Comic Book Characters Who Have Died The Most In Marvel, Ranked

Fans of Marvel comics have a peculiar relationship with character deaths. A handful of times every year, writers kill off their most popular characters while they’re at the height of their popularity. Privileged fans will often react in heartbroken emotion, exclaiming that all is lost. Other fans who see these deaths coming as they are scheduled far in advance through inside information will usually react with just as much disdain and contempt for the emotional fanboys’ responses, instead of focusing on the story itself. It’s a sad process to go through when someone beloved dies violently. But it’s how things work and how we should treat them.

With that being said, most of the major characters in the Marvel comics have died and resurrected several times. These are some of them, ranked in ascending order –

Thor

The God of Thunder, AKA Thor, lives a life that most of us will probably never get to experience. His life is full of adventure and excitement, but it also has its fair share of heartache and despair because even though he’s immortal, he still experiences death on several occasions. Thor has died in the past quite a few times during multiple comic book events like Fear Itself, Secret Wars, Death metal and The Korvac Saga. Other times he’s even been reborn after dying at the hands of Ragnarok or due to some kind of mishap with one of his adversaries like Throg or Doomsday.

Hawkeye

While many of Hawkeye’s deaths fall into the ‘Avengers Checklist,’ some are a little bit more specific and interesting. In the Korvac Saga, his sixth demise puts him in a situation where he must blow up a Kree ship to save innocent lives. It’s through this heroic sacrifice that he survives, but at a great personal loss. Then years later his seventh death results in what is possibly one of the more heart-wrenching moments in Marvel comic history – when an enraged Scarlet Witch kills Clint by shooting him with an arrow because of all the destruction her powers have caused, including wiping out Clint’s new life and family. After losing those things that mattered most to him, Hawkeye dies in Wanda’s arms and his body is left lying at her feet.

Spider-Man

Our beloved Web-Slinging superhero has been killed several times over the years. In fact, he’s been killed by Doctor Doom, Kulan Gath, Thanos and Morlun – just to name a few. However, he always seems to be brought back to life with some new power or ability added on, whether within the comic book world or in the real world through film. Perhaps Spider-Man dying is a running theme throughout his major stories? After all, it is hard to tell how many of these resurrections were actually done within the Spider-Man universe or whether they were simply done for the film.

Captain America

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, becomes a comic book death machine pretty early on. Let’s focus on his most famous comic book death. This occurred during a major Marvel crossover that resulted in Captain America being killed by supervillain assassin Crossbones. It happened when he was defending Sharon Carter to save her from a shot meant for Captain America himself. Iron Man blamed himself for this event, but little did he know that Captain America wasn’t dead at all. Soon after the Civil War storyline Captain America showed up alive again. However, it was one of those times when Captain America’s body was taken over by his successor.