Resurrected comics characters

[House of Usher]

I started writing this on the Prog 1693 thread following the discussion about the fate of Johnny Alpha and the brushes with death other 2000ad characters have survived. I was thinking about the cynical way comics characters are killed off and brought back to life again and whether or not it bothered me in the slightest.

I quite enjoyed the death of Superman. I thought it made some entertaining comics, even though there was a lot more pathos in Ted Cord's coma. I wasn't around to see Superman's resurrection, so I'm not bothered if it was done shabbily or not. I'm glad they killed him and I'm glad they brought him back for more entertaining stories and I could forget his death ever happened - that was one story arc, which finished, and there were others that came after.

I can't really remember the death and resurrection of other American superhero characters annoying me much. I know Elektra is supposed to have come back from the dead twice, which is apparently only one time too many. I never liked her anyway.

Jean Grey came back from the dead, but they had the decency to call her Phoenix. I heard that Colossus got killed, but it didn't take. Neither killing Colossus nor bringing him back seems like a good idea to me. Actually, the killing him bit sort of appeals.

Any other especially crass Marvel or DC resurrections?

[JamesC]

Worse than the death and resurrection phenomena is the new costume thing.

Ever since Spidey got the black costume - which was quite cool at first - every other American Super Hero seems to have had a set of new duds at some point.
Batman, Superman and Daredevil had some particularly horrific costume changes in the mid nineties. The Fantastic Four do it all the time but nothing looks as good as their original blue boiler suits.

[JOE SOAP]

Worse than the death and resurrection phenomena is the new costume thing.

Ever since Spidey got the black costume - which was quite cool at first - every other American Super Hero seems to have had a set of new duds at some point.
Batman, Superman and Daredevil had some particularly horrific costume changes in the mid nineties. The Fantastic Four do it all the time but nothing looks as good as their original blue boiler suits.

It was happening long before Spidey in the 80's. Doctor Strange, Captain America et al changed suits and identities a few times in the '70s.

[Jared Katooie]

I really REALLY hate resurrections of characters. Their death and return is almost always a cheap gimmick to sell issues. It also has the effect of removing any sense of drama from stories, since we know the characters will never really die.

It can be done well, but it generally isn't.


Here is a spoilerific list of resurrections with notes:

[spoiler]
Superman: Killed as a gimmick to increase sales. Brought back as a reinvented version with new electrical powers. Everyone hated this version so they changed him
back to normal.

Batman: Killed by Grant Morrison, so everyone thought it was dead clever and original. Personally, I thought it was a cheap and lazy attempt at creating drama, in a tedious and cliched story. SHOCK HORROR! He's coming back!

Elektra: An important character in Frank Millers popular run in Daredevil. Her death was intended to shock the readers and fire them up for the final confrontation between Daredevil and (her killer) Bullseye. Because Elektra was popular, Marvel cynically resurrected her. She appeared in several bland and unpopular stories before she was reduced to the superhero Z-list. Mark Millar later wrote a story where she was killed and resurrected once again.

Jean Grey: Jean's death and resurrection was actually quite original in comics at the time, and served a useful purpose story-wise. This would be a good example of how to do it right, if so many people hadn't copied the idea. Later, Grant Morrison killed her again, then wrote a story set two million (or something) years in the future where he made it clear that she hadn't been resurrected, thank you very much.

Flash: After the death of the second Flash, a new Flash took his place. It was a bold and dramatic move. A character reader had known for 30 years was gone. The new Flash's adventures proved extremely popular and the character was well-received. SO they brought his predecessor back from the dead. I think his wife got brought back from the dead as well. I can't remember.

Jason Todd: The death of the second Robin shocked an entire generation of Batman fans. I tcemented the Joker's role as DCs most warped and deadly criminals, and returned Batman to his classic "tough, loner" role. Jason was later resurrected from the dead for some reason, and became a villain, for some reason, who pursued a violent vendetta against Batman, who he blamed for his deat, for some reason.

Bucky Barnes: One of the most famous deaths in comics, an event which haunted Captain America for years. Resurrected by Ed Brubaker. Brubaker just about pulls it off by claiming that Bucky never died in the first place (we never saw him die), and by making Bucky into an intersting character.

Captain America: Killed in a cheap stunt to sell issues of Civil War. The aforementioned Bucky took over as Captain America, to great success (incredibly). Due to the popularity of the new Captain America, there was clearly no need to bring back the original. So they did. Resurrected by his nemesis the Red Skull, as part of his nefarious plot to... eh, save the life of his most hated enemy?

Apocalypse: It was Cable's destiny to battle Apocalypse to the death. after years of build-up they had their climatic confrontation. Cable emerged victorious, but Apocalypse waslater resurrected. SInce then they've mostly ignored each other. Apocalypse has appeared in maybe two stories since then (maybe a few more).

