If not for the Joker, this trope would be named Magneto Immunity, for the X-Men's premiere villain, who may hold the record for the highest number of sincere and permanent deaths, lobotomies, and depowerings of any villain in comic book history, but could no sooner be removed from X-Continuity than the Joker could from Batman. The fact that he often goes back and forth through the Heel–Face Revolving Door, and is seen as one of the most sympathetic and compelling characters in the Marvel Universe, doesn't help. Also, he has forcefields that have shrugged off blasts from the Phoenix.
Lampshaded in a story of West Coast Avengers where Magneto falls into a factory chimney (a la the Joker pic above) from a fight with the Avengers and the whole building blows up. One of the Avengers asks the rest of the group if they really believe Magneto to be dead; the response was a unanimous, "Naaaaah!"
One issue is a Lower-Deck Episode about a guy who has it out for Magneto for killing his brother. The issue starts with Magneto being considered absolutely finally dead by everyone but him, and he has to convince people that the anti-Magneto weaponry he wants created is actually needed. Surprise, surprise, Magneto is alive. As the point of the story was 'revenge is bad,' this guy actually gets the chance to kill Magneto but doesn't go through with it. Magneto was on the good side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door at the time, and so didn't do anything to him.
Every story featuring X-Men villain Apocalypse ends with him being finally killed off permanently. And this time we mean it. For now.
Mystique has been suffering from this in the last 5 years. No matter how many times she screws with them and how much Darker and Edgier and willing to kill the X-Men get, they always let Mystique escape.
Sabretooth beats even Mystique's example on this one. There's this sword, right? It's basically magical, and can cut through anything and no Healing Factor can do anything with the wounds it makes. An arc of Wolverine's solo comic ends with him relieving archnemesis Sabretooth of his head using this blade. We see him again soon enough... in Hell. In a battle in hell, Sabretooth gets his head lobbed off again. (It could happen to anyone once, but twice and you're just being careless.) With a magic hell sword SPECIALLY CRAFTED TO DESTROY SOULS. Farewell, Sabes. You were a great villain, and you'll be mi-what do you mean he's back alive and well in less than a year?note He was cloned, if you care. Apparently cloning someone regenerates the soul too, it seems. Despite not even Mr. Sinister's super-technology doing anything of the sort when he created Sabertooth clones in the past. Oh wait, no, Wolverine killed the clone. The real Sabretooth is alive and well. So clones get souls too. In the words of Futurama, "THAT JUST RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS!!!"
With X-Men comics taking Death Is Cheap to the limit even by comics standards, by now, nobody takes anybody's death seriously anymore, even in-universe because the writers could no longer keep the cast so epically Genre Blind as to have people hold funerals at every single No One Could Survive That! moment. Sure enough, the character always returns and nobody's that surprised. Heck, Siryn even refuses to accept that her dad passed away because of the X-Men's experience with resurrections! Beast even says it about the villain of the previous arc when it wasn't a bad guy with a long history and a wide fanbase. "The more certain the death, the more sure the resurrection," he says of... some purple guy. However, we haven't seen Khan since.
As of X-Men (2019), they've given up any pretence of maintaining death, with a key part of the premise being that via Cerebro based back-ups and several Reality Warpers, the X-Men can resurrect any mutant they like, whenever they like. This method requires five specific mutants to each be alive, so if anyone kills one of those five, presumably there goes the mutant revolving door. Ironically, the comic has gone from there to explore the nature of comic book death and the implications of its meaninglessness… and has, even more ironically, subverted it in some respects by killing characters in ways that suggest they won't come back and that the writers have no intent of bringing them back. Most notably, the above-mentioned Magneto dies in a Heroic Sacrifice and the story goes to great lengths to ensure he'll hopefully stay that way this time, with the writers seeming to commit to it.
The Red Skull practically invented this trope. He doesn't even have his original body anymore. Lampshaded in issue two of Ed Brubaker's "Captain America", where Cap refuses to believe that Red Skull is truly dead after A GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE HEAD! Unsurprisingly, Cap was right - Skull had used the Cosmic Cube to transfer his mind into someone else's body at the last second.
Baron Zemo must have been somewhat popular to constantly return from certain death time and again, always having some barely-acceptable excuse at the ready. He'd fall into boiling-hot glue... but come back to reveal that there had been an escape trap in the vat just in case of an accident. He'd fall off a mansion roof to the concrete waiting below... only to return with a neckbrace, but other than that doing pretty good. Even Zemo once compared one of his deaths to a comic book "demise" and narrated it thusly for Spider-Man.
Doctor Doom is almost built on this trope, as it has become nearly a certainty that we are never witnessing the man himself in battle. His character dies in most engagements, turning out to be Actually a Doombot, programmed to impersonate him. Which happens so often that fans have half-jokingly theorized that the real Doom has never actually appeared on-panel. It took damnation to Hell itself to keep the character down, and even then, he escaped. He's actually a more prolific villain than Magneto.
