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Punch-drunk boxers are the classic real-life example of what happens to someone who takes repeated pummeling damage in many fights year after year. However, the American National Football League presents a better sampling. To survive more than a couple of seasons in the league is a guarantee of a lifetime of painful, lingering damage to battered joints, bones, and connective tissues. That life is also going to be about ten years shorter than that of the average adult American. The heart and body organs build up scar tissue likely to fail when the athlete is in his fifties and sixties. This is known as [[Dented Iron]].
The polar opposite of this is [[Made of Plasticine]]. When the character doesn't just shrug off extreme damage but doesn't sustain any damage at all is [[Made of Diamond]], a subset of [[Nigh Invulnerability]]. Characters who are Made of Iron, if they die at all, often die [[Rasputinian Death|Rasputinian Deaths]]. If two Made of Iron characters go up against each other, it often leads to [[How Much More Can He Take?]] fights. Not to be confused with [[Robot Maid|Maid of Iron]].
A character who is Made of Iron isn't necessarily literally [[Chrome Champion|made]] of [[Animated Armor|iron]].
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* ''[[Hellsing]]''
** Towards the end of the manga, Integra gets {{spoiler|''shot in the eye'', nearly point blank}}. She barely even falters and moves forward to finish her task. She also got shot in the shoulder when she was twelve and it barely seemed to bother her. She was even able to pick up a gun and shoot it.
** [[Badass Normal|Pip]] [[Good
* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': [[Butt Monkey]] and [[Lethal Joke Character]] Boss had to be to endure the punishment he received and come out of alive.
** ''[[Great Mazinger]]'': [[The Hero]] Tetsuya Tsurugi, withstood an incredible punishment throughout the series, being wounded and harmed constantly, and still pushing himself beyond his limits and forcing himself to battle even if the pain was tearing him apart. Several times his adoptive father -[[The Professor]] Kenzo Kabuto- had to command him to go back to the [[Home Base]]. In the first episode one of the [[Bridge Bunnies]] marvel at his physical endurance, and Kenzo states it is his strong and sturdy body what lets him pilot Great Mazinger.
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** Vash the Stampede always shoots only to cause [[Only a Flesh Wound|flesh wounds]]. The trope was subverted at one point, however, when he inflicted just such a wound... and then panicked and rushed to stop the bleeding -- the wound was far more serious than he'd intended.
** Not to mention Vash himself has taken ungodly amounts of damage, presumably due to his reluctance to kill aggressors. In two separate episodes, we are given a look at Vash's upper body, and he is patchwork of scars and metal.
* Almost every character in ''[[Chaosic Rune]]'' can count. Each character fights with creatures that give them sympathy damage of equal magnitude whenever harmed. Since the battles between the creatures usually involve dismemberment, crushing, eating, and acid attacks, most fights end with the characters covered in the most terrifying wounds ever seen in a manga. Since the winner of the battle gets fully healed afterward, the damage usually doesn't stick, though they still have to feel ''all of the pain every time it happens''. The loser usually leaves a horrifying corpse, if they leave one at all. Oddly enough, crosses over with [[Made of Plasticine]].
* Spike Spiegel from ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]''. Over the course of the series, he's taken considerable amounts of pain, among other things he was thrown out of the tower window of an old-style cathedral after a gutshot and then stabbed through the shoulder with a sword. In fact, this, coupled with the demonstrated and implied effectiveness of futuristic medicine in the series, is one of the reasons why some fans believe {{spoiler|he survived the final episode}}.
* Most of the cast of ''[[Ranma ½|[[Ranma
** Ranma Saotome, specifically, hovers somewhere on the border between this and [[Nigh Invulnerable]]. He has survived massive [[Kamehame Hadoken]] [[Ki Attacks]], falls from fantastic heights, being blown up, and enough general physical abuse to turn a battleship into worthless scrap metal, and always manages to shrug it off and keep on going -- even before [[Healing Factor|simply healing the damage]]. Fans have theorized, after seeing him survive with mere fleshwounds against Ryû Kumon's [[Razor Wind|Vacuum Blade]] attacks (which, for comparison, cut a 10 meter tall solid bronze Buddha statue into pieces), that he is, for all practical purposes, bulletproof. Perhaps one of the best examples might be the Golden Pair story arc: when Ranma [[Disproportionate Retribution|attacks]] [[Handsome Lech|Mikado Sanzen'in]] for stealing [[Gender Bender|his]] [[First Kiss]], the resultant "battle" has Ranma headbutt the ice-rink so hard he buries himself in it up to his shoulders, pull himself out without even being fazed (which startles the hell out of his opponent), trip over when making an attack and skid across the length of the rink, ''on his face'', at such speed that he smashes through the rink-wall when he crashes into it, and finally getting pulled into Mikado's "Dance of Death", in which he is repeatedly pummeled on for several minutes straight before being ejected out at high speed and landing hard on his head. He still manages to somersault back onto his feet when asked to stand up, only to slip and fall back down again. By the time he's gotten home, he's fine save for an assortment of scrapes and bruises, needing just a bit of disinfectant and a few bandaids.
