Heroic Sacrifice/Comic Books: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]s in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* Heroic Sacrifices are a staple of Superhero books (since, it's what makes them Superheroes and not just Supers), and a main cause of [[Comic Book Death]].
* ''[[Kingdom Come]]'': After spending most of his teenage and adult life under Lex Luthor's mindcontrol, {{spoiler|Captain Marvel dies by taking Superman's place and making a nuke detonate in mid-air, saving countless other superheroes. His death sends Superman on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]].}}
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** Karate Kid sacrifices himself to save his wife's home planet.
** Magnetic Kid dies to unlock [[Planet of Hats|Sorcerer's World]] during the "Magic Wars" storyline, in an effort to prove himself to his older brother Cosmic Boy.
** Leviathan, thanks to a [[Literal Genie]] granting his "heart's desire" to die a hero, sacrifices himself to stop Dr. Regulus in the post-''Zero Hour'' [[
** Live Wire (the post-''Zero Hour'' version of Lightning Lad) resigns from the Legion and sacrifices himself to save his friends and [[Love Interest]] from former-teammate-turned-[[Omnicidal Maniac]] Element Lad in the limited series ''Legion Lost.''
*** Heroic sacrifices seem to be a sort of pattern for Lightning Lad; don't be surprised if it happens again in the Threeboot.
** Non-lethal example, Matter-Eater Lad saving the universe by eating the otherwise-indestructible Miracle Machine, going insane in the process.
* Easily the most famous [[Heroic Sacrifice|Heroic Sacrifices]] in the <s>superhero genre</s> DC universe are the deaths of [[The Flash]] and [[Supergirl]] in ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]''.▼
** Even the original Composite Superman, a ''villain'' who had opposed the team, died this way, feeling remorse when a much crueler villain named Xan tried to kill Superman and Batman; the Composite Superman [[Taking the Bullet| shielded the two heroes from the villain's Magna Gun]], only to be vaporized. A statue was made to honor him later, [[Redemption Equals Death| saying he lived a villain, but died a hero]].
▲* Easily the most famous [[Heroic Sacrifice
* Similarly to Supergirl, [[Superman]] continues fighting Doomsday to the death to protect the people of Metropolis, even though it meant sustaining mortal wounds in the process. Of course, he was [[Only Mostly Dead]].
* An odd variation occurs with Superman himself in ''[[Action Comics|Action Comics #399]]''. The story starts out like the typical Superman story, where an overloading nuclear reactor threatens to "turn the Earth into a ball of flame", requiring him to carry it into space and hurl it into the sun, all in a day's work for him. Then the story goes ''completely'' off-script, and he's drawn through a portal several centuries into the future, where scientists are testing a device that has not only brought ''him'' to the future, but George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and George Custer. Superman is, much to their regret, the only one able to escape the containment field they are held in, and quickly learns a rather skewed (to him) version of his own death, where he perished saving the world from the very disaster he was just attempting to stop. (The other three historic figures had also been pulled to this place mere hours before their deaths in order to prevent a [[Grandfather Paradox]].) Superman at first has second thoughts about going back, but then does so - only to discover, to his shock, that he manages to survive. Eventually, he starts to realize that he wasn't in the future of ''his'' Earth, but an alternate one, where history is similar, but not identical. ''However'', the final panel makes this very cold comfort for him, as he realizes that the Superman of ''that'' world has played the trope straight, [[Bittersweet Ending| and the citizens of the Earth he saved are now mourning for him.]]
* In the first issue of the current{{when}} series of ''[[Justice Society of America]]'', we meet Mister America, a patriotically-themed super-detective... who has no problem beating up suspects. His family is killed by a villain to destroy his [[Legacy Character|legacy]]. He shows up to beat the tar out of the villain... and then he gets mortally wounded. His response is to run from the Boston dockyards to New York's Battery Park (using [[Le Parkour]]), jump through the Justice Society's skylight, and hit the table in the main meeting hall, dying on impact. In response, the Justice Society tracks down his family's killer.
* According to writer Tad Williams, if ''[[Aquaman]] Sword of Atlantis'' had not been
* In [[Joss Whedon]]'s run on ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|Astonishing X-Men]]'', Kitty Pryde phases a giant bullet through the Earth...and then is stuck out there. If it had been less of an [[Idiot Plot]], it would've been horrifying and touching, but all it did was [[Torches and Pitchforks|make a lot of fans mad]].
** Also, there was Colossus infecting himself with the Legacy Virus a few years earlier, thereby releasing the cure into the air deleting Legacy from existence. Of course, that got [[Retcon|retconned]] in ''Astonishing''...
*** It wasn't retconned, {{spoiler|Colossus ''did'' die back then. But then crazy aliens resurrected him for... some reason.}}
* In ''[[Astro City]]'', the Confessor sacrificed his "life" and reputation to stop an alien invasion -- the reputation because the sacrifice revealed that he was a vampire, and made him appear to be a serial killer.
* [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]]'s death was like this. Wearing power dampening handcuffs, Cap notices an infrared sniper pointer on one of his captors. Being the selfless man he is he throws himself in the line of fire and promptly gets shot. This was the villain's evil plan to begin with, so here's one for the bad guys.
* Mr. Immortal from the ''[[Great Lakes Avengers]]'' did a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] in the end of Issue #4 by committing suicide. Since his power is to return from the dead, that wasn't that heroic, or much of a sacrifice to begin with. Doorman on the other hand let himself die by getting Mr. Immortal to that very place, but he [[Death Is Cheap|returned to life]] as some sort of angel of death.
