Super-Healing
scene from New X-Men #38. Words by Yost and Kyle, Art by Young.
Here’s an interesting scene from the New X-Men #39 where Elixir uses his power to regrow David’s heart after it was ripped out by Belasco. In his recitation of the anatomy, he’s missing a few important parts (the ventricles, for instance — and it’s pulmonary arteries, plural), but he’s pretty much just talking himself through the procedure, and it’s the end result the counts — and his results seem to be quite good.
It did get me to wondering how may heroes and supporting characters have the super-power of healing. Not the healing of themselves, but the healing of others. (I’m not counting doctors or nurses with super-powers, unless their powers include healing. Nor am I including über-Doctors like Reed Richards and Henry McCoy). Off the top of my head I can think of five:
1. Angel (healing blood)
2. Healer from the Morlocks
3. Elixir
4. Spider-Man (healing blood, at least to Sarah and Aunt May)
5. Superman (in the Golden Age his blood was super-healing, in the Silver Age it granted temporary super-powers)
July 13th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I hope he’s planning to stick some blood back in there, too…
July 13th, 2007 at 8:03 am
There’s also the guy from the Great Ten — Accomplished Perfect Physician? Have I got that right?
It’s a rare superpower. But I think there’s got to be another example or two out there.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:29 am
During one of those X-Men Asgardian stories, Madelyne Pryor was turned into Anodyne, a healer.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:30 am
This doesn’t really count but I seem to remember a doctor in the anime series Witch Hunter Robin who could suck the life from one person and use it to heal someone else, even from the brink of death. This superpower isn’t really a particularly ethical one, which is why he was hunted down instead of lauded as a superhero. Well…that and he was a minor character. Does it count as a superpower if he was described as a witch?
July 13th, 2007 at 8:45 am
there was raven from the teen titans.
and linderman from the heroes tv series.
July 13th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Raven from DCs’ Teen Titans’ is a healer. She’s been shown to cure everything bar terminal illnesses like cancer, though I think even in those cases she can relieve a patients’ pain.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Does Raven has innate healing abilities, or is it magic? If it’s magic, I don’t think it counts. That’s a bit like Dr. Reed Richards or Dr. McCoy healing people, although using science instead of magic.
Speaking of Linderman, I find it interesting a healer became a villain, with the yearning to ‘heal’ his primary motivation.
July 13th, 2007 at 11:02 am
In the New Universe there was Stasi from Psi-Force and Stephanie from DP7. There was that girl Colossus fell in love with during Secret Wars. Also, didn’t Scarlet Witch develop some kind of healing powers during Chuck Austen’s Avengers run, or is that just best forgotten?
July 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
TOPAZ; from Doctor Strange’s various series’.
She’s an empath, but also has ability to heal physical wounds, and has Magic use on the side.
~P~
P-TOR
July 13th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Iron Fist has been shown to heal others with his Chi on one or two occasions.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Xi’an Chi Xan of the X-men of 2099 had a healing hand and a not so healing hand.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Xorn- o, wait. Hmm. It does seem rather rare. Makes sense, though. Even one or two powerful healers would negate most of the drama around superhero injuries and illnesses.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:57 am
There used to be a healer in the Morlocks who, as far as I remember, was never called anything other than “the morlock healer”. No real character, just a plot device. He Used to be called on by the X-Men in Claremont’s day whenever they needed a convenient deus ex machina.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:03 am
And now I notice you had him in the original list. Never mind.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:32 am
How can Spidey’s blood heal? It’s radioactive!
July 14th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I’m dubious about the healing power of spidey blood. Wasn’t it only a couple of months ago they did a story about Mary Jane dying as a consequence of exposure to spidey bodily fluids?
July 14th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
PS238 has two healers: The doctor, whose name I can’t recall, and Lyle from the rainmaker class who is a “messiah class” healer, and has even raised Ambriel the dead once.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Marionette: They address that with some babble about his white blood cells being able to fight off the radioactivity.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I think, most recently (although this was originally a tv show), the character Willow, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is able to heal others through her witchcraft.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
And there was Ruby of Dark Horse’s Catalyst: Agents of Change.
I only remember BECAUSE the power is so rare.
July 15th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Saint Anna, a mutant from Milligan & Allred’s X-Force, ‘who can move things just by looking at them, who can heal the sick and the sad.’ She died only an issue of two after she was introduced.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Zach;
Nice to see another PS238 fan out and about…
July 17th, 2007 at 12:37 am
When Claremont & Silvestri were doing X-Men, there was a character named Jenny Ransome who was a healer. The government of Genosha, which at that time enslaved mutants, altered her powers to do something else, though.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Shondra Kinsolving from the Batman books about 15 years ago. She healed Bruce’s broken back during the Knightfall saga.
July 19th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
This is a borderline example, but Jack O’Neill gets healing abilities when he downloads the mind-damaging(to normal humans) Ancient data repository.
July 19th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I believe one of the Strikeforce: Morturi was a healer.
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