The 10 Stupidest Comic Book Resurrections

\ Oct 02, 2008

7 min read

The 10 Stupidest Comic Book Resurrections — Supergirl, honorable mention.

Fictional characters have been coming back to life since as far back as Jesus and Sherlock Holmes. It’s much more cost-efficient than bringing real people back. Soap operas, movie serials, horror films—if they never really lived they can’t really die, right?

In comic books, this is so rampant that "comic book death" is a commonly known nerd phrase. A creator kills off a character for a lot of reasons:

1. They decide a character has outlived interest, at least their interest.

2. To create a controversy.

3. To make a story "count" with emotional resonance.

4. To make room for their own cast and start fresh.

5. To salt the earth behind them so nobody else can use those ideas.

6. The creator hates a previous creator’s character and cannot abide them being alive.

Then the next creator has an idea or sees dollar signs. Back they come, and your mint, 12 issue, bagged-and-boarded storyline collection with the hard-sell cover-blurb hype isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, sucker. Everyone knows, only Uncle Ben and Batman’s parents stay dead (and just give them some time).

Sometimes a creator tries to prevent this by killing a character in a way that stops them being easily brought back. This backfires by making the resurrection story all the more convoluted. When the Joker falls off a cliff and there is no body, it’s not too much of a stretch to see him turn up with amnesia six months later. They were never really dead! But when there is a gruesome body and a funeral, you have to resort to clones, shape shifters and evil twins to explain it. Add a ghost or psychic vision from beyond, and you have to go even further by taking a trip to the afterlife, or through time. Sometimes they hope that making a character turn evil will make them untouchable—they can never be forgiven, so they can’t be brought back. This is the worst of all, because the character will still come back, but irrevocably changed from the one we wanted back, forced to do penance and still usually a doppelganger.

The following are the 10 stupidest resurrections comics have done. They are so bad because they are insulting, labored, often unnecessary and strain credulity. Of course, the real stupid step, arguably, was killing them in the first place. But stupidity is so much more entertaining once it’s snowballed. Expect Captain America and Martian Manhunter to be added to this list pretty much any time.

10. The Doom Patrol: the first, fourth and sixth time they came back. The other times get a pass because of good writing. Death is such a cliché for The Doom Patrol, that every creator is pretty much bound to kill at least half the team when they leave. Some of them have “died” a half-dozen times. Each new writer continues with the tradition of spitting on what came before, and everyone wins!

9. Elektra: Frank Miller created her to be killed so as to make a storyline more epic. Marvel Comics promised not to bring her back without permission. Then they did anyway, because hey: fuck Frank Miller. What the hell did he ever do for Marvel anyway? Ninjas brought her back with magic. Ninjas can do anything they want . She came back as two separate people, a good one and an evil. That later merged. How? Why? Ninjas. That’s all you need to know.

8. Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics): They even still sell the book titled The Death of Captain Marvel . What’s that you say? They didn’t really bring him back, but just have an alien shape shifting impostor with all of his memories and abilities, that has chosen to live as him? Oh, in that case fine. It in no way cheapens the impact of the original’s heartbreaking and painful death from cancer .

7. Green Arrow: There was really no reason to kill him, and really no reason to bring him back (which involved going to heaven to fetch him) since the new Green Arrow had a successful title of his own that was cancelled just because Kevin Smith wanted to use the old one. Then Kevin Smith was too busy and the idea languished for years. A good bit of advice for life in general: never do anything just because Kevin Smith wants you to .

6. Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix: She was killed just because the editor insisted. You can’t be a superhero and kill five billion people. Her resurrection involved clones, doppelgangers, amnesia, duplicates merging with each other, and on and on. They didn’t even bring her back in X-Men, but did in Fantastic Four, and then piece by piece over the next decade. The death and resurrection are so controversial and confusing that they have to re-explain and try to re-kill/re-resurrect ( can you re-resurrect?) every few years.

5. Spiderman: This one is kind of cheating, or a reversal. They brought back a previously dead Spiderman clone, and tried to tell us the clone was the real Spiderman all along , and the guy we’d been following for years was actually the clone. I could have lived with it, but they refused to give me my money back for scamming me into buying all those issues of what was now basically “Spectacular Clone.” I had to correct every cover with a sharpie, and then they changed their mind again!

4. Bucky: Oh, come on! He was dead for 60 years! (Well, dead for the last 45 in a “retcon” …um… you know what, never mind). Who even wanted him back? There was no fan demand. He never had a title of his own and was only noteworthy for dying in the first place.

3. Jason Todd / Robin 2: Superboy punched the universe so hard, that it changed the past … I take it back: that’s actually so stupid it’s awesome. He gave time a concussion, made it forget Robin was dead, and he woke up already in a coffin. This just keeps getting better and better! Never mind that the public voted to have him die in the first place. I guess shady elections aren’t just for presidents!

2. Superman : Of course, what is so galling is that Superman was never meant to stay dead. I mean gimme a break, it’s Superman. You actually bought into that? Did you get jerked around for the whole year and buy the tie-ins? All 50 issues? Chump. The final insult: they brought him back with a mullet.

1. Barry Allen / The Flash: Not only did we see him disintegrate, but his energy traveled back in time and became the very lightning bolt that gave him his powers. If they bring him back, he couldn’t even exist. So they are doing it, even as we speak. Look, I don’t even care how. I’m just going to avoid the whole thing until it’s swept under the rug and they don’t mention the 23 years he was dead anymore.

Honorable mention: Blue Beetle, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Green Goblin, Colossus, Gwen Stacy… I suppose I could go on all day. And Supergirl, just for ruining the cover.