Hal Jordan: Went crazy and massacred the Green Lantern Corps, before heroically sacrificing his life. Not only was he resurrected, the entire Green Lanter Corps (thousands of people) were also resurrected. Everyone hated evil Hal and massacreing, so why did they even bother writing it?

Colossus: Heroically gave his life to save countless individuals from a deadly virus. His death was handled very well, with his teammates coping with their grief etc. Years and years passed and Joss Whedon was given the writing duties on X-men. He liked Colossus, so he resurrected him post-haste.

Hawkeye: One of the longest-serving Avengers. His death was a huge shock at the heart of the Avengers Disassembled storyline. How could the team go on without one of their most important members. Sadly it couldn't. He was later (literally) magically resurrected though, so that was a plus.

Green Arrow: Heroically gave his life for some reason or another. Resurrected by Kevin Smith because he liked the character.
[/spoiler]


Abbreviated version: Lots of heroes have come back from the dead. There is almost never a good reason for it. STOP DOING IT NOW!

[starscape]

I was thinking about Captain America's name change in connection with the fuss Wonder Woman's costume change caused.  And if you don't remember, after Watergate, Cap became the non-flag flying Nomad. Imagine the Neo-Cons reaction to that!

I've long thought there are far too many superheroes/villains in comics.  So I was really disappointed when Bendis brought back all these second-raters that few had missed at the end of Civil War.  Can't remember too much of a clamour for Mockingbird to come back.

Two very bad choices of rebirth (although both handled brilliantly by Johns and Brubaker) were Barry Allen as the Flash and Bucky Barnes.  The death of the Flash was a great heroic event that really cemented his place in legend.  Allen wasn't missed so much as it was such a great death.  Bucky helped define Cap and made Marvel that little bit more realistic.  Great stories but wish they hadn't happened.

And Marvel still hasn't explained how Thor could talk to Cap A's ghost if he wasn't actually dead.

[TordelBack]

Nice one, Jared!

Over in X-Land, Doug Ramsey (aka Cypher, a name that never stuck) of the New Mutants is back from the dead.  Again (but apparently more permanently this time).  Actually, this isn't such a bad thing - it must be 20 years since his original death, and I've rather missed him.  Maybe 20 years is the most you get out of a good death these days?

[spoiler]Nightcrawler and Cable[/spoiler] on the other hand are now dead.  I give it two years tops.  Aside:  [spoiler]Cable[/spoiler], one of the many pointless characters to emerge from the 'mind' of Rob Liefield, actually had rather a good death.

[Art]

I've actually been really enjoying Batman's recent period of being dead, I'd almost be happy to see it left that way. That said I'm enjoying the return story quite a bit as well, and RIP and Final Crisis, which spawned this storyline and which IMHO were a bit lacking, actually seem better in retrospect as more is added to them.

[Roger Godpleton]

Erm, I think only five or six of the original GL Corps are in the "resurrected" version.

[JOE SOAP]

This thread makes me glad I don't read Superhero comics.

[Radbacker]

[spoiler]Nightcrawler and Cable [/spoiler] on the other hand are now dead.  I give it two years tops.  Aside: [spoiler] Cable[/spoiler], one of the many pointless characters to emerge from the 'mind' of Rob Liefield, actually had rather a good death.

I've been collecting this second coming Xman story and must say I was quite moved by [spoiler]Nightcrawlers death[/spoiler] thought it was really well done and certainly had an impact on me, but lets face it he's not goign to stay dead.

CU Radbacker

[HdE]

This thread makes me glad I don't read Superhero comics.

Thank GOD! I thought I was the only one.

[TordelBack]

I was quite moved by [spoiler]Nightcrawlers death[/spoiler] thought it was really well done and certainly had an impact on me, but lets face it he's not goign to stay dead.

And that's the real problem for me - it was well done, and in the context of a surprisingly good story, but even as he was dying you knew he'd be back.  Makes it hard to care about the drama,not to mention endless eulogies and hand-wringing.  I thought Second Coming was one of the better crossover events Marvel have done:  it grew logically out of events in all the X-books and it was done as a single coherent narrative (even if I did have to resort to illicit means to read it all). It was slightly cheapened by the Liefield-like reveal of[spoiler] the new X-Force - 'cos badass killer mutants wiv loadsa guns'n'swords'n'shit is kewl[/spoiler] (snore).  Nice final pages though!

[Colin YNWA]

You could argue that 'Blackest Night' was one long excuse to resurrect 12 (I think is was) dead DC characters who'd been missing for any amount of time... but then it was blinding good fun so I let that one slide.

[James Stacey]

This thread makes me glad I don't read Superhero comics.

Thank GOD! I thought I was the only one.

You guys are not alone

[Richmond Clements]

Makes it hard to care about the drama,not to mention endless eulogies and hand-wringing.

There's a wonderful scene on a Morrison JLA book (this is from memory so it's not quite right) where Green Arrow (or Batman, can't remember!) mentions that only Superman bothered to turn up to Metamorpho's funeral- no-one goes to them cause there's no point, they always come back to life anyway.