So Captain America is dead. Big whup. What’s on tonight?
Seriously, no one cares. The climax of Marvel’s massive maxi-series “Civil War,” which put hero against hero and liberty against superhero registration, raised some interesting questions about superpowered folk in today’s society and drew the entire Marvel universe into a largely uneven storyline which culminated in America’s greatest hero, the Captain himself, hero of WWII , get gunned down by a sniper, yadda yadda yadda.
I’m sure the writers were hoping it would shock the fans, add tension to the story, make us think that such a brutal slaying of a beloved character would make the story more “real” and relevant. Instead the thoroughly unshocked fans are musing how, exactly, he’ll be brought back. A robot? A clone? Will he be resurrected? Maybe he was only mostly dead. Maybe someone will go back in time and fix things. Maybe it was only a dream. Maybe he faked it. Maybe they only did it to drive Stephen Colbert nuts.
That he’ll come back isn’t even a question. You can’t die, if you’re a comic character. Even if you’re a bad comic character. No matter how big a deal a character death was, how iconic or final or dramatically necessary, someday some writer who can’t think of something original will decide he wants to write a cool story about poor dead UltraGuy and back he’ll come, still trailing graveyard dirt, with no regard towards how this devalues the death of the character and, by extension, all superhero deaths.
Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy was the first shocking character death in comics. When the Goblin pitched her off a bridge back in the 70’s and Spidey couldn’t save her, it changed everything. Never before had a superhero failed so completely. This pivotal event helped kick off the Silver Age of comics where heroes weren’t quite so perfect, and stood as an example of how powerfully dramatic the medium of comics could be.
Years later Spider-Man writers brought her back as a clone. Twice. We grumbled.
The “Dark Phoenix Saga” storyline of The X-Men was one of their best, in a run of exceptional comics. The buildup was powerful and Jean Gray’s self-sacrifice was borne of love and responsibility, a jarring death that really made a difference.
At least until she got brought back a couple of times, when it started to wear off a little.
Batman’s replacement Robin, who died at the Joker’s hands (and the hands of the readers, who didn’t like him and voted him dead in a landslide)? Came back as a bad guy.
Superman dead? Nah. He came back as a robot, a clone, an imposter, and a replacement before the original guy popped back up. The Death of Superman comic isn’t even worth anything, even if it is the original sealed black bag.
Green Arrow? Brought back from heaven. Betty Ross Banner? Resurrected. Colossus died, got cremated, and still came back. Green Lantern? Went evil, came back as a cosmic supernatural entity, now back to work behind the ring. Wonder Woman got devolved into a lump of clay but got better; her old boyfriend Steve Trevor has died three times so far. It’s a joke. “Comic book death” is a cliché now, with no more attention-getting properties than changing a costume or suddenly having the character stop smoking.
Marvel killed off one of their major characters, and you know what the big comics story was this week? Joss Whedon’s new “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” comic debuted and sold out almost immediately. Now there’s a guy who knows how to kill off a character!
Meanwhile, over in Terry Moore’s independent comic book “Strangers in Paradise,” one of his major characters died in an emotional story arc that is actually painful to read. David’s death, one we knew was coming, was still devastating to us and to the other characters. And all without a press release, a double splash page, or a cute collectible gimmick. We know he won’t be back, because Terry Moore is too good a writer to do that.
Read and learn, guys. Read and learn how to kill somebody right.