Before we launch into our awesome list, let's just cop to something: We're not doing the Aristotelian definition of tragedy. We're just not. Aristotle is for wusses. We're going more with the basic definition: the person who has everything, and then loses it all, or just gets horribly fucked over. In a poetic or meaningful way. Okay?

Every scifi hero Charlton Heston played, ever.

The Charlton Heston science fiction oeuvre is splendid in its variety. But there are a few things you can count on in pretty much all of them. Heston will know better than everybody else around him. He'll be the last bastion of civilization, surrounded by dirty hippies or grandiloquent mutants in whiteface or apes or whatever. And in the end, he'll die because nobody ever listens to him when he's telling them how stupid they are. Why? Why won't they listen? Soylent green is people, you damn dirty whiteface cultists! (Okay, so he doesn't die in Planet Of The Apes, but then he does in the sequel.)

Sam Lowry

In Brazil, the fatal flaw that destroys Sam Lowry is his secret desire to escape the repressive system he's a cog in. (Yeah, okay, we're getting Aristotelean for a sec.) He dreams and fantasizes about being a flying hero in shining armor who fights monsters and soars away, but when he finally gets a chance to escape with the woman (literally) of his dreams, it all goes bad. And he winds up being tortured to death by his former best friend.

Dr. Frankenstein

He's obsessed with the idea of bringing inanimate matter to life, to the point where he drops out of school and spends years digging up corpses and sticking them together. But once he's created his monsterpiece (sorry), he rejects it and drives it away. His cruelty to his creation leads to the deaths of several of his friends, so Frankenstein vows to hunt it down. But Frankenstein doesn't even manage to die at the hands of his creation — instead, in the original novel, pneumonia claims his life after he pursues it to the Arctic. He doesn't even manage to die properly!

Henry Jekyll

Another guy who messes with science and gets messed with in return. Jekyll wants to separate his good side from his dark side, so he drinks a potion which turns him into the embodiment of his bad side, Edward Hyde. At first, it's all fun and games, until Hyde starts going buck wild and Jekyll is turning into him at night, even without the potion. But when Jekyll tries to repress Hyde, the monstrous side of him only comes back worse than ever, killing an old man. Finally, he becomes Hyde permanently, and decides to kill himself instead of paying for his crimes.

Winston Smith

He's another cog in the machine, helping to rewrite history in a future totalitarian state where everybody is watched. Because of his doubts about the machine, he gets lured into joining a resistance group — which turns out to be a set-up. He winds up tortured, and gives up his lover and accomplice. In the end, he doesn't die, but he does get utterly broken by the Party.

Jeff Brundle in The Fly

Annnd another hero who suffers due to his curiosity. Brundle invents the perfect teleportation machine, but a fly gets stuck in there with him. He and his little travel buddy get merged genetically, and they wind up as a half-human, half fly monster. So he decides the answer is to merge his body with his pregnant girlfriend, to add more human DNA to the mix. Sadly, the selfish girlfriend escapes and he ends up being merged with a machine instead, becoming a mangled heap.

Chet Kinsman in Ben Bova's Kinsman series.

It's the far-off year of 1999, and the Americans and Russians are sharing a base deep under the surface of the moon. Chet Kinsman is the chief of the American side, and he's got a plan to avert the war back on Earth. And it almost works, except that his best friend, Frank Colt, betrays him and he winds up dying as a result.

Mad Max

Poor old Max — he just wants to pursue justice as a police officer, but his uprightness gets him in the sights of an evil biker gang. And after they torch his best friend Goose, he becomes embittered and quits being a cop. Only to find that there's no safety in being a civilian, in the crumbling post-apocalyptic Australia. The thugs take out his family, leaving him a bitter loner who has no choice but to kill punks of all sizes, occasionally chaining them to their soon-to-explode bikes and giving them saws. He doesn't die, but he does end up getting smacked around by Tina Turner with really bad hair, and then suffers the indignity of getting rescued by a bunch of kids.

Londo Mollari

Lometa at Everything2 has a very passionate argument about why Londo Mollari is the ultimate tragic hero of Babylon 5:

Londo as a tragic hero went through more twists than a bag of pretzels. Born into a noble family Mollari had a good heart, but he was condemned at every turn by his own bad choices. His ascension to the throne as Emperor was bittersweet and in the end he surrendered himself to his greatest fear, death at the hands of a Narn.

Wolverine

We were arguing earlier about whether Wolverine is a tragic hero. He does lose his family and his memory, and then his girlfriend gets killed. He struggles with his berzerker nature and his bestial killing instinct, and people are always trying to make him wear a yellow leotard. Plus, if you believe Wolverine: The End, he's destined to end up a bitter, lonely old man in Canada, before dying in a fight with his evil mutant brother, whom he thought dead.

