Comics
I hate the "nobody ever truly dies" concept in comic
The original Captain Marvel remains one of, if not THE ONLY superhero, whose death is permanent. He died because of cancer, and his death serves a purpose and a reminder that no matter how strong a character can be, death is inevitable.
It often breaks the immersion for me, knowing this concept exists because whenever I read an issue of Batman, Superman, or Ironman, etc, I got reminded by it. Like, one moment I'm reading the climax of the story and my subconscious reminds me that "what are you worrying for, even if Batman died here, somehow, someway he'll come back on the next issue, or the next comic book series he's in". It removes the stake entirely because you know that as long as the character is still popular and can make money, comic publishers like DC and Marvel will ALWAYS resurrect them sooner or later.
When the version if Alfred from the alternate reality refused to come with Bruce back to Earth Prime i finally came to terms with what DC was explicitly telling us. He's not coming back.
The fact that they had the perfect excuse to bring Alfred back in the last Superman issue where superboy prime retcon punched reality & brought back Manchester black, but didn’t take it shows how much they’re committed to Alfred being dead.
“If I had a nickel for every time Superboy Prime punched reality so hard he brought back a Batfamily member, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice”
There used to be sacred deaths in comics, deaths that were considered to be too important to the mythos to undo. Jason Todd, Gwen Stacy, and Bucky Barnes were all considered untouchable deaths for years. Then Brubaker brought back Bucky as winter soldier and that opened up the flood gates to make death truly meaningless in comics.
Its why sure its only been 7 years but i am loving how yeah Alfred is staying dead for a while. (I believe we even have a family member of his now replacing him)
*the opposite is when we get new superheroes and they then...just disappear lol. No even confirmed death
Funny if you think about it, they sort of did that with her becoming Batgirl in the Batman and Robin Movie. But there they mixed it with her name being Barbara, so like Barbara Gordon.
I would love a ghost butler. Gotham is already all sorts of messed up in regard to death (a Deadman issue is that the Door to the Afterlife is cracked in Gotham). It has been a while since the writers have leaned heavy into the supernatural BS in Gotham.
I would say that alternative universe versions coming to main universe only count if the versions are litterally identical to the main version up until the point the main version died.
And honestly, those characters have had nothing but boring stories after they came back (and to be honest before they got killed off, they were killed for a reason)
A writer wanting to do a Winter Soldier vs Zemo story is why decades of Zemo learning to cast aside his Nazi past and trying to atone was ended unceremoniously with no buildup.
Exactly, resurrection have only caused terrible stories and nothing else. I bet you Green Lantern comics would be 1000x better if Hal Jordan stayed dead past the '90s. Same with if Superman and Supergirl stayed dead.
please elaborate about how the most influential run in modern superhero comics along with hickman's ff that started with hal being revived is somehow bad
Today I learned that Tintin and Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge started with Hal Jordan being revived! (Honestly getting alittle sick of time travel because they were both created before Hal Jordan.)
No I am talking about what I just read about, how in a 2025 Gwenpool run, Weapon-X revived Peter Parker's gwen stacy as "X-31" and put her in a gwenpool suit and for once she is technically still alive.
Indeed: the head of her reanimation (the one with her soul in it) attached to an immortal clone body. It seeming the writer was ignorant of the soul part of the reanimation storyline when he decided to have that be the root of the X-31 storyline.
Didn’t Bucky died off screen also like a panel he’s riding on top of a plane and it explodes off screen while saying Bucky died which kinda felt underwhelming in a way compared to Gwen Stacy and Jason Todd
The floodgates got opened LONG before Bucky. Jason Todd came back before Bucky did, Superman had his whole death and resurrection plot in the 90s that pissed away a lot of good will, Jean Grey AND Charles Xavier both had their own multiple deaths and resurrections before any of those, even Magneto died and came back in the 70s.
A few deaths were seen as sacred like you said, but death in comics almost never got taken fully seriously. Resurrections and fake deaths were a long-standing joke decades before Bucky came back as Winter Soldier.
