Flesh wounds in comic books.
- Athena: Linkara fell into this trope in his review of issue #1, where he claimed that Athena being shot in the arm isn't worth serious medical attention. While this is, well, Athena, at the time none of the cast actually knew this. Granted the bullet seemed to just graze her, explaining his objection, but women do typically have less muscle mass than men, so take it how you will. Later on, when he reviewed more issues of Athena, he corrected himself and admitted that he was wrong about that.
- Batman:
- There's a Golden Age story that averts this trope. Batman takes a round in the shoulder; it missed his vest and he drops like a rock and is thought dead. He survives, obviously, but needs to break off from the fight to get immediate medical attention. Oh and for those wondering, Robin did not take Batman's "death" well.
- Averted in one of the last Batman: No Man's Land comics. The Joker once paralysed Barbara Gordon (turning her into the Oracle), and has just shot and killed Commissioner Gordon's wife, and is facing down a furious Gordon with a gun. Commissioner Gordon shoots him in the knee. Unlike Barbara, the Joker was walking around without any problems in later appearances. Comics being still frames, he might have a limp we aren't seeing. Judging by his reaction, he did at least consider it a possibility.Joker: My knee! I may never walk again! I- Oh, I get it! Just like your daughter! Good one, Commissioner!(bursts into laughter)
- There was a later issue where someone visits him in Arkham and he's wearing a leg brace and walking with a cane. He may have recovered completely, but it wasn't immediate.
- In an issue of JLA, Prometheus shoots both Flash and Green Lantern in the torso as he makes his escape. Later, Batman finds that Flash's speed suit stopped the bullet just fine, but Green Lantern's state is in doubt. After a cursory inspection, Batman declares, "Flesh wound. It'll leave a scar, but you'll live." Despite the pain, Kyle grins at the thought of his first battle scar.
- In an issue of Robin Tim gets hit by an ill defined electrical weapon that leaves him gasping, bleeding from his nose, ears, mouth and nail beds and gets up to continues fighting the much larger Lock-Up after a little wobbly pep talk to himself. He then makes his way to the graveyard to speak to his parents' headstone without a mention or thought to treating any injuries.
- Played straight in the Final Battle against the Joker in Scott Snyder’s Batman: Endgame where Batman is stabbed through both shoulder blades and badly slashed in the back
, then had his face burned with acid and his eye taken out with a playing card◊... but keeps on fighting. The Joker also survives grievous injuries though this is due to Dionesium which Batman also uses to heal his aforementioned injuries as well “rebirthing” himself.- Alfred gets his hand chopped off by the Joker in the same run and doesn’t even pass out. In the end, Alfred also refuses to get his hand reattached, what a badass.
- Captain America: In one issue, Crossbones takes three bullets to the chest and the Black Widow diagnoses the wounds as nonfatal less than two minutes later. Crossbones is merely Badass Normal, so three gunshot wounds to the center body mass is a coin-toss on whether he'll live long enough to get medical treatment, but for some reason, everyone is confident that he'll be fine. Particularly egregious in that three bullets to the chest is what killed the original Cap just a few issues prior.
- Darkhawk: Averted in one issue, as Chris Powell is shot in the leg and passes out from loss of blood and has to go to the hospital. He's later told that it was in fact just a flesh wound.
- Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink: Spoofed in one strip. Nocturne (a Batman Expy) returns to his cave after a busy evening, and his butler Aethelbert frets over his various wounds — several broken ribs, two knives in the back, multiple gunshot wounds, a poison dart, and a slashed torso that leaves him doubled over backwards. Nocturne insists it's no big deal and that he only needs some Ibuprofen and bandages.
- Green Lantern: The Red Lantern Bleez takes a pretty hefty energy attack — Saint Walker offers to heal her, but being healed is apparently for bitches. "Pain is power to a Red Lantern!"
- Hawkeye: Clint Barton was once shot god knows how many times and survived. He’s also been stabbed in the ears and kept his hearing (thanks to a little help from Tony Stark).
- Invincible: Viltrimites can withstand truly horrific wounds and just use their Healing Factor to get better, Mark the protagonist in a bad case of Nausea Fuel is impaled through the stomach and has intestines flop out. Mark's dad just wraps him and waits a months and Mark is back to full health. Thragg and Battle Beast similarly had their guts cut open but unlike Mark that didn't stop them fighting.
- Popeye: In the otherwise classic Wild West continuity "Skullyville", a gang of more than two dozen bandits are each shot in the shoulder and together dumped in a basement, the stated intent being to put them out of action without really hurting them.
- The Punisher:
- One time an old man shoots him in the chest with a shotgun and Punisher’s thought bubble states his rib is gone. Yet that doesn't stop Mr. Castle from wrestling with and killing the man who put a hole in him.
