Characters coming back to life!

[jordan silo]

Since Hal Jordan and Colossus came back to the comic book scene! Do all of you guys think and feel "Death" issues are of any importance? Let us all know!

[Escaflown4]

Guess who's returning next from X-Men...

http://www.popcultureshock.com/viewer.p ... d=3781&p=1

Although I'm glad they brought her back since she was my fav femme X-men, I just think they should have never killed her off in the first place. You're right, "Death" in Marvel means absolutely nothing.

[myron]

I agree...never should have been offed in the first place...but death in marvel rarely means that...

[wrunow]

I know he drew a lot of hot women, but nobody drew her like Jim Lee, and I agree, she should never had gone in the first place.

[jordan silo]

Did anyone hear that a "major" X-Men character will die in Wolverine #25, which will be released next month! Can anyone guess who would that be?

[X-O HoboJoe]

That's a hard one to guess, since every other person in the marvel universe is a mutant and most of them have been X-men at some point. I predict . . . It will . . . NOT be Wolverine. He didn't even die at the end of Wolverine: The End. Maybe Jean comes back and dies all in one issue (I don't think they've tried that particular slant yet.

)

[jordan silo]

http://www.newsarama.com/Road_Dec_04/Wo ... heckin.htm

Here is the site that hints the "death" of the character!

[400yrs]

Whoever it is, they'll be back in a few issues.

[jcdenton]

Wasn't there an X-Men cartoon character who was created for the sole purpose of being killed, which was supposed to be a big deal because it was the first character ever to die in a Saturday morning cartoon, and they ended up bringing him back to life a few episodes later?

[Escaflown4]

You're probably referring to Morph, who is also a shift changer like Mystique. I never really like that character much to begin with.....

[Daniel Jackson]

Whoever it is, they'll be back in a few issues.

If it's a major character, you can almost be assured of it.

[screamingdc]

Did anyone hear that a "major" X-Men character will die in Wolverine #25, which will be released next month! Can anyone guess who would that be?

i wouldn't exactly have put Northstar in the 'major' category.

anyways, i'm down for any death issues that last. unfortunately, in comics death only applies to Uncle Ben and Bucky.

[X-O HoboJoe]

And of course, Northstar was back by the end of the next issue . . .

[whetteon]

And of course, Northstar was back by the end of the next issue . . .

Wasn't he gay?

[Todd Luck]

Wasn't there an X-Men cartoon character who was created for the sole purpose of being killed, which was supposed to be a big deal because it was the first character ever to die in a Saturday morning cartoon, and they ended up bringing him back to life a few episodes later?

If you're referring to Morph he died in the 2 part series premiere of X-Men. He was resurrected in the premiere of the second season. I'm not sure if all the same people were still involved in the show by then or not (the season definately "felt" different). Most resurrections occur because a characters dies and then a different creative team takes over later that didn't like the character's death. I thought I remember reading Morph was an obscure character in the comic and not an original for the series but I could be wrong.

You want the speed record for resurrections? Try Wally West. He died twice within a 3 or 4 year period in the 90's and was okay by the next month each time!

[Byrneout]

You want the speed record for resurrections? Try Wally West. He died twice within a 3 or 4 year period in the 90's and was okay by the next month each time!

That's nothing. Magneto recently died in the last few panels of an X-Men book(DECAPITATED, for Pete's sake!), and the very next week appeared in another X-Men book as part of an ongoing story arc.

My college creative writing professor put it quite simply:

"If you ever plan to tell another story involving a character, don't kill them. If you kill a character, don't plan to tell any new stories about them. If you kill a character and then realize that you have more stories to tell, set them in a time period BEFORE they died. Anything else is just rubbish."

[The Spider]

You want the speed record for resurrections? Try Wally West. He died twice within a 3 or 4 year period in the 90's and was okay by the next month each time!

That's nothing. Magneto recently died in the last few panels of an X-Men book(DECAPITATED, for Pete's sake!), and the very next week appeared in another X-Men book as part of an ongoing story arc.

My college creative writing professor put it quite simply:

"If you ever plan to tell another story involving a character, don't kill them. If you kill a character, don't plan to tell any new stories about them. If you kill a character and then realize that you have more stories to tell, set them in a time period BEFORE they died. Anything else is just rubbish."

Yeah, but since comics is done by different writers, everyone's going against everyone sometimes.

I remember when they killed off Aunt May back in 1995... and then brought her back in 1998 ("The one who died... was an ACTRESS hired by NORMAN OSBORN!")

