Without anymore fanfare...
I've read comic books, on and off, for most of my life. I've seen the rise and fall of the Phoenix. Had a "Death in the Family". I witnessed the birth of Image Comics and many other startup brands. Lived through the "Crisis". And even saw the cosmic power of the Infinity Gauntlet. Among so many other events. I have pretty much my entire family to thank for this. My mom and dad who saw it as reading and to an extent artwork. And my older brother who enjoyed them before me. He and I, to this day, will send random texts to each other just to clarify something from our childhood which, thanks to ret-conning, no longer matters.
I love comics, I think it is safe to say, though I do not throw down the cash that I (read as 'my parents') used to on them, but I still try to keep abreast of what is going on in the greater world of "funny books".
Once upon a time it was considered a shocking event when a superhero would die. "They killed Robin?! How could they do that?" It didn't happen that often, but it did happen. The death of a super-villain was much more common, as, well, they were villains. Eventually their nefarious plots would catch up to them. But a hero? The men and women (and aliens) that are supposed to stand up for the "little guy" in these modern-day fairy tales? But, that's the thing. These characters ARE heroes. And, though they are fairy tales, they are supposed to be grounded a tiny bit in reality. In reality, heroes die. It's a sad fact of life. Hell, it's how a lot of them BECAME heroes. By sacrificing themselves for someone or something else.
For the most part, and I am by no means a comic book historian, in the earlier days of comic books when a superhero was killed off, they stayed dead. The thought of them dying was such a traumatic thing to readers that the writers, appropriately, thought that bringing them back was a bit of a heel. That changed dramatically in the 1970's and on through to today. It basically became a way of sparking interest in a comic book or a specific character. "Hey, let's kill of Superhero X because his comic isn't selling right now. In a year or so, we will bring him back, saying that he wasn't really dead or that it was her clone or that it was a doppelganger from another Earth." Because of this we, as readers of comics, have become immune to when almost any "big name" comic character is killed in a book. We know that it just won't stick.
For a LONG time in comics there was a joke. It went basically like this:
No one stays dead in comics. Except Captain Marvel. He's dead.
Earlier this week, DC Comics killed Superman.
Again.
Not for the 2nd or 3rd time. More like the fifth. And no one really cares. Why? Because it is impossible for us to have sympathy for this character any longer. I was a huge Superman fan growing up. The "Man of Steel" was the best. I probably would be putting it lightly if I said that I was just heartbroken in 1992 when the alien killing machine named Doomsday killed Kal-El of Krypton.
But...he didn't. He apparently just beat him so badly that he basically went into a life-preserving coma so that he could heal. I'm pretty sure that was the end of me being a hard-core comic book reader. I still LOVED comics. But I didn't have any pathos for the characters any longer. How could I? How could any of us? No matter how good the writing or artwork is, if the character can't really die and STAY dead (at least for a decade or two) then we can't see any real growth in the character.
Just a quick re-cap of "dead" comic book heroes:
- Superman - dea...nope, already another Superman, who is actually the old Superman, taking his place (yeah, my head hurt saying that one).
- Robin (Jason Todd) - nope, he came back as the Red Hood
- Jean Grey - dead-ish. While most comic book readers know, how couldn't you, that the Phoenix wasn't really Jean, it was just a Jean-shell while she was healing. Jean was actually killed a while ago for reals...but now she is back as a teenager...again.
- Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) - Hahaha, yeah, no. Hal got possessed. Killed a whole bunch of other GL's (including Kilowog, that didn't stick either), died reigniting the damn sun, got to be the new Spectre, and then go to be alive again. Also, got to be YOUNGER than before. Of course he did.
- Bucky Barnes - I assume most of you have seen Captain America, Captain America 2, and Captain America 3 by now. I'll let that answer that one.
- Captain America - Dead in the 40's. Killed in the 00's. Now a Hydra agent (as of this week), so the character is dead to me no matter what.
Yeah, time to burn the ol' soapbox.
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