what don't you like about marvel characters coming back to life?

[LangdonXXX]

This is usually a hot topic but i was just wondering why are people so against characters coming back from the dead? Me personally if the story makes sence why not i like it. Colossus was good, bucky, although its DC i like the red hood stuff. What do you think and why? Discuss

[Moonbeam]

Yeah - I'm with you. If the story is good, then it's cool. But the problem is that deaths of heroes become meaningless.

So yeah, if the story's good, I can forgive. I was seriously concerned with Bucky coming back, but Brubaker won me over. It was a pretty cool story. And yeah, Colossus rocked. Nobody in the MU's quite made it to the epic level of Hal Jordan's amazing come-back, but there have been some cool stories. So if the story's there to support it, I'm cool.

The risk is, of course, that if you are constantly bringing people back from the dead, then when you really do kill them off, the death will not resonate with readers in the way it should. A great example of this was Peter Parker's death in The Other. I mean ... ok, I hate to admit this but ... I laughed. I mean gimme a break. Spider-Man. Dead. Bwahahahahaaa!!

*ahem*

Anyway, all I'm saying is they have to be careful. Good stories are good stories, but the resurrections can be overdone.

[AdamYJ]

My main problem with it is that some characters that I liked probably have no chance of coming back.

Bring back Skin, darn it! Why do the ressurection gods at Marvel hate Angelo Espinosa so much? Why?!

[Lobok]

We also all knew that Spider-Man was going to "die". It would have at least a bit more impact if it was just at the end of an issue and people were like "OMFG, AMAZING 582 HUGE SPOILERS".

[Lobok]

Originally posted by AdamYJ
My main problem with it is that some characters that I liked probably have no chance of coming back.

Bring back Skin, darn it! Why do the ressurection gods at Marvel hate Angelo Espinosa so much? Why?!

You should start the "Show Us Some Skin" movement.

[YDLM]

It depends, when you are trying to recapture the past,I am usually totally against it i.e. GL. I am a big proponent of books moving on, so going back to the past for nostalgia, kinda bums me out. Bru's bringing back Bucky is an exception, because he wasnt trying to glorify a character. He wasnt bringing back Bucky as a boyscout.

[Lobok]

If a character is brought back they should do something different. Colossus being around is cool, but it's just business as usual with him again. It's the same with Hal Jordan. "Hey guys, I died, but I'm back, no worries. Now where were we?" They've hinted at something being wrong with Colossus, but how long are they going to take to get around to that, if there is in fact something up? Bucky and Jason Todd, they didn't come back as the same people they were, the deaths changed them, made them different characters really.

[HNutz]

I remember reading a Gail Simone thing where she was talking about using Skin in a crossover.

Y'all would buy a Fantastic Four/Skin issue, right? :LOL:

[Varrus]

See, I liked most of the Gen-X characters, especially Skin and Synch. Imagine my disappointment when I found out a month ago that they were both dead. :(

And unlike other characters, these two will never have a chance of resurrection. Let's hope they don't also kill off another favourite, Chamber...depowering him puts him right on the brink. Thank goodness for Beast's ingenuity.

[skinnyboy23]

the thing with hal jordans return is that yeah, it was done well, but now hes boring again (at least to me). buckys return is actually turning out awesome and the true test is if people can keep him an interesting character that people want to read about.

[Lobok]

The thing about Hal's return is that they made an amazing HOW, but not an amazing WHY.

[windsabre]

i don't mind ressurections, but as someone said somewhere... the impact... the magnitude of the sacrifice... the sweat and tears that the original storyteller/killer put into the book... becomes somehow... less.

the ressurection thing is so common nowadays that when someone dies i'm like, "eh, so what" cause i know they'll be back and soon. When Captain Marvel died, I was like nooooooo. When Gwen Stacy died, I was upset. Nowadays, if they're not rezzed, they're cloned.

that brings up an interesting question: Have any clones been rezzed yet? because that might be original /yawn :)

[The Shadow]

Originally posted by YDLM
It depends, when you are trying to recapture the past,I am usually totally against it i.e. GL. I am a big proponent of books moving on, so going back to the past for nostalgia, kinda bums me out. Bru's bringing back Bucky is an exception, because he wasnt trying to glorify a character. He wasnt bringing back Bucky as a boyscout. What he said.