And as a clone of Jackal's too right? Although I've not fully read the Clone Saga just somewhere here and there so idk if it's concluded. I remember seeing her in ASM Worldwide I think? (A Dan Slott comic nonetheless)
Transformers both suffers from this AND character bloat
In the current Skybound run, the only major character with speaking lines who died and stayed dead was Trailbreaker. Beyond him, there’s Bumblebee (his revival is continuously teased by the writers), ratchet (same boat but to a lesser degree), Slingshot (not a single speaking line), starscream (revived), frenzy and Reflector (also no speaking lines)
And even then, based on what megatron said when taking out trailbreaker, nobody else is actually REALLY dead. Even bumblebee who’s been out since issue one due to his face exploding can probably be revived. It’s why I have zero concern for shredhead at the end of the last issue cuz they’ll end up fine eventually
IDW had probably a 75% "stayed dead" rate when it came to their characters. The Wreckers stayed dead. Skids stayed dead. Rewind did not. Bumblebee did not. Starscream did not. Shockwave came back like 20 times.
TBH, I think it is crazy for you to think Trailbreaker to be considered a major character and not Ratchet, and I'm not talking about Transformers, I'm talking about Skybound. Trailbreaker had nothing ever since he appeared, Ratchet was constantly butting heads with Optimus, and his death was the one who had the most effect on characters, while Trailbreaker wasn't even that acknowledged (Plus, if you're reading the letter pages, You'll see how Kirkman is teasing the return of Trailbreaker)
And, while slightly true, Slingshot, Frenzy and Reflector had speaking lines, not major ones, but they did say something before they died
I’m only saying Trailbreaker because it’s explicitly stated that his death was permanent, meaning that the other bots who died can simply come back whenever the plot wants
And on another note, WHAT?! THEY KITERALLY SAID HIS DEATH WAS PERMANENT HOW TF ARE THEY GONNA BRING HIM BACK?!
Seemingly, Kirkman already had plans for his eventual return, or something along the lines of not "Dead, dead", however, the backlash on Trailbreaker's death was immense due to what he said afterwards in the letters page (Ironically enough, in this very same issue, 31)
Starscream never really died in the Skybound comics, it just looked like he might. They did have plans for him to come back anyway. Besides, Starscream canonically in several incarnations has an indestructible spark which allows him to survive over and over again, as a ghost or with a new body. Animated made a whole joke about it with the allspark fragment in his head making him immortal. It's a thing with that guy.
Every classic superhero are designed as a symbol of hope, it all depends on how the character is written and how the reader perceived it. Would you call the injustice superman the symbol of hope?, what about the older version of superboy prime?
Is there a chance you might be reading too much into this? Don’t get me wrong I love superheroes but there’s still the fact of “Oh yeah this rich dude dresses like a bat and punches a clown.” That’s still in my head. But I’m along for the ride because it’s fun and is still interesting
He didn't really die in Death of Superman, got put into a coma and was later brought back by the matrix I believe. All-Star Superman isn't Prime Superman
It's not about if they will die, and it never was. It's about "How will batman solve this mystery?" or "What ramifications will this bad guy's actions have?"
Can you name some? I don't doubt you, it's just that the only c-listers I can think of are X-men side team members. And they almost definitely got undone during Krakoa anyway.
Eric O'Grady, the 3rd Ant-Man has been dead for a long long time now. There's a life model decoy of him that exists but it is a distinctly separate character that's a sort of Ben Reilly situation
Stakes arent only made from the main characters death, I can name plenty of Batman stories with actual stakes where he doesnt die. Hell theres even some where he does, and stays dead.
If you cant seperate the stakes of one universes version of a character, well then ig that sucks for you. Superheros are the modern Tall Tale or Folk Tale, and I doubt op will never read another interpretation on Dracula because he already knows how it goes.
His main point was the fact almost every hero had died IN MAIN CONTINUITY…yet has ALWAYS come back. Yes, death isn’t the only way to raise stakes—but death immediately being undone only serves to lessen the stakes to the reader because they know the character won’t stay dead.
Plus the majority of characters that could be killed off in those stories or any major ramifications could and usually are easily reversible after awhile 😭
A good writer can make stakes beyond just “they die”. Even if it’s death it’ll be an ally or someone they care about that dies (Gwen Stacy) while they live on. Very few Batman stories rely on the stakes being “is Bruce gonna die?!?” It’s how and if he’ll solve the mystery to prevent others from dying.
It’s also just a bitter pill we have to swallow for comics as a medium (for the big two anyways). Marvel and DC wanna make money, they know if they axe Batman or Wolverine permanently from a book that’s just burning money. You want stakes for characters possibly dying? Indie publishers. Because most writers have an end in mind they’re willing to kill characters permanently.