- Discussed and subverted in Garth Ennis' The Punisher: War Zone mini-series. The villain, Tim, is injured during a gunfight with the Punisher, and has to retreat. He mentions that Bruce Willis movies make non-fatal gunshot wounds look like minor inconveniences, when in reality, the pain from getting shot anywhere is often debilitating.
- Rawhide Kid: The climax of Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven comes when the Kid confronts Big Bad Cresto Pike. Pike is holding two hostages in front of him: Wyatt Earp himself, and the Kid's own father. The Kid shoots them both, hitting them just so they would drop, eliminating Cresto's advantage before killing him. The unlikelihood is lampshaded, as the rest of the Kid's posse state in awe that no one else in the world could have pulled that off.
- Savage Dragon: The Dragon suffers almost lethal injuries in nearly any fight he's in. Good thing he can heal. Seen on this◊ cover.
- In one of the Serenity comic books, we discover that Agent Dobson managed to survive being shot in the eye by Mal, and had been rather obsessively plotting revenge ever since.
- Sin City: Marv is clipped by a barrage of gunfire while escaping from a hotel. He only needs a few band-aids and he's fine. In a later story, Dwight McCarthy is shot in the face and chest. While he has to be rushed to Old Town to receive emergency aid, including reconstructive surgery, he remains conscious and doesn't receive any long-lasting injuries. Likewise, John Hartigan, an old man suffering from heart problems, is shot many times in the beginning of That Yellow Bastard but it takes a while for him to go down. A brief stay in the hospital and he's fine.
- This is also the same guy who took two jolts of electricity from an electric chair to go down, making the first, arguably, "Just a flesh wound."
- Pretty much all the Sin City protagonists invoke this trope to point of being Immune to Bullets. Subverted in “The Big Fat Kill” as Dwight gets shot in the heart by a sniper and only survives thanks to a police badge in his chest pocket.
- Star Wars: Kanan: Depa Billaba says she's fine despite getting part of her skin torn off by General Grievous. Later subverted that she was barely able to walk and had to go into a bacta tank right after the battle.
- Tintin: Tintin has a habit of surviving mere flesh wounds. In Destination Moon he's shot in the head, but the bullet only grazed his skull, so he's fine and back to the base in a couple of days.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: Sometimes subverted. When Peter was shot in the shoulder, while he does possess super strength and resilience so it's not as bad as it should be, it's still treated as a very serious injury that may have been slowly killing him. But in a later story, Ox, who does not have any super powers, is shot in what seems to be his Achilles tendon and is still able to walk. Holy smokes.
- Arguably Ultimate Spidey is more fragile than ol’ 616 Peter Parker who was once shot mutiple times by Bullseye’s mooks and was up and swinging later albeit covered in web bandages. It helps Spidey has a understated Healing Factor.
- Arguably Ultimate Spidey is more fragile than ol’ 616 Peter Parker who was once shot
- Wonder Woman: While Wonder Woman brushing off serious injuries can usually be explained via her Healing Factor, in Wonder Woman (2006) Achilles gets stabbed through the heart and drops with all those present thinking he'd died. He then gets up behind the traitor who tried to kill him and takes her out; this was foreshadowed as his new body has a god's stolen heart which takes more than being stabbed to stop. Even so he lost a large amount of blood and gets right back up to continue the fight, then moved to DC and got himself a boyfriend.
- X-Men: Aside from Wolverine who has his Healing Factor, a lot of the X-Men shrug off or heal from brutal injuries:
- Beast has survived bullet wounds as well getting slashed by Wolverine and stabbed by Silver Samurai.
- Cyclops has endured close quarters stabbing from Wolverine and kept fighting.
- Rogue has survived getting shot and stabbed◊ by her adoptive mother.
- Nightcrawler has gotten back on his feet after getting shot in the chest.
- Colossus has been slashed by Wendigo plus hit with armour piercing bullets and was completely fine.
- Gambit was once stabbed◊ by Sabretooth and stayed conscious long enough to help a mutant child (Marrow).
- [[Marvel Comics: Laura Kinney X-23, despite her Healing Factor not being as nearly overt as her originator, has shrugged off many, many, many bullets wounds and doesn’t even react to stab wounds.
- Beast has survived
- Y: The Last Man: Yorick Brown tried to do this when confronted with an armed young Militia-woman in Arizona; they face each other, guns drawn, and they both fire. She manages to completely miss him and he only wings her in the leg. At first he cannot stop laughing — he is just so happy that neither of them is dead — until she begins to scream and bleed. He tries to patch the wound, but she is dead from blood loss before he can even get it covered (he hit an artery). He does not take it well: her death added to his already considerable emotional issues.