** When he first enters the series, Ryôga doesn't really seem to be much tougher then Ranma (though he does evidently have more stamina, courtesy of always having to spend days doing nothing but walk to [[No Sense of Direction|get to the fight]]), but then he learns the [[Nigh Invulnerable|Bakusai Tenketsu technique]]... in his first battle with it, Ranma's strongest punches have no effect on him, and it takes a focused burst of [[Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs]] to be able to hurt him at all. Though Ranma does subsequently train himself to be able to punch hard enough to get through Ryôga's defense, he remains the hardest opponent for Ranma to lay out with physical attacks afterward.
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* Every character from ''[[One Piece]]''; characters seem only to die in flashbacks (or if you watch the [[4Kids! Entertainment|4Kids]] [[Macekre|dub]], [[Never Say "Die"|never]]).
** One can mention Luffy, who was gored with a hook, thrown into a pit of quicksand and buried there for hours, but was still able to fight Sir Crocodile the next day. Only to have all the water in his body absorbed -- at least momentarily. Then he was poisoned.
** Let's not forget Zoro. He's taken a giant sword-slash to the chest, tried to ''cut off his own feet to escape some chains'', and, during Thriller Bark, {{spoiler|shows his badassery by taking all of Luffy's pain in attack form}}- with the bloody result shown in the page picture (not shown is the blood covered ground spread out several feet around him). Although all he needs to do to recover is put on a few bandages and take a nap. {{spoiler|This is averted after the aforementioned incident with Luffy's pain as Zoro still suffered from those injuries for several battles following it. }}
*** Spoofed in [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=226 this strip] of the [[Web Comic]] ''VG Cats''.
** Early on, Luffy tells Zoro not to pick up a heavy cage when injured because, according to Luffy, Zoro's guts would spill out. Zoro merely says that he'll stuff them back in. Later on, there's a fight where the opponent keeps going for Zoro's wound. Zoro decides to cut HIMSELF there when he gets tired of this. No wonder Nami won't let Luffy wake up Zoro later on, when he's resting after this fight. Face it, if there weren't laws against death in ''One Piece'', and if Zoro weren't made of iron, he'd be the deadest thing in the universe.
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* Quite a few characters in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' can take inhuman amounts abuse with relatively little effect.
** [[Big Bad]] Makoto Shishio is without a doubt, the most over the top example. During the final battle against him, he, despite having been shot in the head and burned alive, proves capable of, among other things, blocking the blows of the other superhumanly powerful swordsmen with his ''fingers'', taking a direct punch to the face from [[Charles Atlas Superpower|superhuman]] [[Badass Normal]] Sanosuke with no effect (''Sanosuke's'' hand shatters though), shrugging off a string of sword strikes from the main character, Kenshin that ends up shooting him through a brick wall, and taking a direct blow from Kenshin's ultimate attack (and probably the most powerful attack in the series) and still being able to stand. In the end, it is not these attacks that kill him but his own inhumanly high blood temperature, which causes him to spontaneously combust when he fights for too long. The other characters even assume that he is immortal from all the abuse he takes, although the ''iron plate'' in his head may have something to do with surviving a lot of [[Hard Head|cranial abuse.]]
** Jinchu arc [[Big Bad]] Yukishiro Enishi is also an extreme example. The characters remark that he's in such an advanced state of mind over matter that his brain doesn't even recognize pain anymore, to the point where he can even inflict massive pain upon himself and still get up for more.
* Everybody in ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'' seems to be made of iron, since Kaoru likes to throw people around as if there's no tomorrow, causing massive craters everywhere, without considerably hurting anyone.
* ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]''
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* In ''[[Naruto]]'' the characters fall off cliffs, are slammed into rock faces so hard they crack them, land on their heads after falling or getting throw dozens of feet, and even getting hit in the face by a punch '''that made a 10 foot wide crater when it hit ground''' without getting visibly injured, even if they're not using any ability to give them superhuman durability besides [[Charles Atlas Superpower]].
** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] with the Third and Fourth Raikage. Mabui can only use her ability on inanimate objects and the Raikages because it will tear apart and kill anyone else.
* Characters in the ''[[Blame]]''-[[Verse]] suffer massive physical trauma on a regular basis, then opt to walk it off. Justified since a vast majority of the cast are ancient, hyper-advanced cyborgs [[Feel No Pain|who view lost limbs with the same nonchalance we would a paper cut]].
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''
** [[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's|Yusei Fudo]] has survived the most non-duel beatings, including being bombarded with scrap metal, numerous electrocutions, having shrapnel the size of a dinner plate lodged into his gut, surviving an explosion followed by a 10 plus story drop down a chasm, and just getting up and walking away. And if you see all of his crashes, [[Badass Longcoat|Jack's]] a close second in this Title Race.
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'''Batgirl:''' I... grew. }}
* Subverted to tragic effect in an issue of ''[[Elf Quest]]'', where a couple of boys from a human tribe throw a stone from a sling to knock an elf off of a high tree branch, believing that elves are indestructible. They're not. The elf breaks his back. {{spoiler|The elves ''do'' have magical healers, but the injured elf is found and killed by the boys' grown-up relatives.}} [[It Gets Worse|And that's not all.]]
