Immortality in Fiction - Regeneration

Regeneration

There are many examples of immortality in fiction where a character is vulnerable to death and injury in the normal way but possesses an extraordinary capacity for recovery.

The British long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who focuses on a character called the Doctor, a member of the alien Time Lord race, who can "regenerate" instead of dying or aging; however, rather than simply healing wounds, this results in his entire physical appearance changing when he is fatally wounded or terminally sick, and he is only capable of doing so twelve times before finally dying for good. The Tenth Doctor was able to 'cheat' the process by channeling the energy of his regeneration into his 'spare hand'- the hand having been cut off shortly after regeneration but his body was able to grow a new one using the remaining regenerative energy- after it had healed the injury that would have killed him in "Journey's End", thus preventing his body from changing his appearance while remaining healthy. The Doctor reveals in The End of Time that it is possible for him to die, if he is killed before the regeneration process can take place. Presumably this is what happened with the Second Doctor's temporary Time Lady companion Serena, who was killed when a musket ball passed through both her hearts. In general, regeneration has saved the Doctor many times. Even without regeneration it has been revealed that the Doctor is very long-lived, his first incarnation apparently living for around four hundred and fifty years before dying of old age (The Tenth Planet; age was mentioned in The Evil of the Daleks) and the Sixth Doctor apparently surviving for fifty-three years with no signs of physical aging during that time (Said to be 900 in Revelation of the Daleks; the Seventh Doctor stated his age as being 953 immediately after his regeneration in Time and the Rani); the Eighth Doctor Adventures published by the BBC featured the amnesiac Eighth Doctor living on Earth for over a century (The Burning to Escape Velocity) while waiting for his TARDIS time-space machine to repair itself, and never aging a day during that time period. When confronted with the question as to why he leaves behind his companions after a time, the Tenth Doctor explained sadly that if he kept all his old friends around, he would be forced to watch them age and eventually die, while he himself would live on due to his greater lifespan, regarding this as "the curse of the Time Lords".

In the Doctor Who story The Five Doctors, Lord President Borusa of Gallifrey uses the first five regenerations of the Doctor and various companions in a plot to gain the immortality of Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society, for himself. But it turns out to be a trap conceived of by Rassilon to deal with individuals with such a desire, Borusa being trapped for eternity as a living statue in Rassilon's tomb. As the First Doctor says in the end, "Immortality is a curse, not a blessing".

On the TV show South Park, the character Kenny McCormick was killed in nearly every earlier episode, but always came back to life in the next episode without any apparent explanation (Although characters were apparently aware of his regular deaths, such as Eric Cartman once saying that Kenny 'died all the time' or Kenny himself once complaining that his friends never cared when he died). A common phrase on the show was, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" This was later implied- although not explicitly stated- to be the result of Kenny's parents joining a Cthulu-worshipping cult before his birth, and explains that Kenny wakes up in his bed each morning after his 'death' with his friends not actually retaining any specific memories about his demise.

X-Men's Wolverine is a character with keen animal-like senses, and whose mutant healing abilities made it possible for a specialized fictional alloy called adamantium to be grafted to his entire skeleton without the subsequent metal poisoning killing him almost instantly, with the addition of two sets of three razor-sharp claws that extend from each hand (Although later stories revealed that the claws were a part of his natural mutation, the process simply making them metal rather than the bone they would have been normally). Each time he projects the claws, they cut through the skin of his knuckles, but the slick design prevents any bleeding from occurring. The cuts the blades create instantly heal once they're retracted. Wolverine's healing abilities also slow down his physical aging, allowing him to live beyond the average human lifespan, having been born in the late 19th century.

In the manga Naruto, Tsunade, known as the greatest Medical Specialist has developed a jutsu known as Creation Rebirth which allows her to not just heal damage organs but rather, speed up the mitotic process and regenerated any damaged organs instantly making her virtually immortal for the entire duration of the jutsu. Tsunade also created the Strength of A Hundred Technique which is an extension of the Creation Rebirth which allows her to heal any inflicted injury such as being stabbed in the abdomen by a giant sword and a powerful point blank attack in mere seconds without any conscious thought.