[Todd Luck]

You want the speed record for resurrections? Try Wally West. He died twice within a 3 or 4 year period in the 90's and was okay by the next month each time!

That's nothing. Magneto recently died in the last few panels of an X-Men book(DECAPITATED, for Pete's sake!), and the very next week appeared in another X-Men book as part of an ongoing story arc.

My college creative writing professor put it quite simply:

"If you ever plan to tell another story involving a character, don't kill them. If you kill a character, don't plan to tell any new stories about them. If you kill a character and then realize that you have more stories to tell, set them in a time period BEFORE they died. Anything else is just rubbish."

Yeah, but since comics is done by different writers, everyone's going against everyone sometimes.

I remember when they killed off Aunt May back in 1995... and then brought her back in 1998 ("The one who died... was an ACTRESS hired by NORMAN OSBORN!")

I always wondered how that one worked! Sometimes you have to bring a character back when all your fans won't stop telling what a dumb @$$ you were for offing them in the first place.

[Byrneout]

I always wondered how that one worked! Sometimes you have to bring a character back when all your fans won't stop telling what a dumb @$$ you were for offing them in the first place.

I disagree.

I loved Superstar (from the H.A.R.D. Corps). He had a *very* intriguing hook to his character, a lot of depth, and had started down a unique twist in comics for a character with his abilities.

Then *BAM*! Dead. Never coming back.

Guess what? That made his death more poignant. There's a consequence for his actions. "Without the threat of death there's no reason to live at all."

And if you're referencing Green Lantern (which I believe you are), I have to ask... where were all those fans when the book was struggling? That must have been a tightly packed closet, because they certainly weren't going out to buy the book, no matter how well thought out and dramatic the stories had been. I feel that only those who were purchasing the book (like myself) have the right to *SQUEE* about the book's direction.

And for those who claim that Hal Jordan's actions were out of character, I direct them to:

Green Lantern #178 - Hal threatens the Guardians with death "should anything ever happen to Coast City" while he was on a mission for them.

Or how about Green Lantern #181-183, where he quit the Corps because he disliked how the Guardians ran things?

And so on... I have abotu a half a dozen references (but only 2 issue numbers handy to my memory, sadly) of Hal intimating as far back as the early 70's that there would be severe consequences should Coast City fall in his absence.

Guess what? That's exactly what happened.

[Todd Luck]

I always wondered how that one worked! Sometimes you have to bring a character back when all your fans won't stop telling what a dumb @$$ you were for offing them in the first place.

I disagree.

I loved Superstar (from the H.A.R.D. Corps). He had a *very* intriguing hook to his character, a lot of depth, and had started down a unique twist in comics for a character with his abilities.

Then *BAM*! Dead. Never coming back.

Guess what? That made his death more poignant. There's a consequence for his actions. "Without the threat of death there's no reason to live at all."

And if you're referencing Green Lantern (which I believe you are), I have to ask... where were all those fans when the book was struggling? That must have been a tightly packed closet, because they certainly weren't going out to buy the book, no matter how well thought out and dramatic the stories had been. I feel that only those who were purchasing the book (like myself) have the right to *SKREE* about the book's direction.

And for those who claim that Hal Jordan's actions were out of character, I direct them to:

Green Lantern #178 - Hal threatens the Guardians with death "should anything ever happen to Coast City" while he was on a mission for them.

Or how about Green Lantern #181-183, where he quit the Corps because he disliked how the Guardians ran things?

And so on... I have abotu a half a dozen references (but only 2 issue numbers handy to my memory, sadly) of Hal intimating as far back as the early 70's that there would be severe consequences should Coast City fall in his absence.

Guess what? That's exactly what happened.

No, actually I was talking about what I was responding to with Aunt May's death and everything else in that era of the titles being consider SO bad by the fans that they changed almost all of it back to the way it was before (which involved killing new characters and "resurrecting" old ones).

Wierd how people can infer things . Glad you got your Hal Jordan rant out of your system though .

[Byrneout]

No, actually I was talking about what I was responding to with Aunt May's death

Heh. Just a little sensitive abotu the GL thing. My bad.

and everything else in that era of the titles being consider SO bad by the fans that they changed almost all of it back to the way it was before (which involved killing new characters and "resurrecting" old ones).

Right. Which is the fault of poor editing, in my opinion, and goes back to the "If you ever intend to tell stories about the character..." line above.

Wierd how people can infer things . Glad you got your Hal Jordan rant out of your system though .

Thank you for the opportunity. Even if you didn't intend what I inferred.