* ''X-Man'' ended with Nate Grey destroying his body, becoming [[Pure Energy]], and merging with every organism on the planet in order to prevent a [[Planet Eater]] alien from harvesting all mitochondria on Earth (From the alien's perspective, Nate's energy contaminated the "crop").
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* In ''[[Empowered]]'', {{spoiler|when the [[Space Station]] is falling from orbit, Mindf*** sacrifices herself so Emp can go through the portal instead. (Sistah Spooky tries to save Mindf*** using her magic, but fails.)}}
* In ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' #74, {{spoiler|Eddie Bloomberg, formerly known as Kid Devil (before he was depowered), is given his heroic send off. While the other Titans are fighting the Fearsome Five, Eddie discovers a dying metahuman with nuclear powers about to literally have a meltdown which would destroy all of San Francisco. Without any hesitation, Eddie takes the living nuke to the Titans jet, being horribly burned and subjected to lethal amounts of radiation in the process. Then he takes the jet into low Earth orbit, refusing to eject just to make sure the jet doesn't change course and go back down to Earth. Eddie vanishes in a nuclear explosion, with the Titans' battlecry "Titans Together" as his last words.}}
*
* From ''Empire's End'', a [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] comic book from [[Dark Horse Comics]]: While fighting the reborn Emperor and his forces, the Skywalkers came across a cyborg Jedi Knight named Empatojayos Brand who had survived the Purge (barely). He followed them and helped defeat Palpatine, but, as the Sith Lord had transferred his soul from cloned body to cloned body to escape death, he launched his spirit at the infant Anakin Solo. Brand interposed his damaged body in between Palaptine and Anakin and used the Force to bind Palpatine to him as he died, thus ridding the galaxy of the Emperor forever.
* In
*
* In ''[[Justice Society of America]]'', three generations of Hourmen try to do this. In the original timeline, the first Hourman Rex Tyler sacrificed himself to stop Extant from destroying the universe. Time shenanigans by the third Hourman (an android from the future) allow the first one to spend time with his son Rick the second Hourman, knowing that he will eventually have to go back to the point of his death and sacrifice himself. Rick refuses to let his father die since he wants his mother to have the same chance to reconnect with Rex that he had, and tries to take his father's place. In the end, {{spoiler|the android Hourman makes the sacrifice.}}
* Done by
* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', it's Rosemary Almond, a mere housewife whose whole life has been destroyed by Norsefire who decides to sacrifice herself (and avenge herself), by killing Commander Adam Susan, the state's dictator, knowing full well what would happen to her if she did so. She is then mobbed by a horde of Fingermen. Her final fate is unclear, but it's probable that she doesn't survive.
* There have been a few [[Heroic Sacrifice
** Tommy Turtle, having been [[Grand Theft Me|body jacked]] by [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|A.D.A.M.]], allows himself to be destroyed by the Egg Fleet.
** Sir Connery sacrificed his life force to destroy the corrupted Crown and Sword of Acorns.
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** {{spoiler|Antoine D'Coolette grappled with a Metal Sonic and pulled it away from the transport holding Elias and his family, letting Dr. Eggman detonate it and kill him instead (he survived, though he is currently comatose).}}
* {{spoiler|[[Ultimate Spider-Man]]}} himself does this with style, taking a bullet to the stomach meant for {{spoiler|Ultimate Captain America}}, then racing back to rescue his friends and family from the escaped {{spoiler|Ultimate Sinister Six}} before he finally succumbs to his wounds.
* The UK Marvel ''[[Transformers]]'' comics featured one of these mixed with Crowning Moment of Awesome. Inferno is injured in his ship above a huge battlefield. As he lays dying he remarks "Always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory" and then promptly ''crashes his ship into the heart of the Decepticon forces, wiping out a majority of them''.
** This is almost a tradition for Optimus Primes in the various continuities. In at least two instances, once each during the original Marvel run of comics and once during the [[Dork Age]] release in the 90's, Optimus plunges himself and the Autobot Matrix into two different types of [[Planet Eater]] [[Omnicidal Maniac]]. It turns out that [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]] and the result is volatile enough to bring salvation in the form of massive explosions. Optimus Prime being Optimus Prime, his death rarely 'keeps' for long, though.
* [[Marvel Comics]]: Jericho Drumm, aka Brother Voodoo, sacrifices himself as his final act as Sorcerer Supreme, rebelling an invasion by a major entity calling itself Agamotto.
* In the "Day of Vengeance" leadup to [[Infinite Crisis]], the last Lord of Order ([[The Spectre]] already killed the others along with the Lords of Chaos) Nabu engages [[The Spectre]] in a battle that he knows he can't win. [[The Spectre]] murdering the last Lord of Order convinces the Presence (which is effectively [[God]] in the mainstream DCU) that he's gone out of control, and [[The Spectre]] is promptly sealed into another mortal host.
* In ''[[Secret Six]]'', {{spoiler|Tarantula}} is killed after telling Junior she has the Get Out Of Hell Free card. {{spoiler|Scandal has it}}.
* During the ''[[Spider-Man]]'' storyline ''[[Spider Island]]'', [[Fantastic Four|Mr. Fantastic]] confronts Eddie Brock, at this point as Anti-Venom, and tells him his symbiote is the cure to the virus that's giving people Spidey's powers {{spoiler|and turns them into the Spider Queen's army of humongous spiders}}, but if he does so with so many people {{spoiler|the Anti-Venom symbiote would die.}} Eddie's response? {{spoiler|he goes to a church and gathers everyone infected and ''cures them''. It counts as a [[Heartwarming Moment]] because, after the symbiote dies, Eddie realizes that, for the first time since his hell began, he finally became the hero he saw himself to be. He was the hero of Spider-Island.}}
* In [[
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