Comic book death

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This article is about the deaths of characters in comic books. For the personification of death in comic books, see Death (comics).
Cover to Uncanny X-Men #136 (August 1980, art by John Byrne), the penultimate issue of "The Dark Phoenix Saga". Jean Grey would sacrifice herself in the following issue, but Marvel later had the story retconned to allow Jean to appear in the new X-Factor series.

In the comic book fan community, the apparent death and subsequent return of a long-running character is often called a comic book death. A comic book death is generally not taken seriously by readers and is rarely permanent or meaningful other than for story or thematic purposes. The term is usually not applied to characters who have the ability to return from the dead as an established power or ability, such as Solomon Grundy or Ra's al Ghul.

Context[]

Commenting on the impact and role of comic book character deaths, writer Geoff Johns said:[1] "Death in superhero comics is cyclical in its nature, and that's for a lot of reasons, whether they are story reasons, copyright reasons, or fan reasons." The phenomenon of comic book death is particularly common for superhero characters. Writer Danny Fingeroth suggests that the nature of superheroes requires that they be both ageless and immortal.[2]

A common expression regarding comic book death was once "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben,"[3] referring to the seminal importance of those characters' deaths to the title character: Captain America's sidekick (retconned dead in 1964), Batman's second Robin (dead in 1988), and Spider-Man's uncle (dead since 1962), respectively. This long-held tenet was broken in 2005, when Jason Todd returned to life as the Red Hood and Bucky was retconned to have survived the accident that seemingly killed him, and brought back as the Winter Soldier who had remained in the shadows for decades.

Because death in American super-hero comics is so often temporary, readers rarely take the death of a character seriously; when a character dies, readers feel very little sense of loss, and are simply left wondering how long it will be before they return to life.[4][5][6][7]

Notable examples[]

Although several comic book deaths are well-known, two of the best-known are the 1980 "death" of Jean Grey in Marvel's "Dark Phoenix Saga" and that of Superman in DC's highly publicized 1993 "Death of Superman" storyline. There is one major distinction between the two, however—whereas it was never intended that Superman's death be permanent, but rather that he would return to life at the conclusion of the story,[8] Jean's passing was intended to be permanent, as the editor Jim Shooter felt that would be the only satisfactory outcome given that she had committed mass murder.[9][10] Despite this, the story was retconned a few years later to facilitate Jean's return.

In 2007, the death of Captain America made real-world headlines[3][11][12][13][14][15] when he met his apparent end, but Steve Rogers returned in Captain America: Reborn two years later in 2009.[16][17]

Planters cited comic book deaths (particularly those adapted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) as the inspiration for a storyline killing off its century-old mascot Mr. Peanut in January 2020 and having him reborn as a baby the next month.[18]

In-universe acknowledgement[]

Sasquatch: Good guys do occasionally come back from the dead—though not as often as the bad guys...
Talisman: But that really only seems to happen to the big guns of the super hero biz—Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, people like them.

— Alpha Flight #23, June 1985

The Thing: But I thought you X-Men always come back from the dead!

— Fantastic Four vol. 1 #395, December 1994

She-Hulk: (Handling Charles Xavier's will) I know this is a delicate question and one I would not normally have to ask, but you are the X-Men and you don't do normal ... To the best of your knowledge, is Xavier really dead? I only ask because we both know that "dead" and "dead dead"...

— Uncanny X-Men vol. 3 #23 (September 2014)

Comic book characters themselves have made comments about the frequency of resurrections. Professor X has commented "in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors."[19] When Siryn was made aware of her father's death, she refused to mourn him, giddily claiming that since her father has died as an X-Man, he was likely going to be soon resurrected, shocking her friends.[20] Her father is later restored to life but is recruited by the Apocalypse Twins as part of their new Horsemen of Apocalypse.[21] The obituary writer of the in-universe newspaper the Daily Bugle once bemoaned to reporter Ben Urich about how many retractions he has had to write after each resurrection of a superhero or supervillain.[22] In one issue of The Incredible Hercules, there is a betting game for then deceased superheroes to return to life.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ IGN Geoff Johns: Inside Blackest Night
  2. ^ James R. Fleming, Review of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us about Ourselves and Our Society, ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, Winter 2006.
  3. ^ a b Captain America, RIP, para. 5, Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2007
  4. ^ "No One Stays Dead In Comics: 16 Superhero Deaths And How Long They Lasted". Empire. September 5, 2014.
  5. ^ "The Most Memorable & Shocking Comic Book Deaths". CBR. September 23, 2014.
  6. ^ "'Logan': The Film's Ending vs. the Comics". The Hollywood Reporter.
  7. ^ Cazdyn, Eric (April 16, 2012). The Already Dead: The New Time of Politics, Culture, and Illness. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822352280 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Brian Cronin (March 29, 2007). "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed # 96". Comic Book Resources.
  9. ^ "The Dark Phoenix Tapes", Phoenix: The Untold Story #1 (April 1984)
  10. ^ Ginocchio, Mark. "10 Amazing Storylines Derailed by Editorial Politics". What Culture. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  11. ^ EST, Samantha Henig On 3/8/07 at 7:00 PM (March 8, 2007). "Comics: Captain America, 1941-2007". Newsweek.
  12. ^ "U.S." ABC News.
  13. ^ Gustines, George Gene (March 8, 2007). "Captain America Is Dead; National Hero Since 1941" – via NYTimes.com.
  14. ^ Glaister, Dan (March 8, 2007). "Wham! bang! Marvel kills off Captain America" – via www.theguardian.com.
  15. ^ "Captain America, Back from the Dead (Sort Of)". NPR.org.
  16. ^ "Captain America, thought dead, comes back to life - CNN.com". edition.cnn.com.
  17. ^ Sacks, Ethan. "Captain America, a.k.a. Steve Rogers is coming back to life two years after Marvel Comics killed him". nydailynews.com.
  18. ^ "Planters ad agency VaynerMedia explains why they killed off Mr. Peanut". CNBC. January 23, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  19. ^ X-Factor #70 page 17, panel 1
  20. ^ David, Peter (w), Olivetti, Ariel (a). "Two Meetings, One In Person, One Not", X-Factor (vol 3) #7 (July 2006). Marvel Comics.
  21. ^ Uncanny Avengers #9 (June 2013). Marvel Comics.
  22. ^ Spider-Man Unlimited vol.1 #18. Marvel Comics.
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