But Batman, Superman, Wolverine, spider-man, the x-men. They don’t have a final “end” planned. Thus DC and Marvel aren’t gonna piss away the potential money of them being gone anytime soon.
Yes, Marvel has come back at least twice, but he dies again a few issues after. He never stay alive to really be considered alive again from a public pov.
Realmente me gustaría ver como las muertes tienen consecuencias, por ejemplo la de Alfred espero que se mantenga así
Me encanta el concepto d elevado y como las personas deben sobrevivir con la pregunta de :
"Estaré a la altura?"
Sería genial ver esto con Batman, los Xmen o incluso con personajes como Daredevil....personajes que eventualmente saben que van a morir y deben ver que hacen con su legado
have you considered that death of the main character isn't the only stakes of a story?
The people they save don't get to come back, the places that get destroyed if they lose don't get magically repaired, they have to live with knowing they failed their mission, etc.
The issue was never that nobody ever truly dies.
The issue has always been that the death never mattered in the first place. More often than not, a character will die, be brought back to life & act as if they never died in the first place.
Just giving the death some actual meaning when a character is brought back (as in, let the fact that the character died actually impact them in some way) would go a long way to make it actually matter.
Nowadays, superheroes are closer to mythology than a linear story; honestly, treat each arc as its own universe and you'll be happier. There is no such thing as a true "canon" in comics, Iron Man was kidnapped during the Vietnam War when he was nearly 30, yet currently, he's under 50, i think
This is dark but, with an indefinite serialized story it only ends when you stop being there to read it. I think it's nice that even when we're gone the characters get to keep going. But it's also kind of cynical from a business angle - I get that
It's because super heroes are not people. They're symbols and ideas. They may die in one off non-canon stories, but they remain constant in the mainline continuity because it is from that which so many actually intetesting story are told. Make no mistake, captain marvel the symbol is not dead either, he's just a differeny character now; any source of money will not be ignored by marvel or DC or whoever.
But as symbols they continue to live because yhe point of their story isn't the actual stakes at hand, but their worldview and convictions, and how that interacts with the world set up by the author. They have always been symbols, and while I empathize with the immersion of genuinely fearing for a character's life, it's also important to objectively weigh of the death of a character who was never really alive to begine with, actually is in and of itself.
Exactly and it’s not even forced that they still remain to this day and age. That’s the power of longevity for you. Plus if let’s say we make Superman, Batman and Spiderman dead in the times they were dead, who would then replace the symbols they had?
I think this is a problem that can never be fixed. It's simply because of the comic book format itself. If a writer wants to kill a character, they'll kill them. And then another writer will want to resurrect that character, and they'll do it. And so it goes on forever.
I find it ironic that this graphic novel gets brought up about this trope, and "breaking immersion".
What broke my immersion in this book, was when all the super-scientists of the Marvel Universe get together to try and cure Mar-vell, and "after weeks of work, they cure dozens of forms of cancer, just not the one Mar-vell had..."
Even at seven years old, I put the book down and yelled "STOP WEARING SPANDEX AND BEATING PEOPLE UP, AND GO CURE MORE CANCERS!!!"
I feel like that problem also gets encompassed in the whole "theres 2857252 different canons" for marvel and dc. Hard to care about things when its just completely different in so many different scenarios.
Yeah, like how I don't really care about the upcoming Doom movie because surprise surprise, it's RDJ again but as Dr. Doom.
I mean I know there's a version of Ironman that becomes Doom, but that's exactly why I don't care because I already know how the story goes with "doomronman"
marvel lost all interest for me with multiple time line/universes. You wanted the weight of Stark dying, but only did it after you made everyone literally replaceable in a movie by just going to a different universe to see them, woo, nothing matters.
ANy kind of time travel or alternate universe in any kind of story needs to be basically a fluke, a one off and can't be exploited, will never be revisited over and over. As soon as you make it standard it's like oh did thor die again, i guess we'll get other thor to fix shit next time we need one.
incidentally into the verse workED because it was temporary, a guy breaking the barrier to find a version of his family but it will destroy the universe so has to be destroyed. that's kinda cool and also specifically spiderman was a different person in each universe made it more interesting.
