Curated playlist

Fictional gunfighters

James Bond (literary character)Ian Fleming took James Bond's name from the author of a bird guide. He thought it the dullest name he ever heard.
Joker (character)The Joker was nearly killed off in his second comic appearance. An editor saved him with a hastily drawn panel.
Stormtrooper (Star Wars)In 2019, biologists named a Colombian spider genus after Star Wars stormtroopers.
Princess LeiaPrincess Leia began as a spoiled teenage princess in George Lucas's early drafts.
Solid SnakeHideo Kojima once planned for Solid Snake to die in Metal Gear Solid. Disappointed staff led him to change it.
Poe DameronPoe Dameron was originally written to die early in The Force Awakens.
Cable (character)Cable, the grim time-traveling soldier of Marvel Comics, first reached readers as a rumor. At the end of The New Mutants #86, dated February 1990, a teaser promised him for the next issue. He appeared nowhere in that issue's story. Even…
Dante (Devil May Cry)Dante of Devil May Cry was almost a Western policeman. His early name was Tony Redgrave.
Jason ToddJason Todd, the second Robin in DC Comics, had his life or death decided by a telephone poll in 1988. Readers of the Batman comics were handed two 1-900 numbers. One meant the boy would live. The other meant he would die. They had only a…
Padmé AmidalaPadmé Amidala sponsored the motion that opened the way for Palpatine to become chancellor.
DeathstrokeDeathstroke wears a mask split between black and orange, and it covers a right eye that is missing. He is Slade Joseph Wilson, a mercenary and former U.S. Army soldier. Within the DC Universe he is regarded as the greatest and deadliest…
Judge DreddJudge Joseph Dredd carries the whole legal system on his belt. On the streets of the future city of Mega-City One, this street judge can arrest a suspect, convict them, pass sentence and carry it out on the spot. Writer John Wagner and…
Leon S. KennedyLeon S. Kennedy is late for his first day of work, and the reason is a fight with his girlfriend. That detail comes from the manual of Resident Evil 2, the 1998 survival horror game from the Japanese company Capcom. Leon is a rookie police…
Two-FaceTwo-Face, the coin-tossing enemy of Batman, makes his first appearance in Detective Comics #66, published in August 1942. Late in that issue, Batman chases him down and corners him. The hero offers a simple deal: give up and start over.…
Big Boss (Metal Gear)In the original 1987 Metal Gear, the friendly radio voice guiding the player was the enemy.
HellboyHellboy, the comic book hero created by Mike Mignola, arrived on Earth inside a fireball on the 23rd of December 1944. He dropped into the ruins of a church in Bromwich, England, where Allied soldiers were encamped. Only moments earlier,…
Bullseye (Marvel Comics)Bullseye, the Marvel Comics assassin, once killed a man with a toothpick thrown through a window from a hundred yards away. No gun was involved, and no bomb. His menace comes from an eerie gift for turning almost any ordinary object into a…
Lara CroftIn 2009, the English city of Derby let its residents vote on a name for a new ring road, and the winner was Lara Croft Way. More than 27,000 votes were cast, and the name took 89 percent of them. The road opened in July 2010. Lara Croft is…
Agent JAgent J's father was killed by an alien during the Apollo 11 launch.
Guts (Berserk)Guts, the hero of the manga Berserk, was born from his hanged mother's corpse. His adoptive father later sold him.
PunisherIn 2011, an editor at Marvel Comics revealed that the Punisher had killed 48,502 people on the page since the mid-1970s. That body count belongs to a character whom writer Gerry Conway meant as a second-tier figure. Conway has said the…
DeadpoolDeadpool, the masked mercenary of Marvel Comics, once ended a storyline by breaking out of his own book and into the real world. There he confronted the writers and artists who were making the comic, and he turned to the reader with a…
Bucky BarnesBucky Barnes is a Marvel Comics hero whose fans once turned his death into a rule of the genre. The saying went that in comics, "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben." For many years, Bucky was the first name on that…
Spider-Man NoirSpider-Man Noir is a version of Peter Parker who has never seen a color. In the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, his home universe is entirely black and white, so ordinary hues leave him baffled when he travels elsewhere. That…