Another poster child for this trope would be Galactus, who has slaughtered untold trillions of seintient aliens in his hunger for planetary energy. As Galactus laid dying during John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four, Mr. Fantastic saved the villains life with NO conditions attached (i.e. staying away from planets with sentient life, stupidity beyond belief).
Well, except Earth, which Galactus now deems under his protection enough to intervene from time to time. and the fact that Galactus's vaguely-defined and ever changing requirements for his cosmic purpose require him to seek out inhabitable worlds to prevent the release of something even WORSE would mean such a demand probably does more harm than good. Even Reed has stated Galactus is more akin to a force of nature than an actual villain.
Finally averted with Bullseye (arch-enemies of Daredevil) who used to be a representation of this trope. Having been left paralyzed, Daredevil refrained from killing him, only to have the villain regain his mobility through an adamantium skeleton. Eventually, a demonic possessed Daredevil killed Bullseye in Shadowland. Lady Bullseye then resurrected her male counterpart, only for him to be a quadriplegic with no sight, hearing, smell, taste, or feel, truly a fate worse than death. Prior to that, though, he'd been a definite example; despite being a normal human with no power besides Improbable Aiming Skills, he repeatedly wound up going up against opponents whom he shouldn't even have been able to physically damage, let alone beat.
Just kidding! The Hand healed him back up to perfect health.
Jigsaw of The Punisher stands out because his enemy usually kills any adversary he comes across — very few Punisher villains are recurring, and nobody's taken more swings at the Punisher than Jigsaw. Frank did clearly and explicitly kill Jigsaw at one point — and he was revived in the next issue with voodoo.
Only shows up twice in the Garth Ennis run: During the Marvel Knights series, where the Russian was brought back with experimental technology that also gave him enormous breasts (and is finally killed with a nuke) and in the MAX run with Barracuda (who got his own miniseries) who survived death the first time due to being dumped in shark-infested waters (when the sharks had just eaten a boatful of Corrupt Corporate Executives and thus weren't interested in him), and Frank made very sure he was dead the second time around.
The end of the Punisher MAX series featured several Marvel characters getting killed off, including the Kingpin, Bullseye, Elektra, and even Frank.
The first Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) is an apt representation of the "Joker Immunity". After being dead for around 20 years, Norman was resurrected. He later got pardoned and was promoted to being head of the national security agency H.A.M.M.E.R and the Avengers during Dark Reign. After being arrested again for launching war against Asgard, Norman then got pardoned again and led his new band of Avengers.
Doctor Octopus. He has been resurrected once, and had his mind transferred into Spider-Man's body, seemingly replacing the hero, although traces of Peter Parker's memory still remains. At the end, he gave up and Peter Parker takes full control over his body.
Doc Ock plays with this trope a bit as well. After Spider-Verse, he creates a copy of himself, and after his original personality's death at the end of Superior Spider-Man this duplicate is eventually transferred it too a new body thanks in part to Ben Reily...with no memory of what he did as Spider-Man after Spider-Verse. Later on, this duplicate aqcuires a new version of Otto's original body, reviving Doc Ock in all but name, but technically the original Otto Octavius has been dead since 2013, which as far as A-list villains in modern comics go isn't too shabby.
Kraven The Hunter died in Kraven's Last Hunt in 1987 and stayed dead for over twenty years, putting him right up there with the Goblin as a record-holder for A-list villains to beat, but he too was resurrected in the early 2010's. Resenting every moment of his life since he was perfectly content with his death, he became a Death Seeker who is desperately trying to get Spider-Man to kill him again. When he dies again in Nick Spencer's run, they made sure to leave a completely identical clone son behind to pick up his mantle, presumably to discourage future writers from reviving him again.
The Hobgoblin was originally a Legacy Character identity taken up by a succession of villains, but after Roderick Kingsley decisively claimed the mantle (or reclaimed, according to Retcons), he acquired the full VIP Joker Immunity package along with generous helpings of Actually a Doombot to wave away any of his defeats. Notably, he was outright killed by the Phil Urich Hobgoblin as part of that character's Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, only for it to be retconned later that the beheaded Hobgoblin was in fact just another physically identical relative. Eventually Kingsley's going to run out of relations and readers will be treated to a Hobgoblin that's actually Roderick Kingsley's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
Minor Spider-Man villain Mirage has died twice. The first time he was shot dead only to later be revived by the Hood. The second time he got shot by the Punisher. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man retconned this into him being put in a coma. It's also lampshaded and discussed; when Mirage is reintroduced he's in a support group for people trying to retire from the supervillain business and complains openly about dying and coming back.
The original Mysterio, Quentin Beck, eventually acquired this. Originally Driven to Suicide after trying and failing to drive Daredevil insane, Marvel tried to respect this story and kept Beck dead for a time, introducing (well, reintroducing) an old stunt double for Mysterio named Daniel Berkhart and then a mutant named Francis Klum to take up the Mysterio identity. Neither of these replacements was well-received, however, and eventually Quentin Beck was returned to life via an appropriately Ambiguous Situation (long story short, either he was resurrected by some vaguely defined suicide-hating "superiors" who tasked Beck with maintaining a cosmic balance, or he simply faked his own death yet again). Neither of Mysterio's replacements have been seen since this story, and any time Mysterio has popped up since, for simplicity's sake it's been Beck. Nick Spencer's Spider-Man actually picks up this plot thread again and reveals Beck made a Deal with the Devil to return to life.
