Comic Book Death - Notable Examples

Notable Examples

Although several comic book deaths are well-known, the two 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, and that he would return to life at the conclusion of the story, Jean's passing (one of many temporary deaths among the X-Men) was written as the true and permanent death of the character, only to be retconned a few years later to facilitate her return.

In more recent history, the death of Captain America made real-world headlines in early 2007 when he met his apparent end, but Steve Rogers returned in Captain America: Reborn in late 2009. Also, the death of the Flash (Barry Allen) shocked readers, as he is considered the start of the Silver Age, but he would remain dead from 1985 until 2008. The deaths of the Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Ultimate Spider-Man have also shocked audiences, as have several others.

In DC Comics' Batman: RIP storyline, Batman was apparently killed. It was revealed that he had survived, only for him to disappear into the timestream in the Final Crisis storyline. Dick Grayson took on the mantle of Batman, and Batman came back to the present in the "Return of Bruce Wayne" storyline, published about a year and a half after "Final Crisis".

Because death in comics is so often temporary, readers rarely take 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" referring to Captain America's sidekick (retconned dead since 1964), Batman's second Robin (dead since 1988), 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 in the shadows for decades. Ironically, Bucky Barnes dies again after a short tenure as Captain America, only to be revived by Nick Fury's Infinity Formula.

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.". Also, 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.