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Comic book death


In the comic book fan community, the apparent death and subsequent return of a long-running character is often called a comic book death. While death is a serious subject, a comic book death is generally not taken seriously in the real world and is rarely permanent or meaningful other than for story or thematic purposes. Commenting on the impact and role of comic book character deaths, writer Geoff Johns said:

Death in superhero comics is cyclical in its nature, and that's for a lot of reasons, whether they are story reasons, copyright reasons, or fan reasons.

The phenomenon of comic book death is particularly common for superhero characters. Writer Danny Fingeroth suggests that the nature of superheroes requires that they be both ageless and immortal.

A common expression regarding comic book death was once "The only people who stay dead in comics are Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben," referring to the seminal importance of those characters' deaths to Captain America, Batman, and Spider-Man respectively. However, after the former two were brought back in 2005 as the Winter Soldier and the Red Hood respectively, the phrase was changed to only recognize Uncle Ben.

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, but rather that he would return to life at the conclusion of the story, Jean's passing was intended to be permanent, as the editor Jim Shooter felt that would be the only satisfactory outcome given that she had committed mass murder. Despite this, the story was retconned a few years later to facilitate Jean's return.


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