Hal Jordan

It's all been undone now, but the greatest Green Lantern had a tragic hero arc in the 1990s. Hal Jordan just couldn't stand to fail, so after the evil Mongul destroyed his home town, Hal went nuts and used his power ring to recreate the wrecked Coast City. Then he went berzerk and attacked the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians. Finally, he renounced his prized Green Lantern-hood and became the villain Parallax. (Later, this was all revealed to be some form of alien possession, but that's a retcon.) Finally, he died, sacrificing himself to save the sun from being eaten.

Dr. Edward Morbius from Forbidden Planet

His curiosity is his downfall — he's determined to study the artifacts of the long-dead Krell race, so he uses the Krells' "Plastic Educator," not realizing that it shapes items from your mind into reality. The Krell wiped themselves out by unleashing monsters from their own ids, and Morbius wipes out his own expedition the same way, except for his daughter. His id-monster is born of his fatal desire to stay and explore the Krell remains, even after the rest of his expedition votes to go home. Finally, he learns the truth and lets the monster kill him, sparing his daughter's life.

Rick Deckard

He's a retired Blade Runner who has to come out of retirement to take up, once again, a job which he no longer really believes in, killing the artificial Replicants. (And if you believe director Ridley Scott, Deckard himself is one of the Replicants he's killing.) In the end, he's with Rachael, another Replicant, but their time together is going to be short and probably not all that pleasant.

Harvey Dent:

Spoilers for the Dark Knight ahead... So stop reading now if you really haven't seen it yet. (Really?) Harvey is another guy there's some debate over. But it's true that in The Dark Knight, he's pretty much one of the good guys, and his insistence on seeing the world in black and white is part of what helps the Joker break him. Even more than losing his fiancee and half his face, it's the realization that the Joker's right and everything is just random chaos that drives him over the edge and leads to his horrible (maybe) demise.

Additional reporting by Lauren Davis.

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• Tiger Man from Buck Rogers: Princess Ardala may have been bitchy and vampy, but she didn't have a lot of muscle. So, she had this sword-wielding, shield-bearing muscly bald dude do her bidding for her. Buck couldn't hit a girl (although Wilma sure could), so he frequently went toe to toe with this guy.
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• Omega Man from... Omega Man: This Charlton Heston starrer was the second adaptation of the I Am Legend novel, leaving him as the last person on Earth. No idea why they didn't just call this thing I Am Legend, but maybe Omega sounded a lot more sci fi high tech to good old chuck.
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• Hawk from Buck Rogers: Okay, I've been referring to this guy as Hawk Man for years now. Turns out I was wrong, and he's just called Hawk. Which still seems a bit too simple. Doesn't he look more like an Owl?
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• Mega Man from the countless Mega Man video games: This little guy might be tiny in size, but his heroic actions were "mega," and he's become one of the most recognizable characters in the video game universe. After all, you fight Dr. Wily and his robot minions all day, and you you're going to end up with some recognition.
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• David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth: Bowie became "the man" in this 1976 film who came to Earth looking for water. Although he may have been Thomas Jerome Newton, he'll always be "The Man" to us.
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• Demolition Man: Sylvester Stallone plays a retardo cop from the past who destroys everything in his path in order to get the job done. The proof? Right here:
  T.V. Reporter: [to John Spartan] "How can you justify destroying a $7 million dollar mini mall to rescue a girl whose ransom was only $25,000 dollars?"
  Little Girl: "FUCK YOU, LADY!"
  John Spartan: "Ha! Good answer"
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• The Invisible Man: Claude Rains sucks down a secret formula that turns both him, and his name, invisible. He's forever known by his invisible moniker afterwards, and the name Claude Rains just doesn't have that spark anymore. Sadly, this also gave birth to Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man. Egads.
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• Ultraman: This Japanese supercop was part of the Science Patrol, and activated when the normal Hayata uses the Beta Capsule, and becomes the giant, ass-kicking monster fighting Ultraman. I guess they wanted to be sure you still knew he was a man.
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• The entire slew of comic book "mans": For decades there have been a slew of "man" (and "woman) characters spewing forth from the pages of comic books. They gave us Superman, Batman, Ant-Man, Wonder Man, Giant Man, Spider-Man, and pretty much everything-you-can-think-of man.

