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{{quote|'''[[Wolverine]]:''' I've survived five different wars in my lifetime.
'''[[Watchmen (comics)|Comedian]]:''' That's really nothing to brag about when [[Blessed with Suck|one of your powers is not dying]].
|''[[I'm a Marvel...
A character is hard to kill, not because he doesn't get hurt, but because he has the ability to rapidly recover from serious damage. While it depends on how fast he can heal and how much of a [[Chunky Salsa Rule|beating]] his body can take, a character with healing factor will bounce back from severe injuries that other beings can't, often with no scars or medical treatment.
Slightly more plausible than being [[Super Toughness|Super Tough]] or [[Nigh Invulnerability|Nigh Invulnerable]], as it is a souped-up version of a power certain real life forms possess. When this ability is powerful enough (such as regenerating from being reduced to almost nothing), it actually becomes a form of [[Nigh Invulnerability]], however. Rarely will a character need to worry about infection, as [[Required Secondary Powers|a super immune system]] is most often packaged in, but they may need to worry about setting broken bones.
Really powerful characters will be able to regenerate lost body parts. Ridiculously powerful regenerators may be able to recover [[From a Single Cell]] in a stain on the floor. Most often, [[Chunky Salsa Rule|loss of the head or brain injury]] is [[Deader Than Dead|the only permanent damage]], and even then they may come back just missing some memories or with an altered personality. Sometimes they appear to be dead for brief periods, but that's just the regeneration [[Back from the Dead|taking a while to deal with unusually severe damage]].
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** Venom and Carnage are also close to immortal, where they can heal from anything but continual and ongoing exposure to high-pitched sounds. Or the Sentry.
* [[The Savage Dragon]] can regrow lost limbs, albeit slowly. One villain actually used this against Dragon by breaking every bone in his body, then stuffing him down a smokestack so he healed all wrong. To fix him, another hero had to break his bones ''again'' to let him heal correctly.
* 90s hero ''Xombi'' has a [[
* [[Green Arrow]] II, Connor Hawke, has recently been [[Badass Abnormal|granted]] healing powers by the machinations of [[Mad Scientist|Dr Sivana]] in an issue of ''Green Arrow and Black Canary''.
** Sivana gave him that healing factor using bits of Plastic Man, a character that has survived being turned to stone, shattered, and having the pieces scattered around the ocean floor for over 1,000 years. Yeah, Plastic Man takes this trope to the extreme.
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* [[Vandal Savage]] is another DCU example; he got his immortality from a meteor back during the Cro-Magnon era. He possesses a Healing Factor (as well as other powers) that considerably slow his aging process to the point of it being almost nonexistent.
* The Five Archons in ''[[The Secret History (comics)|The Secret History]].'' They can be killed, probably, but they're certainly not easy to kill.
== Fan Works ==
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* {{spoiler|Dread Raven}} combines this with [[The Undead]] to achieve [[Immortality]] in ''[[The Tainted Grimoire]]''.
* Jaune Arc in ''[[The Games We Play (RWBY fanfic)|The Games We Play]]'' possesses a power called The Gamer's Body, which turns all the damage he takes into the loss of [[Hit Points]], leaving him visually unwounded by anything he suffers; he also has an ability to refill his [[Life Meter]] at an outrageous pace simply by resting or meditating, and later gains [[Regeneration]] at a rate that would boggle Wolverine. On top of that, he can eat [[Mana|Dust crystals]] and restore his hit points that way. And anything that transforms, mutates or otherwise inimically changes his body without actually killing him (like, say, Petrification), he can completely shake off simply by sleeping for six hours.
== Film ==
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** The [[Steampunk|Clock Punk]] robots of ''Hellboy II: The Golden Army'' can repair themselves after being ripped to pieces.
* When ''[[The Iron Giant]]'' gets his arms knocked off by a train, the parts return to him and reattach themselves.
* The title character of the ''Tomie'' series of J-horror films has this ability to the extent that [[
* Brandon Lee's character in ''[[The Crow]]'' seemed to possess this ability. Right to the point of making a very bad religious joke in between successive on-target shotgun blasts. [[Author Existence Failure|Too bad the actor wasn't so endowed.]]
** Dude, too soon.
* The Neo-Vipers from ''
* In ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'', Mina and Dorian actually wonder if they can be killed. They both heal from their wounds in seconds during their fight, prompting Dorian to note, "We'll be at this all day."
== Literature ==
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** If Touma's right hand or arm is severed, it will completely regenerate {{spoiler|in order to prevent [[Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can|the entity within from escaping]]}}. This happens even if the severed limb is completely destroyed. However, [[Early Installment Weirdness|this worked differently the first time the arm was severed]]. The arm didn't regenerate on its own, but when reattached by doctors, it healed with unusual speed. Interestingly, neither of the other two characters with a special right hand has this power.
