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Spider-Man seems to have bad luck, or at least some of his opponents like the guy that killed Uncle Ben and the Green Goblin did. There are probably others... Which comic book HERO holds the dubious record for (purposely, or accidentally) ending up with the most dead bad guys? I'm looking for a comic book universe answer, not a movie universe answer.

In my corner of the comic universe, a hero is somebody on the side of law and order. A protector of the weak, a righter of wrongs. To me, someone like Spawn would qualify as an anti hero with heroic tendencies. Venom, Galactus or Thanos, not so much.

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    I'm guessing Galactus? Every planet he whacked, TONS of bad guys got wasted.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 6:30
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    Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. <g>
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 7:20
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    In my corner of the comic universe, a hero is somebody on the side of law and order. A protector of the weak, a righter of wrongs. To me, someone like Spawn would quailfy as an anti hero with heroic tendencies. Venom, Galactus or Thanos, not so much.
    – Major Stackings
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 16:19
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    @sunpeach edited per your suggestion. Please note, I did not down vote any of the answers to this question.
    – Major Stackings
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 17:20
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    You guys confused me by closing this one. It seems like a viable question. Which GOOD guy has the highest BAD guy body count?
    – Major Stackings
    Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 16:52

3 Answers 3

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It depends on what you really define 'hero' as, but Frank 'The Punisher' Castle has never been shy about leaving a trail of corpses.

He's more of an anti-hero, with his willingness to kill and his mental...issues, but it can certainly be argued that he fights on the side of the heroes.

As far as bodycount, well, it's high. Honestly, he doesn't tend to have recurring villains - his enemies tend to end up with large, messy holes where vital organs used to be. Since his appearance in 1974, he has no doubt racked up a 3-digit body count (mostly mooks, but still).

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The most notorious slayer of beings but still considered a good guy in the Marvel Universe is...

The Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer

  • Norrin Radd of Zenn-la sacrificed himself to prevent the destruction of his home planet. Inherently noble, he sacrificed himself to save his world. He was imbued with a tiny portion of the Power Cosmic, the energy used by Galactus to alter reality and perform many other fantastic feats of energy manipulation to become the Silver Surfer. His only technology is a surfboard of nigh-indestructible material upon which he rides the spaceways seeking sustenance for his master, the mighty Galactus; a being more force of nature than sentient life form, survivor of the previous universe and this universe's Big Bang.

  • Beyond morality, Galactus exists as a primal force of the Universe and as such feeds on the life force of planets. In this, his herald is his agent finding worlds while Galactus performs unknown and unknowable experiments in his world-sized spaceship.

  • This herald has served Galactus longer than any other. Though Galactus fed far less often during the reign of the Surfer, it was far more likely the Surfer was willing to sacrifice a world because Galactus altered his mind to ensure compliance.

  • The Surfer was by far, one of the most powerful of Galactus' heralds and capable of defeating entire space armadas without support. Wielding the Power Cosmic meant he couldn't even be slowed except by the most technologically advanced species. Few escaped the ravages of Galactus in those early days. The best a species could hope for was to escape the death of their world.

  • The Surfer did make efforts to steer Galactus away from inhabited worlds but when the hunger was fully on Galactus, the Surfer would overcome any resistance before Galactus arrived, potentially killing thousands before the World ship of Galactus took up orbit above their world.

  • Hundreds of planets were consumed during the Surfer's watch culminating with his eventual resistance and imprisonment on Earth in the seminal issue of Fantastic Four Vol. 1, #48. With the urging of the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer resists Galactus and helps the Earth, the first planet to successfully resist Galactus in a long time, survive. For his effrontery, he is imprisoned behind a force field and left significantly de-powered on Earth.

Fantastic Four #48

Fantastic Four #48 - "The Coming of Galactus"

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    I would argue that people he killed while acting as Galactus's Herald aren't people killed by a hero - at that point, he was NOT a hero. He was a sympathetic antagonist, but he didn't become a hero until he stood up for what was right despite the consequences, rather than meekly support a villain. After he rebelled, I can't recall him killing anyone.
    – Jeff
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 17:20
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I'll say Galactus. That's all he does, he eats worlds. It didn't matter to him whether they were bad or goods to him, it was just food.

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    I'd say 'mass genocide' excludes someone from the ranks of 'hero'.
    – Jeff
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 16:44
  • @Jeff: I'd wouldn't call him a hero, but I don't think that genocide applies from his perspective. We are quite literally mayflies to him, he's older than the universe. Even if we were his equals, to him, the difference between us living our full lifespan vs dying seconds after birth is insignificant. Is that 1 femtosecond or 30? And who cares anyway?
    – jmoreno
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 7:19
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    @jmoreno: There's a big difference between mayflies and humans - we never converse with mayflies. Galactus is fully capable of perceiving time in the same manner as humans and has had intelligent conversations with humans. He has recognized sapience within many of the species he's eliminated. In short, there's a huge difference, and you can't handwave it away based purely on lifespan.
    – Jeff
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 14:35

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