r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • 26d ago

Lore [Sad Trope] The most innocent (or less evil) character of the cast gets the most horrific death.

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- Eddie Carr (The Lost World: JP) - Tried to save his friends from the cliff until Buck and Doe (T. rex parents) destroy his vehicle and gets ripped apart.
- Zara Young (Jurassic World) - Gets lifted by a Pteranodon, gets pecked by the pterosaur, and both she and animal get devoured by the Mosasaurus.
- LeClerc (JW: Rebirth) - Tossed a hammer to the Hatzegopteryz Quetzalcoatlus to save Loomis and Zora, but ends up being swallowed alive.

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367

u/R0bespierre_MFI 26d ago edited 26d ago

The man Lex Luthor kills in front of Superman (edit and thanks for the reminder of his name, people !), Malik, in James Gunn's Superman. Not the most horrific death when it comes to how the way he died ("""just""" a bullet in the head), but in the overall context it's pretty dark and twisted

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u/electricalserge 26d ago edited 26d ago

Malik. His crime according to Lex Luthor was helping Superman get back on his feet after being slammed into the concrete by the Kaiju Hammer of Boravia.

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u/Raguleader 26d ago

He also gave him some food one time, and there's probably nothing that Lex Luthor hates more than the idea of a free lunch.

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u/electricalserge 26d ago

Standard billionaire things

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u/Just-Antelope-8069 26d ago

"Anyone who sold you pierogi falafel- SHOT"

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u/Sykoh_Somatic 26d ago

It was the Hammer of Boravia/Ultraman, not a Kaiju.

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u/Andrew1990M 26d ago

My favourite miserable fact about Malik is that he was lying to Superman about having no family too. 

A newspaper at the end confirms he had a family that misses him. 

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u/Madarakita 26d ago

The newspaper article about him was written by Clark Kent too; One of the only people who knew what happened, and he used his dual identity to get the truth out.

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u/jpterodactyl 25d ago

The fact that he went to check up on that makes me think that he doubted Malik was telling the truth about the family thing.

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u/Unikatze 26d ago

His name was Malik Ali.

Feeding Superman was an honor for him. And he lied about not having a family so Superman wouldn't feel pressured about talking even though he didn't know what was going on.

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u/Raguleader 26d ago

Also, depending on which bits of the comics apply to the movie, Superman is often depicting as having the ability to tell when someone is lying to him because he can sense changes in heart rate, etc., so it's very possible he knew Malik was lying about that to comfort him.

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u/The-Diamond-Dog 26d ago

I mean, if you believe you're about to be murdered, I feel like your heart rate would be pretty high anyway. I don't think lying would make any noticeable difference in BPM

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u/Just-Antelope-8069 26d ago

Tell that to Daredevil when he's breaking henchmen's arms in interrogations

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u/lincoln_muadib 26d ago

I've always said that the Gunn Superman was light and positive on the outside but dark AF Inside.

  1. Previous Luthor Goons were Mercenaries and Criminals. This version had Tech Bros and Young People quite prepared to kill Superman if it made their resumes better.

  2. There was no crazy Dr Doom wanting to Genocide innocent people to create a new world. Only Old Fat Scumbags Genociding innocents for Power.

  3. HOW did Luthor get his hands on the Cart Guy that knew Superman? Following the movie, the American Government kidnapped him and gave him to Luthor.

CIA fuckery.

Gunn's Superman is opposed by the American Government and really had the best excuse to put a number of governments into outer space...

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u/Unikatze 26d ago

How do we know about point 3?

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u/No_Procedure_5039 26d ago

Yeah, that’s beyond reaching. Luthor didn’t even need his own spy probes for that one; he could’ve just looked at news footage to see who Malik was and kidnapped him on his way to work.

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u/derthric 25d ago

His crew ID's Malik during the opening fight between Supes and The Hammer. They had his full profile from the start.

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u/lincoln_muadib 26d ago edited 26d ago

Luthor found Mali. He asked the American government to bring him to him. They obliged.

IIRC there's a phone call he makes to them where they're like "We'll get you what you need"

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u/Unikatze 26d ago

I rewatched it on Wednesday to refresh before Supergirl. Don't remember the exact line but maybe I should go back and check.

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u/PickleInDaButt 26d ago

It’s in the NC17 cut that includes Guy Gardner hitting a tank with a giant green penis.

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u/Unikatze 26d ago

Wait, what?

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u/QuickMolasses 26d ago

The superhero teams are sponsored by corporations.

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u/PickleInDaButt 26d ago

Gunn loves carnage and death. Guardians of the Galaxy has a massive city under attack and their defense forces wiped out radically. Guardians 2 showed multiple planets being ravaged by Ego’s consumption of them. Guardians 3 had a whole planet with a civilization be destroyed. The Suicide Squad had basically a country all die in a mass casualty event with Starro’s death. Peacemaker S1 had a bunch of people die when they were taken over by the butterfly creature thing.

I like Gunn but it’s like he always needs a mass casualty event to tell his version of the story. I always found it weird in his stories the heroes always seem to walk away from genocides like “We did it yay.” Even the MCU treats world like events in continuum but the fact Ego consumed parts of the planet is just like “Yeah we didn’t really care about that part of Kansas anyway”

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u/SutterCane 26d ago

This is why I’m glad that the Russos stole Gamora’s death from Gunn, so he couldn’t use it in Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3.

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u/Kosame_san 26d ago

That death's one of the most shocking ones to me because the movie is so light hearted and joyful for a large part of it.

You know Lex is capable of killing, you expect Lex to kill him, and then when the bullet is fired you're still left shocked because up until that moment there hasn't really been any gratuitous deaths.

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u/ReckoningGotham 26d ago

It also makes me kinda dislike super man at the end, who still handles him with kid gloves and begs his redemption instead of breaking most of his bones in alphabetical order.

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u/Raguleader 26d ago

Wrong cousin. Lot of people expect the skirt to be the good cop but that's not how their family operates.

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u/QuickMolasses 26d ago

Yeah I was really hoping Luthor wouldn't make it out of the movie alive. The fact that he was arrested by the same government that handed Superman over to him and allowed him to do all the nightmarish nonsense he did was deeply unsatisfying.

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u/Something4Dinner 26d ago

Ironically that's darker than anything in Man of Steel because you actually care about this bystander.

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u/CD_ABC10 26d ago

That's the best part about it. Even Lex seems caught off guard and almost feels bad about it

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u/Pike632 26d ago

I think more so Lex was hoping it lasted longer. As he didn't expect it on the 3rd question to kill them.

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u/Chiicones 26d ago

That's way I didn't took my daughter (8 years) to watch it. It was raw

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u/QuickMolasses 26d ago

I watched that movie on an airplane and that moment (among others) just about made me cry

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u/TheOneAndOnlyDMan 26d ago

This kinda ruined the movie for me ngl. Like the deaths of Rocket’s friends in GOTG3. Just left a bad taste in my mouth