In the Gerry Anderson 1960s television series, Captain Scarlet was supposedly indestructible. In that series a Martian race known as the Mysterons have the ability to duplicate things which have been destroyed as they were when they were whole, including producing a living version of a dead person. Captain Scarlet is an agent of that race that has defected to fight against them but retains the ability to create a living version of himself after dying. The series uses the term retro-metabolism for this alien regeneration technique.

Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies is considered to be immortal. It is theorized that each time he is "killed" he is actually just put into a type of sleep while he regenerates enough of his lost and damaged tissue to function normally again. Jason has been killed - taking a large blade to the head - but means outside his physical influence- a lightning-bolt struck a metal pole that had been rammed into his chest- led to his resurrection. When he was first killed, he survived permanent death via his father's wish that he would not be cremated, before his own murderer incidentally brought him back while trying to destroy his corpse, leading to a more unstoppable Jason. Jason even survives being blown up, by possessing other people and eventually being reborn through a dead relative. He also survives being blown apart in Jason X, despite having his right leg, left arm, and a significant portion of his head shot off, although in this instance he is reconstructed as a cyborg through nanotechnology, suggesting that he will die if he sustains enough damage.

In the popular Japanese novel, Kōga Ninpōchō, the character Yakushiji Tenzen is considered immortal due to his ability to regenerate all damage done to him. How this regeneration is possible is differently explained in all of the different versions of the story.

In the TV series Heroes, the character of Claire Bennett- along with her uncle, Peter Petrelli, who has the ability to mimic the powers of others- has the power of spontaneous regeneration, resulting in her body tissue simply regenerating when she's injured. The one exception is that injuries to the brain will not regenerate immediately, but will instead induce an apparent-dead state. This is reversed after foreign objects are removed from the brain or spine. Adam Monroe, a character with similar powers, is also over 400 years old as a result of his ability, his cells dying and regenerating so rapidly his aging has been suspended. In the first episode of the third season, Sylar, the main villain in the show, acquires Claire's ability, but leaves Claire alive, stating that he is unable to kill Claire even if he wanted to, implying that she is truly immortal, although the producers have stated that such methods of death as decapitation would kill her. It is unclear whether Adam was equally unkillable (although he tells Peter that there is "no coming back" from having one's "brains blown out"); although he died when Arthur Petrelli stole his powers, his death was the result of him rapidly aging after his powers were taken to 'compensate' for the years that he hadn't aged, rather than a more conventional means of death.

In the television series Battlestar Galactica, humanoid and raider Cylon models download into new bodies if their current incarnation is destroyed. Their memories and consciousness are fully transferred to the appropriate model, be it one of 12 humanoid versions or into a new raider. However, this method is later used against the Cylons when the humans manage to destroy a Cylon Resurrection Ship - a ship which carries the bodies for the Cylons to resurrect in - thus forcing the Cylons to withdraw their attacks on the human fleet due to their fear of permanent death. During Season Four, the Cylon resurrection Hub is destroyed, permanently ending the Cylon ability to resurrect, a group of renegade Cylons having concluded that life can only have meaning when it can end and thus determined to give their lives meaning by cutting them short and rendering them able to die once more.

In the game-series "Metal Gear Solid", created by Hideo Kojima, the villain Vamp reappears after being shot in the head and other normally life-threatening events. He is using so called nano-machines, developed by Naomi Hunter, to reconstruct his body. Normal soldiers use them too, but his use is way beyond the average, creating the myth to be immortal. In the 4th part of the series he finally dies due to a syringe that disabled the nanomachines invented and created by Naomi Hunter herself.

In the anime Dragon Ball Z Piccolo can regenerate as can the movie villain Lord Slug as they are both from the Namakian race of aliens who can regenerate limbs. One of the major supervillains in the series Cell can regenerate because he has the cells of Piccolo.