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Healing Factor / Marvel Universe

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Marvel Universe

  • Blade heals far faster than humans, and even faster than some other superhumans with lower level healing factors. Injuries such as stab and slash wounds take care of themselves just fine.
  • Captain America (at least the Steve Rogers version) has a rather...unpredictable version, thanks to the super soldier serum. He heals rapidly from most injuries, but can still be killed if a wound is fatal - except for the time he was shot in the head, declared dead, and woke up in the morgue a short time later revealing that his body had gone into a shock-like state to repair the injury. He's rather weak (compared to his normal state) but in good enough shape to go chasing after the ones who shot him.
    • The idea seems to be that he can heal from any wound that doesn't instantly stop his heart or make him bleed out too fast, possibly making some amount of sense because the serum is in his blood.
  • Courier of Marvel Comics has the ability to regrow body parts, but can't create matter, so when he had to regrow a finger he shrank by one inch.
  • The 1990s comic book hero Darkhawk doesn't exactly have a healing factor, but he can instantly repair all the damage to his android form by shifting back to his human form, which sends his armor back to the spaceship where it can be almost instantly repaired with nanotechnology, allowing him to summon it back at full strength. Injuries to Darkhawk's human body couldn't be healed this way, however.
  • Deadpool:
    • Deadpool got Wolverine's healing factor from the same place Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton, but since he had cancer before getting it, his healing factor caused the tumors to grow out of control and made him horribly scarred and insane (he thinks he's a character in a comic book).
    • He has noted that he couldn't come back from the silly lengths that Wolverine has managed — although he can regrow fast enough that his friend Cable would psychically make his head explode for a joke.
    • Deadpool's blown himself up and then been dragged back to the X-Men Mansion by Colossus in a sack of body parts, complaining all the way. He's been liquefied and drunk by Cable. And he's decapitated on a fairly regular basis.
    • During the Secret Invasion, Deadpool actually weaponized his healing factor by letting the Skrulls use it to make their next generation of Super Skrulls. We then find out that if it wasn't for Deadpool's deadly cancer constantly killing him, his healing factor would be completely out of control. The Super Skrulls keep generating more and more body mass until they explode.
    • Deadpool's daughter Ellie has a variation. After death, her body "reboots" back into the age when her mutant ability first emerged, with her memories intact.
  • All Ghost Riders have a pretty insane one, though it doesn’t always/fully extend to their human forms. For instance, Johnny Blaze was once killed by a gunshot to the head, but in his Rider form can have his limbs or even his entire skull destroyed, and then regenerate them in seconds. However, having his skull destroyed did seemingly knock out or disable Johnny, giving Zarathos full control. As a general rule of thumb, unless a weapon is forged in Heaven, it ain’t gonna do jack to a Rider.
  • Iceman could be considered to fit this trope — he once had a giant hole blown in his chest while in ice form. He was quite reasonably afraid of dying if he changed back but when he did it was as if the injury had never even happened in the first place.
  • In Immortal Iron Fist, this is one of the explicit abilities of the Cobra Warrior of Peng Lai. Old Cobra once reversed his aging to become a young man again, One Armed Cobra regenerated his long-missing arm, and Fat Cobra managed to grow back both of his legs and repair his severed spinal cord after a fateful encounter with the multi-headed dragon Xiang Yao.
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • Hulk has, at various times, shown a healing factor that makes Wolverine's pale in comparison at times, including having all his skin ripped off and regrown in seconds (partly justified in that drawing mass and energy from another dimension is explicitly part of his powers). More specifically, the Hulk's healing factor is much like his strength level in that it's tied into his emotional state. The Hulk not only gets stronger as he gets angrier, he also heals faster. Apparently, Hulk's healing is so fast that it took years for anybody to even notice it existed; he regenerates so quickly that no one could tell that attacks could actually damage him to begin with.
    • As Red She-Hulk, Betty Ross is capable of rapidly regenerating injuries such as after being impaled by Skaar's massive sword.
  • The Juggernaut has an incredible healing factor, once continuing to fight after being reduced to an angry skeleton. This is often not noted because, like the Hulk, he is incredibly difficult to injure in the first place, with only magic being really able to actually hurt him. So the only way you can really face off against him is to teleport him somewhere far away and hope he decides not to come back after you, or use Mind Control to make him go away.
  • Luke Cage heals faster than a normal human but can be harmed. Though good luck actually harming his unbreakable body.