Death in comics becomes trivial if everyone (or almost) comes back. It looses its effectiveness as a storytelling tool because there's no permanence. Why get pissed because So-and-so's dead when they're gonna be back eventually?

Also... Bucky's death was a retcon itself... so all Ed did was alter that. Jason Todd's death had relevance to Batman and his entire cast. The return of such a pivotal death takes away from the "realism" of Batman (he's more realistic than Spidey!) and adds nothing to the mythos. Batman's GREATEST failure was his inability to protect and save Jason. Now it's undone... so what lesson was learned? Why should Batman worry about his helpers when they can just come back?

Sometimes they are handles well (Bucky) and other times not (Green Lantern and Jason Todd)... but overall I think death in comics should be a LAST resort for the writers... and have SOME permanence to it. Otherwise it's a gimmick.

[Blitz]

to loosely quote from a recent Teen Titans....

" at first it was only superman, now everyone is coming back....."

[djshalope]

i can't wear my airbrushed t-shirt with psylocke's face on it that says "in memory of..." anymore.

PSYCHE. i'll still wear it. i don't own any other clothing.

[jmhuertas]

I personally believe that people shouldn't be ressurected, except for probably Jean, because of the cosmic force in her is meant to "Rise from the Ashes",so she'll be back soon enough, but when you bring back a character, it makes the whole previous story irrelevant. I mean Colossus coming back was the worst concept ever. When he died, he made an impact that no other mutant could have delivered, his death caused the lives of countless millions to survive, he honored his sister who died of the same Legacy Virus...he truly became a hero to the mutant race, sacrificed for the greater good, now he's back and the story is basically worthless, so now the legacy virus is cured big deal, the impact is now gone, they should have just given the damn thing to Wolverine and let his healing factor heal him up after wards. If a "death" happens off panel or whatever, then its open for discussion, but when its drawn out and everything...that it, should be done. I just don't think it should be done, and what's the point of killing Spidey or Wolvie or whomever A-List character, you know it'll last a few panels so what's the point? Where's the impact on the reader? Its all some BS

[Royal Nonesuch]

I'm just not a big fan of death in general in comics, but the one thing I hate more is resurrection of the character, especially when the death scene was a good one (which I felt Colossus' death was). It's rarely done well (Bucky was the exception), and it's a cheap tactic.

[neodragzero]

Death not being permanent just makes death another phase.

[jmhuertas]

I'm convinced that Colossus' return was because everyone at Marvel is slurping so hard on Joss Whedon and will let the dude do whatever he wants...his return makes me want to burn up UXM 390 (Colossus' death)

[YDLM]

Originally posted by jmhuertas
I'm convinced that Colossus' return was because everyone at Marvel is slurping so hard on Joss Whedon and will let the dude do whatever he wants...his return makes me want to burn up UXM 390 (Colossus' death)

Go right ahead, I thought that was a bullbleep story. Piotr commiting suicide on a hunch, wasnt remotely heroic. It was depressing and cheap.

[The Joker]

What I hate about it is that it takes the value of a book down on many levels not just price.

Green Goblin should have stayed dead!!!!

[md62]

As a rule DC does it better than Marvel. And some like Jean Grey have become a joke.

[Wild Irish]

Originally posted by md62
As a rule DC does it better than Marvel. And some like Jean Grey have become a joke.

Actually, I remember a scene where Jean and Storm are talking about coming back from the dead and Storm asks something like, "how many times has it been now, Jean? Two, three times?" Jean: "Ha! So many times I've forgotten count!"