* [[Daredevil]]. One of the more memorable examples would be the time when he not only survives taking casual slaps from the [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|Hulk]], but [[Up to Eleven|keeps getting back up to confront the not-so-jolly-green giant again]]. Not surprisingly, this trait was one of the things that Frank Miller left as his legacy with the character.
* Often prominent with ''[[The Punisher]]'', particularly as written by [[Garth Ennis]].
** At one point, the title character was seen walking upright with a stabbed liver. The irony of this is that Ennis claims to hate powered superheroes, while constantly [[Badass Normal|playing up all-human characters]] with [[Charles Atlas Superpower|superhuman feats]].
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* Tallulah Black from ''[[Jonah Hex]]'' has survived things like being shot in the head, being horribly mutilated, and {{spoiler|having a baby cut out of her}}. And of course, Hex himself has gone through all of the above (except the last bit) and more ''many'' times, and with only 19th century frontier medicine (sometimes!) available to bring him back.
* [[Sgt. Rock]] often takes a hell of a beating. This trope also applies, unsurprisingly, to his [[Arch Enemy]], "The Iron Major".
* [[Taskmaster]]. Neither getting rammed by a speeding car, nor shot repeatedly, nor being kicked in the face by an enraged [[Spider-Man]] so hard that his body punches an economy-sized hole through the (in all likelihood heavily armoured) wall of the armoury in his hideout/gym will do more than slow him down momentarily.
* In ''Cruelty'', Reis Northcotte is bloodied by a punch and [[Groin Attack|kneed in the groin]], but shows no pain. {{spoiler|This tips off the school nurse that Reis is [[Functional Addict|drugged to the gills.]]}}
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* ''[[Three Stooges]]'' Curly is famous for his harder-than-average head. In various shorts, Moe would use a saw or a pickaxe on Curly's cranium, only to find that the points of said tools bent afterward.
* Captain Kirk in the [[Star Trek (film)|new movie]] takes some pretty serious beatings: in approximately a single day, he gets the everliving crap beaten out of him by Romulans before Sulu saves his butt, nearly falls to his death on Vulcan trying to save Sulu's butt, nearly eaten by two monsters on an ice planet, Spock kicks his ass and nearly strangles him to death, then the Romulans beat the everliving crap out of him yet again. And yet he's still standing.
** One might hand-wave this away with some off-screen future medical tech (which conveniently leaves the rugged bruises and abrasions alone).
* [[No Name Given|The Narrator]] in ''The Perfect Sleep''. Although he does get sliced and shot, mostly he just gets punched...''a lot'': He gets beaten to a bloody pulp five times during the course of one night by five different groups of highly motivated thugs, yet somehow remains functional enough to kill most of them and make it to the [[Final Battle]] with [[The Don|Nikolai]]. In the [[Shirtless Scene]], we see he has hundreds of horrific scars from years of abuse--as his drug-dosing doctor pal calls it, "the tapestry of pain". His ability to withstand pain and death is pretty much supernatural, as he admits himself:
{{quote|''Walter's boys just gave me a beating that will have ''them'' waking up sore in the morning. I should be on death’s door. Walter thinks so. [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|And you probably think so too.]] ''}}
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* In Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'', ultra [[Badass]] [[Heroic Sociopath]] Karsa Orlong has one of these. In ''[[The Bonehunters]]'' (book 6), he gets repeatedly mauled, cut, stabbed and bitten by a giant monster, and ultimately walks away with a slight wince and the scowl he always wears. This is somewhat justified by Karsa's being far more than a mortal human.
* In ''[[The Culture|Consider Phlebas]]'' by [[Iain Banks]], the Idirans are revealed to be incredibly resilient to damage. One member of the species is apparently killed, and a fairly [[Genre Savvy|sensible]] member of the protagonist's crew decides to make sure of it by putting the barrel of his laser rifle into the Idiran's eye and torching off a good portion of its head. Turns out that this isn't nearly enough to keep an Idiran down, leading to the book's eventual [[Downer Ending]].
* Quidditch, from ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'', is arguably an example. It's specifically mentioned that the worst injuries players have suffered are broken bones, in a sport that involves heavy iron balls knocking people off broomsticks 50 feet in the air. Of course, some fans have in turn suggested that wizards have a (nonstated) resistance to physical injury. Note that it's the worst that's happened ''at Hogwarts'', according to Oliver Wood. When Harry asks him if anyone's ever died playing Quidditch, Wood responds, "Never at Hogwarts", which seems to imply that fatalities have occurred elsewhere.
* It's a more minor example than most of these, but the [[Badass Crew|four Aurek Seven]] stormtroopers in ''[[Outbound Flight|Survivor's Quest]]'' should count. Two of them fight for and protect two unarmored officers against a large number of Vagaari armed with blasters and charrics. Their armor is good, the blasters are fifty years old and have a weak charge, and charrics aren't designed to pierce this armor, but there are a ''lot'' of Vagaari. By the time the other two show up it is mentioned that their chestplates aren't white anymore, they're having trouble standing and walking, the nonhuman stormtrooper is forgetting to translate his responses to commands into Basic, and the other isn't responding at all, and yet they're still shooting, still [[Taking the Bullet|taking the blaster bolt]]. That's how Zahn writes stormtroopers. They take a lot of damage, shoot well, and never give up.