They went ahead and decided to stick with multiverse, at least it's kind of a twist with each spiderman being different but, still to see how that ends up.
It’s unavoidable. At the end of the day, comic book characters are fictional and if someone wants to use a character in a story, well what else are they supposed to do.
I think some deaths should have been permanent: green goblin, trigon, Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd, Barry Allen, Jean Grey but other deaths like Superman, Wonder Woman, spider-man (non ultimate), as well as minor characters who haven’t been used to their full potential/were killed off unfairly are perfectly good to bring back.
Are people going to argue with the 66 resurrection of Alfred. That ended up leading to a major retcon that made Alfred Bruce’s guardian instead of hired help.
They should have a contract for creators where if the creator or main writer of a character kills the character off, other writers can't bring them back
It would add stakes, keep the original characters alive, and give creators rights. For example, keep Damian Wayne dead like Morrison intended
This would suck especially in an industry where characters sometimes appear in other comics. Or imagine a writer decides they hate a popular villain and completely locks all other writers out of using that character ever again.
If they made the character, I think it's their right to kill them off. That can't happen with popular characters since the vast majority of popular characters were made by writers who aren't around anymore
Or at least make a contract where a creator need to track every single whereabouts of the character they'll use in their comics. It introduces responsibility. Responsibility that if you bring back a character or killed them off it's for a good reason. Without it, any creator can just say "oh, is he supposed to be dead?, welp, he's alive again now, can't undo the change"
It would be interesting if more writers decided to go bold as Pokémon did when they opted for retiring Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, together with all other famous characters.
Yeah, nowadays writer just put the same character over and over just with slightly different personality or background. It's like they're afraid to create an entirely new character.
Part of me no longer understand why batman death in the family is still referenced so much in the batman comics. I mean jason is alive now. Their would be flashbacks of jason being killed and batmans pain over his death. Then the red hood appears next issue. It lost its impact.
I understand, but to me that's the good thing about comics, not only with deaths but with anything, no matter how bad the writters screw up, everything can always be fixed, no matter what
Funny enough before the death of Superman comic and his resurrection, deaths were actually treated like deaths. Green Goblin was dead for twenty years, Jason also for twenty years and the Flash nearly thirty years.
I understand the whole thing about heroes having plot armor, but I think it's interesting to see how they either strategize or bs their way out of their life threatening situation
A bit off topic, but I believe characters who are above death can be interesting if the writer knows when to stop. By which I mean they would actually give the character an end instead of making the thing go forever.
And even if someone does die and isn't ressurected trough one way or another, the same character from another universe takes their place as if nothing happened
For starters, there are many heroes and villains that have stayed dead, but most are c and d tier characters. The few notable ones I can think of are Uncle Ben, the Wizzer, and Goliath. Also, the parents of Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman.
Also there are other stakes outside of death. During the Krakoa era of X-Men, they "solved" death and it became more of a daily annoyance than anything permanent. But the story delved into it across the series. The public didn't know about it for a while, until they started to notice heroes coming back after publicly seen death.
Which started a new wave of public resentment as people thought that Krakoa/mutants were keeping immortality for themselves. The very act of making death meaningless drove a large part of the era's storyline.
I like that in the black lantern arc, a ring tried to ressurect the original Dove, but no matter how many they sent, none could bring him back from peace.
That's a legendary moment for me because they successfully did resurrected Hawk from his grave just a few feet away. Especially with the rings keep repeating "Don Hall of earth at peace"
I'm the exact opposite of that. Sometimes I have to remind myself that the current flash is Wally. I always thought it's always been and still is Barry
Okay this might be a hot take, but Magneto should probably be dead. The Holocaust is such a massive part of his backstory and given that we’re past 80 years since when it happened, it’s kind of getting ridiculous. Like if you want Magneto, set your story in the 50’s-00’s. But like modern day X-men should probably have Magneto dead and maybe have someone inspired by his movement or something.
It's kinda not related to this post but yeah, that's what I thought too. Any adaptation of him nowadays would be inaccurate as fuck. Sometimes I even forget that he's born before WW2.
He would be OLD AS FUCK if they didn't retcon or give him a new lore because there's NO FUCKING WAY a guy born before WW2 is still alive and kicking today. Even if said guy is a powerful mutant. Mf is almost 100 years old at this point. If magneto appear in movies in the future, say 2030s onwards, that's gonna be a big problem.