** Magic Gods have an extremely powerful healing factor. They can recover from a broken neck or an impaled chest instantly.
* The "Undying" of the ''Horseclans'' series are of this type (''not'', as one might think, type 2). They're vulnerable to suffocation and subject to the [[Immortal Procreation Clause]].
* Tess from ''[[The Black Saint]]'' was born with this gift. Can be used as [[Healing Hands]] once they realise drinking someone's blood functions as [[Power Copying]].
* Marco in ''[[Strata]]'' gets a huge quantity of "repair enzymes" in his blood whenever he fights. The result is that any wounds heal fully almost as fast as they're made - although it's implied that he can't regenerate limbs, at least not quickly.
** The crew has access to a [[Healing Potion]] that can regrow limbs in a few hours, though.
== Live-Action TV ==
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** In the 2005 episode "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor is shown to be able to quickly regrow severed limbs for up to 24 hours after regenerating, using leftover regeneration energy.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' - Buffy has a lesser healing factor as part of her Slayer powers. She can't regenerate injuries in front of our eyes, but she does recover from serious injury much faster than a normal human (at least if she also gets medical assistance).
** Vampires also have this healing factor, though it may not be as strong as Buffy's. Spike was stuck in a wheelchair for several episodes, and Drusilla was heavily weakened by an attack which required a ritual to heal. In some ways it can be stronger than Buffy's, as vampires are clinically dead, they don't have to worry about things like blood loss.▼
** Spike recovered at some point before he actually got out of the wheelchair; in one scene he reveals he'd been faking it for an unspecified amount of time. Angel has been gutted and run through an unspecified number of times, particularly in his spinoff show. Illyria also threw him through two windows several stories off the ground.▼
▲Vampires also have this healing factor, though it may not be as strong as Buffy's. Spike was stuck in a wheelchair for several episodes, and Drusilla was heavily weakened by an attack which required a ritual to heal. In some ways it can be stronger than Buffy's, as vampires are clinically dead, they don't have to worry about things like blood loss.
▲Spike recovered at some point before he actually got out of the wheelchair; in one scene he reveals he'd been faking it for an unspecified amount of time. Angel has been gutted and run through an unspecified number of times, particularly in his spinoff show. Illyria also threw him through two windows several stories off the ground.
* In ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', [[Robot Girl]] Cameron's epidermal layer heals unusually quickly, to the point that a gaping, deep wound that [[Feel No Pain|had to be stapled closed]] healed to the point that is just looks like a recently patched-up cut the next day.
* ''[[The Collector (TV series)|The Collector]]'': Collectors quickly recover from any wound, with Hellfire spewing out of it in the process. A [[Deal with the Devil|client]] also exhibited it(minus the flames) with fatal wounds; Because of the Devil's obligation to clients, they are protected from death for the duration of their deal, one way or another.
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* While The Flash has long had some degree of faster than normal healing (See above in comic books), the 2014 incarnation of ''[[The Flash (TV 2014)|The Flash]]'' gives the character a much stronger one, able to heal a broken back in a week.
== [[Oral Tradition|Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myth and Legend]] ==
* The Lernaean Hydra, of Heracles/Hercules fame, was so difficult to kill because for each head the hero would cut off, two would grow in its place. The fact that its blood was also a [[Bloody Murder|deadly poison]] didn't help either. Only when his nephew Iolaos started to cauterize the stumps with his torch could Heracles finally kill the monster; this may be the (or at least one) source for the idea that fire is bad for regenerators.
* Prometheus had his liver torn out every day, and grown back by the next. Over and over again, [[And I Must Scream|for centuries]].
* The Greek gods have this kind of immortality, which includes not aging. According to most writers, they can't die from anything. To add to this, the myths say that Chronos is still alive despite being cut up into tiny pieces and scattered across Eternity. Further, Chronos did the same to HIS father who is also still alive despite that. In fact, Chiron, one of the few GOOD centaurs, ends up needing to have is immortality taken from him somehow since the hydra venom in his body couldn't kill him and just continued giving him horrible, mind-searing pain.
▲== Tabletop RPG ==
* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the Regeneration ability changes normal damage into subdual damage and the ability to recover so many [[Hit Points]]' worth of subdual damage per round. Thus, if you don't use the attack form that ''does'' cause normal damage to the foe, they cannot be killed, merely knocked out for a while. There is also Fast Healing, which merely causes the character to heal a certain amount of normal damage per round and thus allows real death to occur much more easily, shutting off the power just as normal healing would be.
