WONDER MAN

Simon Williams did not simply recover from the death-like coma that ended his first Avengers adventure. While his body lay inert, the ionic energy Baron Zemo had pumped into him kept working, slowly rebuilding him into something that only looks human from a distance. When Wonder Man returned to full-time Avengers duty in Avengers Vol. 1 #160 (1977), his teammates were sharing a roster with a self-sustaining energy being: the ionic charge regenerates itself indefinitely, so Simon no longer requires food, water, sleep or oxygen to survive.

The transformation announced itself in smaller ways first. His eyes now glow red from the ionic energy stored behind them, a permanent tell he usually hides behind sunglasses — the shades in his classic look are camouflage, not fashion. Flight changed too: the original Wonder Man needed a rocket pack built into his belt to leave the ground, while the rebuilt Simon flies under his own power at speeds nobody has properly measured. He does not age, shrug off disease as a category, and has described his own body as energy wearing a familiar shape.

None of this stops him eating. Simon still orders meals when he sits down with friends, because dinner with the Avengers was never really about nutrition — it is one of the ordinary rituals that keeps a functionally immortal energy being feeling like a person. The flip side is harder: a body with no blood, no hunger and no need for air can survive almost anything, including being dispersed entirely, but it also separates him from every living rhythm around him. Wonder Man's tragedy is not that he might die. It is that his body quietly opted out of most of what being alive involves.