Two of Futurama's Most Beloved Characters Have Surprisingly Wild Kill Counts

Futurama's Bender and Turanga Leela are two of the show's biggest heroes. Despite their heroic feats, they've racked up a lot of kills over the years.

The world of Futurama is one where death and murder aren't just accepted aspects of life, but a casual constant. People who should by all accounts be dead can live on as heads in jars, and characters causing countless deaths across the cosmos is brushed aside. Even with this in mind, some of the show's nominally heroic characters have racked up some horrifying kill counts over the years.

In one of Futurama's darkest elements, Bender and Turanga Leela have proven to be very violent over the years. Bender especially has a staggering kill count in-universe, and Leela has even turned her wrath onto her friends in an infamous non-canon tale. Here's how two of Futurama's central characters quietly became very horrifying.

Futurama's Bender Is a Literal Killing Machine

A long-running gag about Bender is his an innate desire to kill all humans. He repeats the phrase throughout the series, going all the way back to Season 1's "I, Roommate." Notably, this doesn't seem to be a restrained or prevented desire. Instead, he repeatedly throws himself into violent acts for fun over the course of the show. Bender has repeatedly thrown out aside references to many of his kills, like in Season 4's "The Farnsworth Parabox" (Directed by Ron Hughart and Written by Bill Odenkirk) where he references a time he beat a man into the ground with a shovel like a railroad spike.

Season 7's "Fun on a Bun" (Directed by Stephen Sandoval and Written by Dan Vebber) saw him steadily make his way through other competitors in a cooking contest so that he could take the top prize. His tyrannic rule in Season 3's "A Pharaoh to Remember" (Directed by Mark Ervin and Written by Ron Weiner) ended with a massive statue of him detonating in an explosion that could be seen from space, likely killing the countless slaves he'd had under his rule. He's even killed people by accident, such as his cooking mentor Helmut Sparkle in Season 3's "The 30% Iron Chef" (Directed by Ron Hughart and Written by Jeff Westbrook). Bender's true killing potential has been especially proven in other time periods.

After being sent into the past during the events of Season 5's "Bender's Big Score" (Directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill and Written by Ken Keeler & David X. Cohen), Bender's attempts to escape the authorities resulted in wide-scale destruction of New York City. This plays a part in society being forced back while Fry was frozen cryogenically. Meanwhile, the future glimpsed in Season 7's "Decision 3012" (Directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill and Written by Patric M. Verrone) revealed that Bender would eventually turn against all of humanity and lead robots in a violent uprising that largely wipes out the species. Bender's disdain for human life in the modern day of Futurama is often held at bay by his professed love for specific people like his best friend Philip J. Fry, his former protector Hermes, and the rest of the Planet Express Crew.

Leela's Violent Tendencies Could Have Wiped Out The Planet Express Crew

Within the show, Leela is often the voice of reason and morality, and is often Futurama's most consistent hero. Her soft side for animals has seen her risk life and limb to save sentient life, and she's even gone up against her friends in the name of protecting various alien creatures -- an attitude that resulted in her expulsion from the DOOP in Season 8's "Zapp Gets Canceled" (Directed by James Kim and Written by Shirin Najafi). At the end of the day, Leela attempts to commit to heroic acts. However, Leela has also always exhibited a more violent side that she struggles to restrain. Her first impulse in many episodes is to use violence to either intimidate others or forcibly beat them, highlighting how she's come to depend on her violent side over the years.

Years of being picked on at the orphanage where she was raised gave her a harsh side, as her combat training revealed itself in Season 2's "Raging Bender" (Directed by Ron Hughart and Written by Lewis Morton). This stemmed partly from her desire to prove the sexist proclamations of her sensei wrong. Leela's habit to resort to violence for the greater good was on full display in Season 5's "Bender's Game" (Directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill and Written by Eric Horsted, Michael Rowe, Patric M. Verrone & David X. Cohen). Wrestling with the impact of having seemingly killed an innocent creature, Leela swore off violence -- only to quickly backslide when danger called upon her.