Notable aversion with the Crime Master; there's been three people to hold the identity, two of whom are dead and have never come back. The first one was killed fighting the cops and the third was shot dead by Betty Brant. The second one is still alive but he gave himself up to the police and has zero-desire to be a supervillain again.
The Elseworlds Spider-Man: Life Story specifically defies and deconstructs this, as it lacks the Comic-Book Time and general Executive Meddling of the mainstream Marvel Universe. As the timeline progresses, Spider-Man's enemies begin dying off in droves either to battle or old age, with Spidey and his friends and family personally killing at least some of them, which all adds to Peter's growing insecurities about his age. By the time of the final issue, the Webhead has taken to bitterly joking about how all his rogues are dead, and it's barely an exaggeration as the only two left are Venom and Doc Ock. The former of whom dies in that same issue and the latter of whom is clearly not long for the world when we last see him.
Marvel's Ultimate Universe series seems to be making a conscious effort at averting this trope, along with many of the other cliches from the mainstream Marvel universe. When a character dies (even major legacy ones like Red Skull, Dr. Doom, and the Kingpin), they STAY dead.
Ultimate Hammerhead has returned to life with no explanation as to how he survived having his skull detonated by Ultimate Gambit (though the incident did leave him complaining about constant headaches). And then it's subverted when his return arc ends in him dying again and in an equally brutal fashion. This time, he doesn't come back and there's a body to prove it as he spends his final days in a coma at the hospital.
Some Ultimate Universe villains (Dr. Doom and Kingpin) completely averted this trope. They were killed by opponents who just casually walked into the villains' headquarters and executed these nemeses with little effort. Other villains such as Dr. Doom, have been resurrected in the Ultimate Universe.
The Ultimate Universe version of Dr. Octopus upheld this trope. Twice he either avoided or had his prison sentence reduced by lending out his scientific talents to the FBI, and Roxxon corporation. He would of been killed by one of Reed Richards terrorist attacks, but was saved by Peter Parker's female clone. Subverted when ended up getting killed by Green Goblin.
Nick Fury actually lampshades this trope in an issue of Ultimate Spider-Man; after Spidey's shaken up over the apparent death of Venom (who was his childhood friend in this continuity) Fury reassures partly by admitting that in the superhero business, the guy ain't dead unless there's a corpse that can be definitively proven as theirs.
In fact Spider-Man was the first to begin playing this straight. As a side-effect of their Meta Origin, Spider-Man and his enemies have a degree of Resurrective Immortality.
Wolverine's former Sensei Ogun was beheaded. Came back all the same under numerous guises, be it ghost or demon, apparation or possession.
Wolverine foe Omega Red enjoyed the full package of this trope throughout the 90's when he was at the height of his popularity. Come the 2000s, his Karma Houdini Warranty kicked in and he was killed, only for Death Is Cheap to kick in in the pages of X-Men: Gold. As of 2019 Red's got a full Joker package again and is even being sold to readers as a sympathetic character in the pages of Uncanny X-Force.
The Mandarin from the Iron Man comics is also protected by this trope, as he has survived quite a few examples of both being killed off and disappearing from the comics, largely due to the fact that the Mandarin's Yellow Peril persona is rather problematic in a 21st century context. Inspite of this, his status as Iron Man's Arch-Enemy have prevented modern writers from permanently retiring him, as well as the fact that the Mandarin has gotten away with said Yellow Peril shtick since it was acceptable when he was created.
Brother Royal, leader of the genocidal Badoon (or their male half, anyway) is surprisingly long-lasting despite the obscurity of his species—maybe because. He was explicitly Killed Offscreen in the X-Men annual where he attacked Earth, but popped up again just a few years later in another comic. Then in Contest of Champions II he appears to die again, this time at the fangs of the Brood Queen. Once again, this didn't stop him from fighting the Guardians of the Galaxy. At of the 2016 GOTG series, his heart has ripped out by the Guardians, but time will tell if this sticks. It's possible there are multiple Brother Royals (Gamora's backstory miniseries indicates the existence of a "Brother Royale" separate from the one we know) but there's no actual acknowledgement that the Brothers we see are actually different people.
The Incredible Hulk: Despite Resurrective Immortality being a major part of the powers and lore for Hulk, his series has surprisingly managed to generally avoid this for the most part; Hulk's villains have an unusual tendency to stay dead when killed and the only ones who come back are usually the ones with built-in justifications (having resurrection powers as gamma mutates, having the ability to Body Surf, being dead already and bedeviling Hulk as a ghost, etc.). Even major bad guys like Abomination or Glenn Talbot can spend impressively long periods of time being Killed Off for Real with a chance of never getting a revive. The main exception to this is the Leader, Hulk's archenemy, who perhaps makes up the difference by having a downright comically high rate of dying and reviving, bordering on They Killed Kenny Again levels.