  • Kamala Khan has a variant on this trope, thanks to her ability to alter her body. She learned this when her best friend's brother accidentally shot her when she was resembling the Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel and used it to revert to normal, healing in the process.
  • Minor Marvel villain Madcap also has a Bloodless Carnage variant of a healing factor, and he can still control his body parts if they're detached. In the words of his severed head:
    Madcap: I'm indestructible. No, that's not right... you can destruct me. What's the word for when, no matter how bad you Humpty my Dumpty, I Wolverine myself back together again?
  • Morbius was quite surprised to find out his transformation into a pseudo-vampire had given him accelerated healing, which he discovered after he was shot and woke up a little while later with the bullet hole gone. He can heal from a lot and does so faster than normal humans, but it definitely has its limits.
  • Mr. Immortal from the Great Lakes Avengers has a unique version: he always recovers from fatal injury. It's not shown how he'd cope with just normal grievous bodily harm, although this is rarely an issue—typically, he's facing villains who are more than happy to kill him. And if he was just really wounded, all he'd need to do is commit suicide ...
  • Mystique is implied to have a healing factor, or it may just be an extension of her shapeshifting; she's survived some very bloody battles against heroes like Wolverine, even being left alone afterward stranded in a desert, and still managing to return to society. It's kind of on the fence though and can vary from series to series.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Spidey is shown to have a limited version of this ability, although it seems more that he can just heal faster from injuries that any normal human can recover from, with bruises and sprains often disappearing only a day or two after Spidey is hurt. He certainly isn't Made of Iron to the extent that Wolverine and the Hulk are, however.
      • It's been explained that Spider-Man's body has gained some properties of a spider's exoskeleton. His outside gets the hits, and his insides stay relatively undamaged. That may not be how science works, but the "RADIOACTIVE SPIDER-BITE" people probably aren't too worried about the hard facts.
      • It was initially explained as the relative healing of a spider. And that makes no sense, because humans heal faster than spiders. The exoskeleton remark makes a bit more sense. It would make it harder to injure him, but it would affect his weight and movement. He would also have to shed it.
    • Curt Connors used lizard DNA to regrow his amputated right arm, which successfully gained him this power but also turned him into an unwilling villain. In the movie he heals from machine-gun fire and grows new limbs in seconds.
    • The Venom and Carnage symbiotes are close to immortal, where they can heal from anything but continual and ongoing exposure to high-pitched sounds. The Sentry once ripped Carnage in half (in outer space, no less) and he still somehow managed to come back. The hosts are more vulnerable—Cletus Kasady lost both his legs thanks to that, but when the symbiote returned to him he was able to walk about freely (though he had prosthetics in-between)—but still recover from most injuries as long as the symbiote is attached to them. One of Venom's hosts is the paraplegic Flash Thompson, who used the symbiote for limited periods (too long and the symbiote will start controlling his body and thoughts) but as long as he uses it he can walk just fine and is, in fact, a full-blown Super-Soldier.
    • Norman Osborn has this, given to him as a Retcon to explain how he came Back from the Dead—consequently, this means even impaling his heart with a large spiked object only requires time to recover from; the in-universe explanation is that he's had it ever since getting his powers but hadn't noticed since he had never been that badly injured before (he is Made of Iron and can shrug off small caliber bullets, so that helps a bit). It is unclear to what extent writers remember that he has this power—when fighting Spider-Man, he has since recovered from being hit by a bag of bombs and falling hundreds of stories to the ground while aflame (all at the same time), survived a point-blank explosion from Nitro the Living Bomb, being buried alive in a collapsed elevator shaft (along with Peter—Osborn recovered almost instantly, if he was badly injured at all, but Peter was in the hospital for days), and many, many savage beatings from Spider-Man including one that culminated in having his head smashed in with a lamppost, caving it into concrete—again, he recovered within days, if not hours, off-panel, and was in perfect health when we next saw him. Some stories, however, seem to suggest that he can be killed rather easily—Hawkeye, for instance, was going to shoot him with an arrow, and the plot seemed to imply that that would do the trick. Almost no story since his return explicitly mentions his healing factor by name either.
    • Itsy-Bitsy, from Spider-Man/Deadpool, has the combined powers of Spider-Man and Deadpool, including their combined healing factors. She first demonstrates with when Deadpool cuts off her hands with his monomolecular, Carbonadium laced katana and they almost fully regenerate before the originals hit the ground. It takes being atomized by a Plasma Breeder that imitates the conditions at the core of the sun to inflict meaningful damage and even then she completely regenerates six arms and everything from the waist down within what would have been half an hour tops and after suffering complete and total atomization she'd recovered from atoms to the size of a spider within less than 24 hours. She implicitly has some kind of Adaptive Abillity, as her limbs were larger and more spider-like following their atomization and her post atomization body is essentially a humanoid spider.