** The ultimate example of this ability is the Tarrasque. Its
** In previous editions, there were particular forms of regeneration that varied from monster to monster. The D&D troll, arguably the most famous example, can quickly regenerate wounds from swords and axes, and by themselves these weapons can't kill them, although they can knock them out temporarily by reducing their hit points to zero. The only thing that ''can'' kill them are fire and acid, which also cause damage that can't be regenerated. Whether you blow them up with a fireball, or knock them out with a weapon and then set them on fire or douse them with acid, you need to burn trolls to kill them if you're using standard tactics. If beat into helplessness, they can then be drowned also if there is water nearby (as there often is as they often inhabit swamps). Trolls being vulnerable to fire is likely originally taken from the novel [[Three Hearts and Three Lions]].
** 4e Lycanthropes (were-creatures) have regeneration instead of damage reduction, it is suppressed by, you guessed it, silver.
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* Lunar Exalts in ''[[Exalted]]'' are stated as being able to recover from terrible injuries at an astounding rate whilst in their warform, if not in battle (they must use separate healing powers for that purpose. They can regenerate lost limbs and internal organs (assuming they aren't dead) at a rate of one such organ or limb ''per hour'', good as new and fully functional.
* Regeneration in ''[[GURPS]]'' ranges from slow enough that people would have to hang out with you for a while to notice it all the way to so fast that you heal your total HP every second.
* Regeneration is a game effect in ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' featured a hero called Valtan as part of their Storm of Chaos event who, by reason of being probably the avatar of a god, had a healing factor good enough that there was a 5 in 6 chance of him surviving any attack that took his last wound with no ill-effects, hopping back to his feet to fight again. In certain corners he became known as yo-yo Valtan.
== Video Games ==
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== Web Comics ==
* Schlock, from ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', as an amorphous life form, can regenerate from any amount of mass remaining, but as his memories are distributed throughout his body, he loses his mind if he takes enough damage. His eyes are actually separate lifeforms, that grow on trees on his homeworld. Uusually for this trope he needs to regenerate from what's left of his ''own'' mass. If enough of that is lost, he explicitly needs a large outside source of organic material.
** Additionally, medical technology of the twenty-third century can regrow your body from the head down in less time than it takes you to naturally heal a paper cut.▼
▲Additionally, medical technology of the twenty-third century can regrow your body from the head down in less time than it takes you to naturally heal a paper cut.
** Laz'r'us grade nanites appear to be able to provide this, as witnessed on the two occasions they're called on (for Kevin and General Xinchub).
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', Oasis has a healing factor according to [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/010401 this strip]. Whether this is the cause of her numerous [[Back from the Dead]] moments is unclear.
** It's suggested by several characters within the strip (including Torg, Riff, and Oasis herself) that she's actually a ghost that possesses people to such a degree that they take her form clear down to her crazy hair making this more [[Grand Theft Me]] although the author hasn't cleared it up for us yet.{{verify}}▼
▲** It's suggested by several characters within the strip (including Torg, Riff, and Oasis herself) that she's actually a ghost that possesses people to such a degree that they take her form clear down to her crazy hair making this more [[Grand Theft Me]] although the author hasn't cleared it up for us yet.
** K'Z'K also has an amazing healing ability coupled with immortality. At one point Bun-Bun [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/990215 ran him through a meat grinder] and [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/990217 turned him into burgers]. He was up and rampaging again [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/990218 by the next strip].
** Every member of 4U City has a 'snapshot' taken of themselves clear down the the firing of every neuron in the brain that can be used to regenerate them with nanomachines. Too much damage causes them to revert to the state they were in when their snapshot was taken which happens frequently to some (Riff's wife) and less for others (Executives like Rammer).
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** ''[[Alien Dice]]'' gives us Lexx, who has been injected with repair nanites by the ADC so he can play their game and make the corporation wealthy.
* {{spoiler|Justin}} of ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' was revealed to have this power. {{spoiler|Several of his ex-girlfriends [[Good Thing You Can Heal|took advantage of this]] [[Domestic Abuse|for their own amusement.]]}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
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* [[Darkwing Duck|Bushroots]] Healing Factor is seldom seen, but he completely recovers from being squashed in his first episode and later from being shreddered into small pieces.
* Killface of ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'' has a rather handy healing factor. Metal pipe through the lung? Nah, tend to Simon's scraped arm. Rocket through the chest, and a gaping hole from the explosion? Fixed with a little bedrest. Though his Healing Factor was unable to heal his eyes after he was blinded by AntAgony.
== Real Life ==
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