• Before Charlton Heston entered into acting, he had to change his name to shed his connection to a science fiction classic. Born John Charles Carter, he shared a name with the hero of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series of books, which featured John Carter as an American Civil War veteran fighting mythical creatures on Mars. The first book, A Princess of Mars, was being developed into a film in the early 1950s as Heston began acting, although it later fell through.
• Planet Of The Apes: While first deemed too expensive, 20th Century Fox eventually shot a $50,000 test scene in the 1960s in order to show that the film had potential. This was Heston's first turn as Astronaut George Taylor, and his star power helped convince the executives to go for it. The resulting film was a success, and led to countless repeatings of Heston's line, "Take your stinking paws off me you damned dirty ape!" for years to come.
• Beneath The Planet Of The Apes: Heston agreed to appear as Taylor again in this film, but only in a small supporting role. He also wanted his character to be killed off, and he got his wish in a spectacular way when he was the one who triggered the Doomsday device that destroyed the planet. The series went on to have three prequel films and a television series, but suffered declining ratings. Who knows if Heston would have been able to save the series, but he'd had his fill of monkeyshines.
• The Omega Man: Heston played Robert Neville in this second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend novel in 1971. Complete with afro-wearing Rosalind Cash playing it to the nines as a Foxy Brown version of Lisa, Heston sported Ray-Bans and an automatic weapon throughout the film's Los Angeles setting. It's a bit campy, but still considered a classic by fans of science fiction and guns everywhere.
• Soylent Green: Is there anyone left alive in the world who doesn't know what Soylent Green is made out of? Based on the 1966 scifi novel Make Room! Make Room!, the Earth has become incredibly overpopulated and food resources are extremely scarce. The Soylent Corporation aims to tide hunger with their miracle foods, soylent red, soylent yellow, and the ever-popular new flavor, soylent green. Heston plays a detective who unravels the mystery behind the tasty treat, leading to another very popular Heston-quote, "Soylent Green is people!"
• Earthquake: While not exactly science fiction in plot, this Heston disaster flick featured a new process that Universal Studios decided to install in theaters in order to help pump the excitement during the movies earthquake sequences. "Sensurround" involved huge speakers and a 1,500 watt amplifier that could pump out "infra bass" — ass-rattling waves of sound. Supposedly the system caused nosebleeds, cracked ceilings, and destroyed china in nearby shops. The process was also used in the 1979 Battlestar Galactica theatrical film, and later relegated to the trash heap.
• Solar Crisis: Heston's return to science fiction films in 1990 resulted in this god-awful travesty of a movie that features an artificially intelligent bomb named Freddy and TV's Parker Lewis Can't Lose himself, Corin Nemec. The combined might and one-armed pushupability of Jack Palance and Charlton Heston couldn't prevent this $55 million dollar movie about dropping a bomb into the sun to redirect solar flares from flaming out.
• Planet of the Apes (2001): Besides a role on an episode of SeaQuest DSV and narrating Michael Bay's Armageddon, Charlton Heston last science fiction role was an uncredited cameo as a dying ape who hands a pistol to his son in this Tim Burton-directed remake. This film was so bad that I wouldn't have wanted my name in the credits either.

It all started with the book by Richard Matheson I Am Legend (1954). Set in the mid-1970s, the book suggests that a mix of atomic weapons and vampirism have turned everyone in Robert Neville's neighborhood into angry marauders who attack his house every night. Mostly they just call him names, and (in one instance) try to have sex with him. Locked into bitter loneliness, Neville has become so insane that it's hard to tell the difference between him and the monsters. This disturbing novel never offers a ray of hope. Tone: Gothic paranoia.

Next came the ultra low-budget Italian flick The Last Man on Earth (1964). Vincent Price plays the hero, who lives in a state of depressed stupor in the suburbs, where the zombie-esque infected roam at night like juvenile delinquents or Beatniks. They are nearly classic vampires, fearing garlic and mirrors. We get a lot of rambling backstory about how all this bad stuff came to happen, and the lonely Price tries (unsuccessfully) to befriend a fluffy black poodle. Eventually Price gets it right and befriends a wild female survivor, which turns out not to be the greatest idea. Tone: Existential angst.

Then there's the infamous Omega Man (1971). Neville (Charlton Heston) battles white-skinned Luddites who shun the technologies that "destroyed the world" in some incomprehensible Cold War skirmish involving germ warfare. They call themselves "The Family" and wear mirrored sunglasses with Medieval robes. These aren't monsters so much as deranged hippies or cultists. Cracked out, clad in an endless supply of shiny track suits, Neville spends every day getting drunk and re-watching the Woodstock movie while mouthing the words. Later he hooks up with a Black Panther-esque mama and her brood of lost kids. Tone: Psychedelic nihilism.