* [[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]. Seriously. In ''Fool Moon'' alone, he gets chin-decked, shot in the shoulder, pistol-whipped, beaten with a tire-iron, slammed into various walls, savaged by a werewolf, knocked out by overuse of magic, stomped to a pulp, duct-taped to a pillar from which he rips himself free, tossed over a wall, dropped out of a moving car on the Interstate, and tossed down into a 20-foot pit, yet still manages to use powerful magic, climb hand-over-hand up a 20-foot rope, and otherwise kick the living shit out of the bad guy by the end. His friend Murphy also somehow manages to climb up a rope and rapid-fire a .38 mere hours after sustaining a compound fracture to her right arm. And that's just in Book 2!
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** Day 8: Superficial knife wound early in the season. Serious stab wound in the final hours. Didn't seem too bad at first but as Jack walks away from the wall he's leaning on there is a very serious bloodstain on the wall. Shot in the final episode and even survives a serious car wreck before the end.
* A humorous example would be Tim Taylor from ''[[Home Improvement]]'', who despite his tendency for stupidity and [[Lampshade Hanging]] about being notorious at the local hospital, never receives scars or injuries of any severity.
* The companions on ''[[Doctor Who]]'', almost all of whom are human, are put through the physical and emotional wringer nearly every single time they step out of the TARDIS, yet are perfectly fine the moment they step back in. The Doctor himself partially justifies this by being a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]], but considering the things he's been through, it's amazing he can still walk.
** The End of Time. {{spoiler|Never mind the fatal radiation poisoning, the fall from the Vinvocci ship should have had him ready for his next regeneration.}}
** Jack Harkness, who keeps dying and getting better. Whatever keeps him tethered to life is Made of Iron.
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* ''[[Farscape]]''
** The series has an entire ''race'' of Made of Iron's, the Scarrans. To drop just one takes [[More Dakka|a whole lot of firepower]]: God help you if you run into more than one of them.
** Ditto [[Magnificent Bastard|Scorpius]]: not only is he half-Scarran, but he also wears body armour for anything his body can't deal with. Add to that his own impressive willpower, and he's damn near unstoppable. And even if it looks like you've somehow managed to kill him, well, chances are he [[Crazy Prepared|planned ahead]] enough to be back again in a fortnight. Although there is [[Achilles' Heel|his coolant system]], which has been attacked by both Crichton (who sabotaged it) and Emperor Staleek (who tore the whole mechanism out of Scorpy's skull with his bare hands). To their mutual annoyance, Scorpius survived both.
* The pilot episode of ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]]'' features a comic relief [[Mook]] named Pete, who ends up getting shot. The producers liked the actor's performance so much that they brought him back, explaining that he had recovered after getting hit in the gut. Then they decided to just go with it and had him survive the likes of Chinese throwing star and pitchfork attacks.
* Ricky has been repeatedly shot on ''[[Trailer Park Boys]]'', often by accident, although always in a non-vital area. The worst damage he usually suffers is to his pride.
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* In several occasions in ''[[Star Trek TOS|Star Trek]]'' with Spock, whose Vulcan physiology was used as a kind of [[Plot Armor|armour]]. For example, in the Season 2 episode "The Apple" he is shot full of poisoned thorns and later struck full on by a bolt of lightning, both of which killed [[Red Shirt|Redshirts]] instantly. Not justified, as on many other occasions he is shown to be fairly vulnerable.
* Rick in ''[[The Walking Dead (TV series)|The Walking Dead]]'' has ''feet'' Made of Iron. He hobbles out of a hospital loading dock down metal mesh work stairs, wanders around a city, and rides a bike (pedals have some pretty big protrusions and ridges for traction) all completely barefoot. Granted, he probably has other things on his mind, but still... ow.
* Averted in ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' in the episode "Personal", Marty Deeks {{spoiler|is shot at the beginning of the ep and while he does manage to struggle out of his hospital bed near the end, he's bleeding through his bandages, and collapses once the danger is past}}.
* ''[[Fringe]]'': If there's anything that will take Olivia Dunham down for more than about half an episode, some very determined people haven't found it yet. Although when she was in a car accident caused by {{spoiler|William Bell pulling her into the Alternate Universe}}, she did take a few episodes to recover fully, even needing to walk with a cane for awhile.
* In one episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', Aaron Hotchner ''gets blown up'' and is still together enough to attempt first aid on a severely wounded colleague and help get her to hospital even though no first responders will help him for fear of being the target of a second wave of attacks; he collapses briefly at the hospital, but is soon heard from fretfully demanding his clothes, after which he goes with the rest of his team to hunt down the bombers, even though he's still half-deaf from the first blast. The Reaper should have done a little research: if a bomb couldn't slow Hotch down for long, severe exhaustion plus a dozen or so stab wounds were never going to do more than keep him in bed for a few days...
