10 James Bond Fates Worse Than Death
8. Mutilaton And A Murdered Wife - Felix Leiter (Licence To Kill)
Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA counterpart and eventual close friend, really gets put through the wringer in 1989's Licence To Kill, before his merciful retconning in the mid-2000s. The film opens with him and Bond arresting a drug runner before parachuting into Leiter's own wedding.
His happy marriage is cut short, however, on Felix and Della's honeymoon. Drug lord Franz Sanchez kidnaps Leiter and has him lowered into a shark tank where he is maimed horribly, and his wife is raped and murdered by a young Benicio Del Toro. Leiter's torture and Della's murder serves as the inciting incident for a very personal mission of revenge for Bond as he is stripped of his credentials and his titular licence to kill.
Unfortunately, what could have served as an interesting and emotional examination of the crippling PTSD Leiter would have face is undermined by his appearance at the end, light-heartedly yucking it up with Bond over the phone - seemingly already over the loss of his wife and his leg.