  • In his wolf form, Werewolf by Night can heal from just about anything, as long as it's not silver through the heart. His human doesn't get quite the same benefit.
  • X-Men:
    • Wolverine is the iconic Super Hero example. This has been subject to extreme Power Creep, Power Seep; he went from "very tough, but can be killed by a single lucky shot from a Humongous Mecha" to "survive being at ground zero of a nuke". (He managed to even regrow from a single droplet of blood that fell on a powerful Ancient Artifact once, but that was more a demonstration of the artifact's power than his own, and may have been hallucinatory anyway). An arc in his main book was written to tone this down — by the same writer who had written one of the more ridiculous examples, ironically enough. It exemplifies Voodoo Shark — he could battle the Angel of Death if ever he dies in order to return to life, having beaten him before, but apparently can no longer do this. The healing factor has multiple effects on Wolverine aside from just healing—it slows his aging to a crawl, it makes his senses superhumanly keen, and it keeps him from dying from heavy metal poisoning due to his his adamantium-laced skeleton and claws.
    • There's also Wolverine's Opposite-Sex Clone X-23, who has all of Wolverine's powers. Though the exact nature of her healing factor outside of Limbo has yet to be determined. It apparently has some limit (then again, she did take a direct hit from Nimrod). Wolverine's son Daken also inherited his father's healing factor.
    • Finally, Wolverine's arch-enemy Sabretooth had virtually the same power-set, including the healing factor. But all that was cut to an abrupt end thanks to Wolvie's anti-healing katana forged from the dark area of his soul. It was later revealed that Creed wasn't actually dead, what a shock.
    • Marvel seems to have made it a point to establish that all of the above can die from drowning and all but Logan (due to his adamantium skeleton) can die from beheading.
    • There was actually a time between Fatal Attractions (Marvel Comics) and Age of Apocalypse where Wolverine's healing factor was temporarily rendered useless thanks to. The power, having been overtaxed due to Magneto ripping the adamantium from his skeleton, was while Wolverine healed from his injuries the normal way.
    • Due to the nature of most children's shows, this can't be shown that effectively. X-Men: The Animated Series tries to, but it amounts to them needing less rest than everyone else; it's best shown on TV in X-Men: Evolution when Wolverine is shown to have broken his legs from a helicopter jump, and later on in Season 4 when he falls out of a plane.
    • Mr Sinister has a healing factor that puts the two of them to shame; he can recover from massive physical wounds, up to and including having his entire chest blown out, and Depending on the Writer he can even recover From a Single Cell, or at least from having his entire body reduced to liquid. He is essentially the T-1000 (though he predates him), and since he seemingly has no blood, Bloodless Carnage is in effect and his factor was portrayed in the animated series fairly blatantly.
    • Apocalypse, likewise, has a great healing factor, though not quite as broken as Sinister's. It appears to be an extension of his Celestial tech Powered Armor and Voluntary Shapeshifting, as he more or less appears to close any wound at will — which means, he consciously chooses to heal them, so it's not really a separate power and if he left them the wounds would probably heal at a normal rate, but with his powers he can do it in seconds. In general, this is limited to superficial-to-moderate injuries — he probably can't recover from, say, dismemberment — but things that would kill anyone else he can shrug off with a laugh. The fact that he also has Nigh-Invulnerability combined with Combo Platter Powers (including very strong personal Force Fields) means that doing him harm in the first place is a challenge in itself. He also pulls a Grand Theft Me every now and then, targeting especially powerful mutants when he can (regardless, the new host inherits his old powers), and can recover from near-death either by that or by draining energy from any minions he has infused with his technology.
  • Ultimate Marvel
    • The Ultimates
      • It's one of Captain America's powers. Steve comes out of the fight with Hulk with several broken bones and some bruises, but he mentions he'll be fine in a few days. Taken further in Ultimate Avengers 3, when his healing factor manages to undo being vampirized.
      • Herr Kleiser. Even being cut in half doesn't stop him, which is why they had to call in the Hulk, since only he could do enough damage to put him down.
    • Jessica Drew has it as well, in a small degree. In the All-New Ultimates she was drugged with a Fantastic Drug, but her advanced molecular makeup allowed her to survive it. She had to be hospitalized, but anyone else would have died.

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