[jcdenton]

I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask something I've been wondering about for a while.

I stopped collecting comics right around the time of the whole "Death" of Superman thing, and I never found out how he came back, or what the deal was with the four "replacement" Supermen.

Can someone give me a very brief explanation of WTF happened with that whole thing?[/code]

[davidb]

Long story short - Superman came back. He'd been spirited away to the Fortress of Solitude. (This was a couple of months after the Reign of the Supermen began). The four others break down as follows:

The Eradicator(the one with the visor). The Eradicator was a Kryptonian artifact that had somehow taken on human form after Superman had chucked it into the sun. He's still around from time to time and was a member of the last Mike W. Barr group of Outsiders.

Superboy (the kid). After Superman had died, the Cadmus Project had stolen his body to try and clone him. They were unsuccessful to do so with Supes's DNA, but eventually succeeded after combining him with another human (originally believed to be Cadmus Director Westfield, recently revealed in Teen Titans as Lex Luthor). Superboy carried his own series for 100 issues, headlined the Superboy and the Ravers book, was a member of Young Justice from beginning to end, and is a charter member of the new Teen Titans team.

Steel (the one in the armor). John Henry Irons was a steelworker who was saved by Supes. Turns out John Henry's an incredible arms designer. He designed the suit and continues to fight crime today. Steel had his own book and joined the JLA during the Grant Morrison run. Things got weird for him during Our Worlds at War, so I'll let somebody else who's better versed deal with that.

The Cyborg. The Cyborg was really Hank Henshaw, the Mr. Fantastic character from Jurgens's FF-inspired story a few issues before. Turns out he's nuts and working with Mongul to turn Earth into a new Warworld.

Eventually Mongul destroyed Coast City, replacing it with "Engine City." (As a side note, this is also the event that drove Hal Jordan over the edge). The Supermen fought and defeated the Cyborg and destroyed Engine City. In the end, Eradicator was hurt badly and eventually healed up, Steel and Superboy got their own books, and Supes got rid of his nifty black suit to replace it with the classic red and blue, although he kept the long hair.

Hope that helps!

David B.

[Todd Luck]

Long story short - Superman came back. He'd been spirited away to the Fortress of Solitude. (This was a couple of months after the Reign of the Supermen began). The four others break down as follows:

The Eradicator(the one with the visor). The Eradicator was a Kryptonian artifact that had somehow taken on human form after Superman had chucked it into the sun. He's still around from time to time and was a member of the last Mike W. Barr group of Outsiders.

Superboy (the kid). After Superman had died, the Cadmus Project had stolen his body to try and clone him. They were unsuccessful to do so with Supes's DNA, but eventually succeeded after combining him with another human (originally believed to be Cadmus Director Westfield, recently revealed in Teen Titans as Lex Luthor). Superboy carried his own series for 100 issues, headlined the Superboy and the Ravers book, was a member of Young Justice from beginning to end, and is a charter member of the new Teen Titans team.

Steel (the one in the armor). John Henry Irons was a steelworker who was saved by Supes. Turns out John Henry's an incredible arms designer. He designed the suit and continues to fight crime today. Steel had his own book and joined the JLA during the Grant Morrison run. Things got weird for him during Our Worlds at War, so I'll let somebody else who's better versed deal with that.

The Cyborg. The Cyborg was really Hank Henshaw, the Mr. Fantastic character from Jurgens's FF-inspired story a few issues before. Turns out he's nuts and working with Mongul to turn Earth into a new Warworld.

Eventually Mongul destroyed Coast City, replacing it with "Engine City." (As a side note, this is also the event that drove Hal Jordan over the edge). The Supermen fought and defeated the Cyborg and destroyed Engine City. In the end, Eradicator was hurt badly and eventually healed up, Steel and Superboy got their own books, and Supes got rid of his nifty black suit to replace it with the classic red and blue, although he kept the long hair.

Hope that helps!

David B.

Good summary though you forgot to mention that was it painfully slow and that Cyborg was such a loser he couldn't kill the real Superman (who was only at 10% of his power) with a crunk of Kryptonite the size of small building ! That storyline is the reason I haven't picked up a Superman title in about a decade .

[davidb]

Same here. It just seemed like they wanted to take the books in such a dark direction with stories like Cat Grant's son being murdered by the Toyman - not what I want when I read a Superman book. Add in the sheer number of the books that've come out since I dropped out and I strongly doubt I'll be trying to catch up. Shame, really. I'd had a complete run from the relaunch up to that point. Oh, well...

David B.