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{{quote|"I won an Olympic Gold Medal with a ''broken freakin' neck''."}}
* Japanese female wrestlers can take piledrivers, powerbombs, and DDT's from the top rope onto steel chairs and tables, ''several times in the same match''.
* [[The Undertaker]]. At Elimination Chamber 2010, Taker was making his way to the ring in his usual grand fashion (Smoke, fireballs, really slow walk, etc.). Undertaker did his usual pause at the top of the ramp, and was engulfed in flames by an errant fireball. Playing it off as being [[Incredibly Lame Pun|fired up]], he ran to the ring, and proceeded to wrestle an entire Elimination Chamber match. He then lost his World Heavyweight Championship to [[Chris Jericho]], but nobody's perfect.
* [[Kayfabe]] example: [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] uses a forklift to drop a car with [[Triple H]] inside from a great height to end Survivor Series 2000. Triple H returns the next week with a bandage.
* Wouldn't you believe it but Zack Ryder has become one. In the month of January 2012, he's been assaulted by Kane in ways that other wrestlers his size would be dead by now. He's been dropped from ten feet in the air, had three powerbombs on his cracked ribs, got chokeslammed through the stage before ''finally'' having to be put away with a Tombstone Piledriver by Kane at the Royal Rumble before he has to be put out for a while.
* [[Chris Jericho]] has only suffered two serious injuries to his body in his entire life. One was a broken arm caused by his own stupidity (practicing dives without a mat). The second was a herniated disk, which he suffered training during ''[[Dancing With the Stars]]''. Keep in mind he's been in more Elimination Chambers than anyone else, been in more than a few brutal TLC matches, worked for several promotions that specialized in [[Garbage Wrestling]], and works a hard-hitting, high-risk style in which several peers have destroyed their own bodies.
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* ''[[GURPS]]'' suggests a lot of Ablative Damage Reduction to replicate this. Basically it acts just like [[Hit Points]] except that you won't flinch, won't bleed and won't be "really" hurt until it has been worn away by, say, getting hit by a truck and then shot several times.
* The ''[[Serenity]]'' RPG turns Malcolm Reynolds' aforementioned toughness (see Live Action TV above) into the character trait "Tough as Nails". It gives an HP bonus.
* ''[[Rifts]]'' Aftermath reintroduces readers to the character of Julian the First, the leader of the infamous ''Juicer Uprising'', some five years back. This is at least ''four'' years since Julian's body was ''supposed'' to have literally burnt out to a flaming (ultimately ''exploding'') skeleton as a side effect of the [[Psycho Serum]] he enhanced it with. True, his body is nowhere near his peak condition, but the sheer fact that he is still alive in the first place is nothing short of miraculous.
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** The trend continues in the movie sequel and remake ''Advent Children'' and ''Advent Children Complete'' when two Turks get captured and tortured by the villains (but still live to make an appearance near the end). Meanwhile the two remaining Turks (Reno and Rude) get beaten by the big bad, hit in the face by a metal rod, being pummeled by the henchmen (which included being thrown from the top of a building) and {{spoiler|falling a great distance from a crashing helicopter onto pavement}} but being appearing perfectly fine in the next scene to attempt a near-kamikaze moment with dynamite (which they also survive and appear at the end of the movie unharmed). The most injuries seen on the Turks were a few bandages, a small cut and a bloody nose (the two latter which were gone a few scenes later).
** Cloud Strife, the main protagonist can also be seen as made from iron seeing how he can survive several deadly falls with nothing more than skinned knees. {{spoiler|Not to mention being stabbed through the chest by Sephiroth.}}
** Basch fon Ronsenburg in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. He's betrayed and locked in a dungeon for two years, hanging from his scaffolding by his arms. After he's rescued by the other characters, Basch is visibly tortured - the bruises and red marks on his shoulders are absolutely horrifying to look at. He finds a corpse and loots its clothes, ties his hair back, finds his former friends and gets to ''work''.
** Galuf from ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', especially during his one-on-one with the Big Bad. Bring his HP to zero? Eh, 'tis merely a flesh wound, he fights on undaunted. {{spoiler|Until the adrenaline rush wears off, anyway, at which point the injuries catch up with him and he suffers a [[Critical Existence Failure]]}}.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]''
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* Dr. Wily's ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' incarnation defies imminent death at the end of each game in which he appears. He was at the center of a large explosion in the first game. In the third, he had his mind drained by a machine that promptly self-destructed with an explosion large enough to sink the entire island on which Wily's base was stationed. He somehow regained his mind and reappeared in the fifth game, in which he walks into a (exploding) computer room based [[Convection, Schmonvection|crater of a currently-erupting volcano]] and actually uses the computer while it is in the process of exploding. In the sixth and final game of the franchise, Wily stands in the center of an explosion that levels a large portion of town, yet is said in the epilogue to have survived with only a few scratches.
** Being Made of Iron seems to be hereditary, as Wily's son, {{spoiler|Dr. Regal, manages to survive high-voltage electrocution and subsequent fall off of a very high roof}}. He goes on to survive the same explosion and eruption that Wily survived after having his mind and memories completely drained.