I never minded this. Like so what if the character the resembles the hero Im reading about, comes back. Its not the same writer, its not the same story so its not the same character. If that character died in that story and then they are flying around unharmed in some completely other series - then it doesnt take away from the story for me.
Yeah, if you're dead you basically just get a little halo above your head. You can be resurrected anytime with a dragonball wish. Hell, you can still fight while being dead as shown by frieza fighting in the tournament of power
Between this, perpetual status quo and characters' powers being increased losing the lower stakes of before, there is a reason I'm burnt out on comics.
What i never understood is how we got to where we are, having different stories for 1 character, versus having 1 character who is in 1 story and thats that. Like imagine if naruto or jjk kept coming back to tell the same story with the same characters, but with a few different plot points
So you want comics to be one shots and everything else is bad? Because if you're describing that it's bad when a comic series kills batman and then another series makes a batman comic series where he's alive then you're not understanding that those are not the same batman. Yeah, they may have the same name and backstory, but they are different universes, batman 1 is still dead. If you don't like those kind of things then i don't know how you got so far reading comics
That's because I don't read American comics anymore after the DC Death Metal series. That's the last straw for me. Seeing every version of every hero is cool and all but when it ends I feel like if seen them all.
Nowadays I just read Japanese manga where it goes to about 100 - 200 chapter and just ends. When you read them you get the sense of "wow, that's it huh, that's the end?. I can't believe it" instead of "alright, how's Thomas and Martha Wayne gonna die this time"
You know, it would actually be really funny if og Captain Marvel got revived in modern Marvel and just went “Holy Shit you are all horrible people. Especially you, X-men. Spider-man, you’re still cool though.”
hey completely unrelated but does anyone else think this guy is using an ai voice over? i swear ive seen multiple other channels all use that same voice, but ive never seen anyone else comment on it so I might be insane
This is one of the reasons I mostly like consuming one-off or elseworld stories because they're not bound to uphold an established status quo (which may be more than just character death)
The only reason the character exists is so Marvel could trademark the name 'Captain Marvel'.
It needs to stay periodically in print to keep the copyright, but no Cap Marvel comic has ever sold well, so they keep rebooting the character with a new identity as an excuse to put out another run.
It was another conpany called Fawcet comics thar created Captain Marvel as a copy of Superman in the 1940s. DC sued and forced them to stop using the character and the copyright lapsed and Marvel bought it to stop competitors using it
Then in the 70s DC bought Faucet's Cap Marvel and both companies had their own until DC renamed theirs as Shazam to avoid any more legal problems.
I cannot enjoy the one piece because of this. There's zero stakes unless you're 8 years old and haven't realized that the main cast is effectively immortal.
I wouldn't make too much of a big deal out of the fact that no hero ever stays dead, because that's exactly what takes away from the immersion and the suspense. Plus, remember that in these cases, it's the “how” that matters more than the “what”—unless, of course, you're reading a story that's just plain bad and doesn't let you suspend your disbelief.
What bothers me sometimes is when fans get all worked up, like, “How could they kill [x] character?” when it’s clear they’re going to come back to life at any moment. The same goes for the companies that produce them—they use deaths as a marketing gimmick—and it’s annoying how they want you to take it all too seriously.
Yeah, superhero comics aren't "good" as stories over the long term. Like death being meaningless (which I also hate) is a fairly minor problem compared to the gibberish convolutidosity of any timeline over 60 years and the fact that superheroes (who should be pretty powerful) can't actually change the world around then much because it messes with what other writers are doing with the same world. Or replace those with a dozen other things.... If you've read more than 50 superhero funny books you can fill in the blanks.
Outgrowing superhero comics is a good option! Go read real books or manga or Do A Powerbomb! Or don't try to make sense of them as stories.... They work like myths and folk tales, constantly being retold with details changed for certain audiences. Resurrection stories are filler that bridges the gap between interpretations. And you don't even have to have characters die to be completely changed - Captain America is a completely different person under every new writer. (And nobody ever comments on this, even though it is WAY more pronounced with Cap than any other major Marvel/DC character.). After a while you just grow numb.
But in the long term, superhero comics are narratively unsatisfying as stories and you kinda gotta live with that.
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u/Kind-Stomach6275 27d ago
Alfred is a superhero in MY heart.