Everything about Comic Book Death totally explained
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 didn't 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 doesn't 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
Historically, the two most famous comic book deaths are arguably 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'd 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'll 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" 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 both Bucky Barnes and Jason Todd returned to life.
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's 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 died 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 wasn't 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 didn't kill the character, they were merely buried in rubble/flung to safety/transported to another dimension (Spider-Man villain Hammerhead once survived a nuclear explosion in this way).
- The person who died was a clone, impostor, or shapeshifter (Dark Phoenix being the most well-known example).
- The character really did die, but was resurrected, either intentionally (for example, Green Arrow) or unintentionally (for example, Jason Todd) by some cosmic or magical being.
- The character did die, and stayed dead, but an identical character took his place and used 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. However, the term
comic book death wasn't 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.)
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.
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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Comic Book Death'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://comic_book_death.totallyexplained.com">Comic book death Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