* Everything that ever lived in any ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' game. In the first games you have to shoot any human being for minutes for it to die, not because they are hard to hit. Every. Single. Shot. Is a hit. Count the amounts of bullets you have to put through each enemy (taking into account the player uses tow pistols at the same time. You'll be surprised how much stronger than 50 cent each little monkey in the jungle is.
* Almost every [[First-Person Shooter]] player character falls into this by default, able to soak up gunfire like a sponge. This is more [[Rule of Fun]] than anything, though -- if he were humanly durable, then the game would be unrepentantly hard.
** Perhaps the best example is also the first example, the one and only [[Doom|Doomguy]], who manages to survive everything hell can throw at him.
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*** There are other aversions, but in general, these are games where the [[One-Hit Kill]] is [[Game Breaker|much too easy]]. Exhibit A: ''[[Time Killers]]''.
** There are some ''ridiculous'' stage effects in the ''[[Dead or Alive]]'' series that can range from being thrown into explosive containers to literally dropping over 10 stories below. Worst that happens is a KO and otherwise everyone just gets up like nothing even happened.
* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' the characters are more likely made of [[Living Toys|plastic.]]
* An interesting example in ''[[Modern Warfare]]''. Most of the time in game, especially on Veteran and online this trope is averted; while you can take one to three shots standing without much issue, any more than that and you'll have just as much a chance of standing as the card tower you're trying to build before the hurricane hits, metaphorically. However, in the Campaign, this trope is played [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesomely straight]] when {{spoiler|your character, Soap, survives, in order, falling off of a waterfall, having his head bashed into the roof of a car, being stabbed in the chest, crawling to a gun with said knife in chest, being stomped on the face with a boot, and finally pulling the knife out of his chest and tossing it into the face of General Shepherd. ''Damn.''}}
* The hillbillies of Point Lookout in ''[[Fallout 3]]'', who despite being dressed in overalls take ''much'' more damage than the [[Powered Armor]]-clad stormtroopers of the Enclave, and also dish out more damage, despite the Enclave mooks wielding high-tech energy weapons, and the hillbillies wielding axes and breech-loading shotguns.
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* For a murder game, ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' characters seem to be surprisingly resistant to bullets not taken to the head or heart. {{spoiler|Manfred von Karma was shot in the shoulder and carried the bullet around for ''ten years'' just so nobody would find out about it}} and {{spoiler|Lang gets shot in the leg while protecting Shih-na and just keeps walking around afterwards without so much as a limp.}}
** {{spoiler|Wocky Kitaki}} ''does'' get shot in the heart, and survives for over six months!
** [[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney|Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]] himself seems to be borderline invincible:
*** He ate a poisoned ''glass'' necklace (and even mentions ''chewing'' it) without suffering any visible pain.
*** He was electrocuted by a stun gun and stood up again just a minute later, unharmed (whereas Maya still felt the aftereffects a day later).
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* From the same people, ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' has several characters who stretch the limits of survivability, even without the player character's death-reversing powers.
* In ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero'', the ADFX-02 Morgan certainly doesn't look or perform like the properly armoured A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt II, but can take at least six missile hits to down when most enemy planes go down in two. Even then, it still manages to pull off a [[Single-Stroke Battle]]-like flypast on Cipher's plane before it finally explodes.
* In ''[[Airforce Delta]] Strike'', some player aircraft have 4000+ hit points.
* [[Lugaru]] averts this. A few well-aimed blows to the head can deal with most enemies (or ''you'') and the staff can ''kill'' with one swing (again, you too).
* Wario in the ''[[Wario Land]]'' games will be put through every condition possible (to name a few, zombification, lit on fire, spun up into a ball of string, being trapped in a snowball, and more.) and he just shakes it off. All of them are also required to solve many of the puzzles.
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** Shepard [[Up to Eleven|turns this up to eleven]] in [[Mass Effect 3]] when {{spoiler|s/he is blasted by Harbinger's main gun on the way to the Citadel during the endgame. Bear in mind this is a gun that fires molten metal at near-lightspeed, and it has been shown to destroy dreadnoughts in other appearances. Shepard just gets up and keeps going, albeit with major injuries.}}
* ''[[Suikoden II]]'': Luca Blight ends up fighting eighteen heroes working in tandem, defeating at least twelve of them, and has to have half an army shoot him in order to weaken him enough to make a duel against him even remotely fair.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' Bowser, definitely. From being [[Super Mario Bros.|thrown]] [[Super Mario 64|into]] [[New Super Mario Bros Wii|lava]], [[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story|crushed by two castles and a train]], and [[Super Mario Galaxy 2|knocked into a sun followed by a black hole]] among much more, the sheer amount of things he's survived with barely a scratch on him is amazing.
** ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'' lampshades this in his playable sections. He has literally infinite lives.
