The main cast of Futurama have worked to save their world multiple times, embarking on surprisingly dangerous missions frequently across the sci-fi/comedy, but along the way, one of the nominal heroes of the show has proven to be a massive threat all on his own. Despite being one of the lead characters of Futurama, Bender almost destroyed his entire world more than once, and in one possible future, he even successfully led a terrifying robot army.
Bender was frequently portrayed as casually homicidal in Futurama, with the show often pointing out how Bender’s ultimate dream is to “kill all humans,” which also played with his quick temper and immense strength. However, whenever Bender was given actual power, he quickly turned into a ruthless robot.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
In Season 3, Episode 17, “A Pharaoh to Remember,” Bender casually became a despot to an entire world with little effort. Meanwhile in Season 2, Episode 17, “War Is the H-Word,” Bender was damaged in battle, and during repairs, the Earth government hid a powerful bomb within him that had the potential to wipe out an alien world. Fry prevented Bender from accidentally activating the trigger, only for Bender to decide this gave him all the power, and he forced an entire race of ball creatures into surrender with his threats of detonation.
Bender had also taken command of two separate armies of robots across the course of the series. In Season 5’s “The Beast With a Billion Backs” storyline, Bender rallied an army of robots alongside the armies of the Robot Devil to attack the dimensional being Yeevo after it effectively absorbed all of humanity, all so Bender could have his friends back. If Bender were to lose those kinds of connections, he could become the world’s deadliest threat — as revealed in Season 7, Episode 3, “Decision 3012,” where a possible future timeline predicted that Bender would one day lead an army of robots and wipe out most of humanity. The present-day Bender even quietly tried to ensure that timeline came to pass.
Bender had even been a universal-level threat twice. In Season 4, Episode 15, “The Farnsworth Parabox,” the universe was contained within a small box in Planet Express. Bender’s response to learning this was to take the box and shake it, seemingly causing all of existence around them to shudder.
Season 5’s “Bender’s Big Score” took it even further, when Bender was used by the Scammers to repeatedly use the Time Code to travel through history and steal valuable artifacts for them. The ensuing time-travel caused a massive paradox where multiple versions of Bender existed in the same place and point in time, all waiting to deliver their stolen goods to the Scammers and increasingly straining the timestream until it became too much, and the universe literally ripped open.
Bender was such an inherently dangerous robot, that one of his trips to the past casually resulted in the destruction of New York City, with Bender laying siege to the city and reducing it to rubble. Bender was frequently shown to be one of the most dangerous things in the Futurama universe, often threatening entire societies without even trying all that hard. It’s only his connection with his loved ones, like Fry, Leela, Hermes and Amy, that seemingly kept him at bay. Without those bonds, Bender could’ve been a more effective robot conqueror than even Ultron — taking over the world or possibly just destroying it with relative ease.
