This article is about the deaths of characters in comic books. For the personification of death in comic books, see Death (comics). Comic book death is a neologism used somewhat ironically in the comic book fan community to refer to the killing off and subsequent return of a long-running character. This irony addresses the fact that while death is a serious subject, a comic book death is generally not taken seriously and is rarely permanent or meaningful.
Some comic book writers have killed off characters to gather publicity or to create dramatic tension. In other instances, a writer kills off a character that he/she did not particularly care for, but upon leaving the title, another writer who liked this character brings them back. More often however, the publishing house intends to permanently kill off a long-running character, but fan pressure or creative decisions push the company to resurrect the character. Still other characters remain permanently dead, but are replaced by characters who assume their personas (such as Wally West taking over for Barry Allen as the Flash), so the death does not cause a genuine break in character continuity.
Deaths and subsequent resurrections have become such an institution on comic book narratives that certain characters have been written with this as a character trait, such as DC's Resurrection Man and Marvel's Mr. Immortal.
Notable examples
Arguably the two most well known comic book deaths 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, and that he would return to life at the conclusion of the story, Jean's passing (the first of many comic book deaths that would be associated with the X-Men) was written as the true and permament death of the character, only to be retconned a few years later to facilitate her return. The most recent, high-profile death was that of Captain America, who made headlines worldwide in early 2007 when he met his apparent end.
The prominence of comic book deaths has ultimately led to the readership rarely taking the death of a character seriously - when someone dies, the reader feels very little sense of loss, and simply left wondering how long it will be before they return to life. This, in turn, has led to a common piece of comic shop wisdom: "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben"[1] referring to Captain America's sidekick (reported dead since 1964), Batman's second Robin (dead since 1989), and Spider-Man's uncle (dead since 1962), respectively. This long-held tenet was finally broken in 2005, when Jason Todd returned to life and Bucky Barnes was reported to have survived the accident that seemingly killed him, remaining into shadows for decades.
Comic book characters themselves have often made comments about the frequency of resurrections, notably Charles Xavier who commented "in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors."[2]
Comic book deaths have been parodied by Peter Milligan in X-Statix, in which all the characters had died by the end of the series. In X-Statix Presents Dead Girl, it is further parodied. A group of dead villains want to return to life claiming "it happens all the time". Dr. Strange tells that if enough people want him alive, a character will be "promoted" to life. It was also parodied by Dan Slott in his 2005 miniseries Great Lakes Avengers, in which one member dies in every issue.
The Simpsons also parodied comic book deaths in the episode "Radioactive Man" in which Bart mentions an issue of Radioactive Man in which the eponymous character and his sidekick Fallout Boy die on every page.
Common retcons include:
- The death scene is not actually the death of the character, but instead a severe near-death injury or situation, from which the character gets saved (off-screen, detailed in the subsequent retcon) by his powers or skills, by good luck, or by the help of someone else. The death scene may be a deliberate plot of a character that simulates his own death or that of someone else for a certain purpose.
- A common variant is an explosion that doesn't kill the character, they are merely buried in rubble/flung to safety/transported to another dimension (Spider-Man villain Hammerhead once survived a nuclear explosion in this way).[3]
- The person who dies is a clone, impostor, or shapeshifter (Dark Phoenix being the most well-known example).[4]
- The character really does die, but is resurrected, either intentionally (e.g., Green Arrow)[5] or unintentionally (e.g., Jason Todd)[6] by some cosmic or magical being.
- The character does die, and stays dead, but an identical character takes his place and uses the same name. An example is the death of Snowball II in The Simpsons.
- Time Travel, reality manipulation or other narrative tricks may be used to undo big changes in the fictional universe (such as the death of characters) by setting them out of continuity and restoring things to a previous point. A story may also be conceived as not being canon from the start, so that the writers have creative freedom to kill major characters or perform radical changes as they see fit for the narrative, with such changes taking place only in that work and not in the main fictional universe.
Outside comic books
The return of a character previously thought dead is certainly not limited to comic books. In many slasher films and monster movies, the killer or monster seemingly dies at the end of the film only to return for a sequel. Daytime and prime-time soap operas are notorious for comic book deaths; famously, an entire season of Dallas was retconned into one character's dream so that a character who had been dead throughout that season could return.[7] However, the term comic book death was not used at the time.
Another well-known "comic book death" outside the comics is that of Shadow the Hedgehog, who died in Sonic Adventure 2 only to return in Sonic Heroes (albeit with amnesia.)
Another instance included Days of Our Lives character Stefano DiMera who has died both on screen and off 10 timescitation needed, while one storyline was retconned where a serial killer's entire roster of victims were discovered to be alive on an island.{{Fact}
Among sci-fi, Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG-1 is a perfect example of "comic book death", having appeared to die numerous times and actually dying twice and "ascending" both times before coming back to life due to fan pressure.citation needed
One of the most famous cases outside comic books is the death of Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Final Problem". He was later brought back to life in "The Adventure of the Empty House", with the creator Arthur Conan Doyle writing in the apparent death as being a part of Holmes's plan.
Death is rarely taken less seriously than by animated series South Park. The show's character Kenny has died numerous times, only to (almost) always return the next episode.
See also
References
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