** Perhaps the Mario Brothers aren't the only ones who can benefit from One-up Mushrooms.
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** Bun-Bun has shrugged off attacks that would kill an ordinary human being, made all the more impressive by the fact that he's a ''rabbit''. At one point he was actually eaten alive by an alien, and simply burst his way out of the alien's stomach and proceeded to kick its butt. Bun-Bun has an origin even he is not clear about; he was bought from a Magical Store.
** Oasis might also count. She's been through many [[No One Could Survive That]] moments, including two explosions and a sniper bullet to the head. How she does this is not yet explained, and may or may not be a superpower she was given by Dr. Steve. Her "sister" Kusari has also survived being stabbed through the chest and even ''decapitated'', again by means unexplained.
* The entire cast of ''[[8-Bit Theater
** One member managed to survive having '''Australia''' dropped on them. That one member? The '''''[[Squishy Wizard|SQUISHY FREAKING WIZARD]]'''''.
** Fighter himself has survived several stabs to the back of the head courtesy of black mage and it isn't likely he's ever felt a thing. Hell, he even had one used as a lightning rod to channel a Lightning Spell directly into his brain. That particular spell actually INCREASED his intelligence instead of dealing any damage whatsoever!
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** And coming completely out of left field is quiet, unassuming, [[Mauve Shirt]] Airman Third Class Axel Higgs. He gets slammed into a stone wall hard enough to leave a man-shaped dent, brushes it off, {{spoiler|then cuts the insane clank that did the slamming with a wrench [[One-Hit Kill|in a single swipe.]]}} Although we're starting to get hints that he's not quite what he seems...
* [[The Ace|Ms. Jones]] from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''. Trick one: [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=380 a sword bounces from her face]. Trick two: [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=721 place a palm on a wall.] Close the fist, excavating what concrete happened to fit under the fingers. Who she is wasn't revealed yet, only that she's ''not'' a robot and [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=515 probably] not a "normal" magic-user either. We already saw one god and one valkyrie at the Court, though... And remember, androids aren't robots, and golems don't count as robots either.
* [[VG Cats]] parodied this with (amusingly enough, considering the Trope Picture) Zoro from ''[[One Piece]]''. Zoro blows off some physical damage taken by earlier attacks... only for Chopper to tell him that he's taken such internal damage from the attacks that [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=226 most of his colon has to be removed].
* The title character of ''[[Princess Pi]]''. Watch as she survives [http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=5 an explosion], then ''two'' [http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=6 throws to the ground], then [http://www.platypuscomix.net/princesspi/index.php?issue=1&page=7 a gasoline fire].
* ''[[Memoria]]'': [http://memoria.valice.net/?p=303 The children realize their injuries should have been worse.]
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** Pelvanida experiments are ''extremely'' hard to kill.
** [[Badass Normal|Alfred]] shrugged off at least two point blank gut shots from a pistol and continued engaging [[Scary Black Man|Marcus]] in a fist fight.
** Marcus is an ordinary human Dragonstorm agent. He was capable of taking on two beings with [[Super Strength]], even after he had been punched several times by them.
* Corbin from ''[[Splinter Cell Extinction]]'' gets surrounded by a SWAT team, sedated, takes a [[Magic Antidote]], his [[Mission Control]] provides him a distraction via [[Hollywood Hacking]] that leads to a [[Darkened Building Shootout]], Corbin gets shot in the chest while totally murdering everyone in the room, then beats the crap out of four more armed commandos and escapes.
* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] can get her head exploded and only need happy pills to cure the minor headache she got.
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* [[Truth in Television]]: It's possible to survive being stabbed in a non-vital area because the damage is mostly localized, so first aid and adequate medical care can allow someone to live without any detrimental effects (beyond the time it takes to heal). Bullets which are not designed to expand upon impact also can be survived, since the wound cavity is only as large as the bullet is..
* In February 2008, British marine Matthew Croucher [[Jumping on a Grenade|jumped on a grenade]], was blown across the compound, and then got up with only a concussion. His backpack apparently took "most" of the blast, but still.
** The USMC's Jacklyn Lucas smothered two grenades (one was a dud) with his body on Iwo Jima in 1945. The 17-year-old had no body armour. He died in 2008.
*** Lucas also survived jumping out of a plane when both his parachutes failed to open on a training exercise.
* While running for his third term of office, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin as he was on his way to deliver a speech. Roosevelt, never one to be deterred by something so trivial as a bullet wound, went on to deliver the entire fifty-page speech while bleeding from the gut, bothering only to add the following preface:
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**** He also kept a badger as a pet. Not a trained one, considering most people complained of it running around savaging visitors ankles.
*** According to some, he took up judo after he was blinded boxing, because it wasn't as rough.
** In short, there's a reason why ''[[Cracked.com]]'' has him as the most badass manliest-man ever.
* During the Hundred Years War between England and France, English King Henry V was supposedly '''hit in the face with an arrow'''. He not only survived both the impact of the arrow and the surgery to remove it from his face, he proceeded to get right back up and return to beating the hell out of the French until he seized the Crown of France.
