Out Of Action, Out Of The Question

It just wouldn't do to have a Marvel hero out of action for very long with a broken arm or leg--which is probably why we don't often see many of them on the mend from such an injury. When we do, it seems their road to recovery is a short one. Even in the days before everyone and his mother had a "healing factor" of some kind (boy, isn't that a convenient phrase somebody thought up--I think Chris Claremont opened those floodgates, didn't he?), heroes were in and out of slings and crutches in short order.

Spider-Man, who in his early days was probably the poster boy for being under the weather, may have had to deal with his arm injury the longest while still in costume, though I'm surprised that a guy who travels by shooting and swinging on webs would think that he'd be able to do that with one arm, no prob. We can thank his battle with the Lizard for putting his arm out of action--because we discovered that, unlike cats, guys with spider-powers don't always land gracefully:

So Spider-Man slings up, but attempts to battle on for a few more issues. His foes, of course, don't give him a pass for being on the injured list:

Now you or I would be on the mend from a broken arm for about six weeks. If we had powers, however, we could recover more quickly by, well, just getting tired of it:

The Vision certainly isn't immune to arm injury, on the occasion when his intangibility power fails him. And as our old friend the Ghost demonstrates, two can play the intangibility-disruption game:

Which leaves the Vision in a sorry state:

Several of the Avengers in this particular battle are on the injured or dead list, but Immortus is the master of time, after all:

Over at the Fantastic Four, even a guy with a rubber arm can find himself in a sling. Thanks to an Inhuman who likes to climb buildings:

But since this is "Mr. Fantastic," it only takes being yanked across the city by Dragon Man to make his injury last only a few panels:

The Thing has also been semi-out of action with an arm injury, thanks to Deathlok and that nasty laser gun of his:

It's a good thing Thundra stopped by a couple of issues later. Because there's nothing like a brawl with Thundra to remind you of the adage, "a ripped sling need never be worn again":

And it's too bad Ultron wasn't around during the events of World War Hulk. Because with all the opposition the Hulk just waded through then, it turns out that all that was needed to bring him down was a ray blast:

Which is probably why somebody at Marvel thought that a "world war Ultron" was a logical next step, but I digress. The Hulk gets fitted with one of the most ridiculous crutch-brace assemblies I've ever seen:

But one issue later, the brute, like ourselves, is just over it and tosses the ugly thing:

At some point, the Hulk would get a healing factor of his very own--which may be just as well, since the Hulk being sidelined with an injury doesn't lend itself to a whole lot of rampaging.