confrontations with the Injustice Society of America. But in the episode
"Brainwave Jr.," one of Stargirl's allies is killed by his own father.
The new JSA infiltrates the Injustice Society's underground headquarters, in part to save
Brainwave. Not long before Brainwave wakes from his coma, his psychic powers begin manifesting
in his son Henry. In spite of his father's violent past, Henry is convinced he can get
Brainwave to turn against the Injustice Society. Sadly, Henry is wrong about his father's moral compass.
As the JSA escape from the Injustice Society's tunnels, Brainwave confronts his son and reveals
to him that it was he, not Icicle, as Henry believed, who killed Henry's mother.
"Jordan didn't kill your mother…I did."
A brief battle ensues between Henry and his father, and Henry is quickly overpowered.
Henry and the rest of the JSA are separated by metal bars, and Henry uses his final moments
to apologize to Yolanda for his betrayal. Brainwave uses his telekinesis to collapse
the tunnel on top of his son, killing him.
After Henry's death, Brainwave reveals to Icicle that somehow killing his son amplified
his own powers. While the Injustice Society's original plan was to use Brainwave's powers
to enslave six different states, Brainwave believes his powers are now substantial enough
to take over half the country.
"I'm about to be in the heads of millions, reprogramming them all for the better."
In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s seventh and final season, the team loses one of its most beloved
and unique members.
At the end of "After, Before," while Yo-Yo finally manages to reawaken her super speed,
it isn't enough to fix the Zephyr's time engine. This leads to the time-loop episode "As I
Have Always Been," in which Daisy keeps waking up and re-experiencing the same few hours.
Specifically, she experiences the Zephyr caught in a temporal storm that threatens to wipe
everyone on board from existence. Simmons knows how to fix the time engine, but the
knowledge is trapped behind a mental block she created to keep the location of Fitz safe.
When the heroes remove the implant, they discover the only way to fix the time engine is a device
inside Enoch, and the removal would mean his death. When the Chronicom hero learns of this,
he doesn't bother to wait while his friends debate the moral quandary, he reaches into
his own body and yanks it out. Daisy and Coulson stay with Enoch as he dies. He tells them
about his feelings of loneliness and warns them that he has seen the future and that
while they will survive their current adventure, it will be their final mission as a team.
The season 7 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Stolen" has a high Inhuman body count, and
the last to fall is Jiaying, Daisy's mother. The older version of Jiaying was killed in
the show's second season by Calvin Zabo. But while that older version died after turning
on her daughter, in 1983, a younger Jiaying dies protecting Daisy.
Nathaniel Malick locks horns with Daisy and Jiaying aboard the Zephyr, using the Quake
abilities he duplicated from Daisy. But Malick points out that, because of the time travel
Daisy and the agents have been experiencing, he's actually been using the Quake powers
longer than Daisy.
"If you haven't done the math, I've had these powers a lot longer than you have."
Although he's able to initially brush her aside without too much effort, Jiaying jumps
in to protect her daughter, using her life absorption abilities on the villain. Unfortunately,
Malick is able to resist her powers long enough to break Jiaying's neck, killing her.
Daisy rallies after her mother's death, and Malick is frightened at her display of power.
When May shows up firing her gun at Malick, he runs away. Sadly, there's no saving Jiaying.
Forager (Harley Quinn)
Lady Shiva (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War)
Etrigan (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War)
Alex Winters (Catalyst Prime: Seven Days #4)
Summit (Catalyst Prime: Seven Days #6)
Dr. Echo (Weapon Plus: World War IV #1)
Li (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
1983 Gordon (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
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