** It was at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 when Henry was 16 and still only a prince. John Bradmore, the doctor who removed the arrow, wrote about it -- "struck by an arrow next to his nose on the left side"; "The which arrow entered at an angle (ex traverso), and after the arrow shaft was extracted, the head of the aforesaid arrow remained in the furthermost part of the bone of the skull for the depth of six inches." The aftercare took several weeks. Henry won the battle, which was against English rebels.
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* Similarly, Moose. If you're driving anything smaller than a loaded transport truck in the Canadian Shield and hit a moose, it will walk away. You will need a new car. (They've been known to walk away from collisions with transport trucks too, but less often).
* [[wikipedia:John Levitow|Airman First Class John Levitow, USAF]], lowest ranking airman to ever win the Medal of Honor. He was a loadmaster on an [[Death From Above|AC-47]] [[More Dakka|Gunship]] over Vietnam when his plane was hit by a stray artillery shell. Riddled with shrapnel, he saw a similarly wounded crewmate at risk of falling out of the open cargo door of the damaged plane. He crawled over to the crewmate and dragged him to safety, only to realize that a magnesium flare, used for night-time illumination of the battlefield, had fallen from its rack and begun to ignite, while rolling around on the floor amidst the cans of ammo used for the guns aboard the plane. Levitow threw himself upon the flare and body-dragged it to the door, where he threw it free of the plane. He died more than thirty years later of cancer.
* [[wikipedia:Simo Hayha|Simo Hayha]], a Finnish sniper in the Winter War (and current page image for [[Cold Sniper]]) spent months in severe winter conditions (-20 to -40 degrees Celsius) hiding in snow killing Russian soldiers and officers using his bolt-action rifle with iron sights and a sub-machine gun. The Russians dubbed him the White Death and often employed artillery fire, tanks and counter snipers against him to no avail. His confirmed kill count was 705 when he was finally hit with a headshot by an enemy soldier. He recovered and died of natural causes by the age of 97.
** [[Badass|And he killed the guy who shot him in the head a few moments later.]]
* [[wikipedia:Tardigrade|Tardigrade, also known as "Water Bear"]] is the toughest animal on Earth. 1 millimeter in length, it can be found in the Antarctic, on the summits of the Himalayas, in the deep sea as well as in your backyard. The list of conditions it can withstand includes near absolute zero temperatures (1 Kelvin) as well as temperatures well over the water boiling point (100 degree Celsius), pressure ranging from 0 (vacuum) to 1200 atmospheres. It can also survive more than 10 years of dehydration and 1000 times the doses of radiation lethal to a human. In 2007 tardigrades were flown to the Earth's orbit and exposed to outer space conditions for 10 days. They survived.
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* [http://www.marines.mil/unit/imef/Pages/MarineabsorbsIEDblast,walksaway.aspx Cpl. Matt Garst] stepped on an IED, which blew up, sending him flying 15 feet. Immediately standing up, he yelled at his squad, "What the f-- are you looking at? Get on the cordon!"
* There was a newspaper article about a cute little kitten that liked to play in the laundry basket, hiding beneath the clothes. One day, it was laundry time and the kitten ended up inside the [[Nightmare Fuel|washer machine]]. The poor thing spend the whole cycle in there before its owner heard the screams and came to the rescue. What happened to the little kitten? Absolutely nothing, just the shock.
* In 2010 a Frenchman fell over 75 feet into the Grand Canyon but somehow survived.
* [[wikipedia:Deinococcus radiodurans|These]] [[wikipedia:Thermococcus gammatolerans|bacteria]] are [[I Love Nuclear Power|immune to radiation]]. Several other animals are capable of surviving crazy high and low temperatures and pressures that would kill most anything else; these are known as [[wikipedia:Extremophile|extremophiles]], and the most famous may be the [[wikipedia:Tardigrade|water bear]].
* Subverted with the [[wikipedia:RMS Titanic|RMS Titanic]]. It was claimed to be "unsinkable" by its owners. Pretty [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Ironic]], huh?
* [[World War II]] Airman [[wikipedia:Henry E. Erwin|Henry Erwin]]. A phosphorus flare exploded prematurely in his aircraft, leaving him blinded and burned. He knew that if the flare stayed where it was, it would burn through the floor of the aircraft and set off the bombs in the cargo bay, killing all 11 people on board. So he picked up the burning flare ''with his bare hands'', crawled into the cockpit with it, and threw it out the window, saving everyone. He received the Medal of Honor for his bravery. Doctors expected him to die from his horrific injuries, but he recovered and lived to age 80.
* Colloquially, NHL players who make it through a season without an injury are referred to as "Iron Men".
* Brett Michaels from ''Poison''. You don't survive an emergency appendectomy, a brain hemorrhage, '''AND''' a hole in the heart all within six weeks if you're not this.
* RAF pilot Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader lost both his legs in a fairly horrific aerobatics accident, but recovered and tried to return to work as a pilot on the grounds that his two tin legs were perfectly good for the job. He was retired on medical grounds, but returned to the service as a fighter pilot in [[World War II]], becoming a recognised fighter ace. When he was forced to bail out over occupied France and captured as a prisoner of war, he made so many escape attempts that the Germans actually threatened to take away his prosthetics unless he stopped. [[No Sell|He didn't stop]].
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