Not exact quotes but pretty damn close.

[S3ntry]

Originally posted by md62
As a rule DC does it better than Marvel. And some like Jean Grey have become a joke.
Yes but D.C has cheapened comic book death so much more this few months...Anyway I prefer my dead heroes to stay dead(and my villians)but it all comes down to using death as a shock factor...
BTW some times coming back to life is good...but now days you see a character return from life and all you have to say is oh nice T shirt...it's not important any more...

[al_capone]

I don't mind if it makes for a good story, but the only problem I have with bringing characters back after they die is that it's just happened so much now that "death" no longer means anything. A prime example would be the (IMO at least) excellent death of Magneto in Grant Morrison's 'New X-Men' run. It was a great scene but it didn't do much for me because I knew he'd just come back soon anyway. And then that death scene was cheapened by a huge degree when he actually returned so soon afterwards (even I was shocked that they did it that soon)! And it doesn't help that he just "died" at the beginning of Morrison's run, and also just previously at the end of 'Eve of Destruction'.

Death just doesn't mean anything anymore. I like Joe Quesada's policy of "dead means dead, unless there's a great story to back up a return", but he's completely contradicted and shat all over that statement with that pathetic Magneto return in 'Excalibur', which renders his statement completely redundant.

[Tomcat1066]

If they are going to bring a character back, make the "death" open ended enough that they might still be alive. Then it's plausible. However, with the way they kill characters now, it's kind of hard to take ANY death seriously as a reader.

Once upon a time, when a character died, you felt some sense of loss yourself, especially if this was a character you really liked. However, now you have no reason to feel loss. Why? They'll probably be back. Bucky's death was somewhat open as it was (no body ever found IIRC) and with a slight retcon, you have a really GOOD resurrection. Some of these resurrections are just stupid, and should probably stop.

On one hand, I'm glad that Joe Q's "dead is dead" comment isn't the way it's worked (Winter Soldier sounds incredibly cool...can't wait to read it). On the other, it sucks big ones (most of the other resurrections and deaths).

Tom

[Bevbos]

I agree for the most part, dead should mean dead, especially in so far as villains are concerned. I loved it when Xorn took off his hat and it was Magneto. That was frikkin' great. Kingpin on the other hand... his death was a MAJOR shocker, but then, what the heck? He came back so soon. That was the one low point IMHO in the recent Daredevil runs (aside from the Echo: Mystery Quest or whatever nonsense).

Likeable heroes, on the other hand... well, we like to read about them. Death should mean something, sure, but of course they're gonna come back from the dead.

If a character can't front his or her own book, they should stay dead. If they can, I say bring 'em back somehow. Time travel sure is a handy-dandy way. Reed Richards can probably do anything vis-a-vis cloning and memory restoration, too...

For the record, I favor the permanency of the deaths of Jean Grey and Hawkeye, but I know that ain't gonna be the case.

[spidertour02]

I hate when they bring characters back from the dead for two reasons: (1) it is never believable when they kill a major character, and (2) they have a tendency to bring people back too soon for it to have hit home.

When the Green Goblin came back, it was shocking, and a major event. I may not have agreed with it, but it certainly had impact. However, whenever a character is killed off now, it is a joke. The even bigger joke is when it comes with the announcement that it is not a joke. Think about it ... "Oh trust us, Hawkeye is dead." Gimme a break.

[HNutz]

There was a GREAT X-men web cartoon awhile back, talking about continuity and how many times they've all come back....

[no1knowsme]

I don't mind characters coming back to life, however, when they have died and come back about a gazzilion times, due to different writers wanting to emulate previous writers, that is when it gets frustrating. I also don't like it when they neglect a full explanation of how the character came back in the first place. Bucky coming back in Captain America was brilliant, as it was properly explained, and seemed likely enough (if Cap survived, why wouldn't Bucky).

If the story is made better, or the story explains a resurection properly, I'm all for it.