Guest Author - Travis Belk

Death. The word has so many different effects on people. The one constant is that none of us are going to escape it. As such, it tends to have a big impact on us when people we care about die. It ends up being a time of mourning, remembrance, sadness, and in rare cases, jubilation. We feel this way because of the finality of death. So what if all that changed? What if death was only temporary? Would we care as much about it anymore? That's the quagmire in which the comic world is finding itself as both of the big name companies start bringing their dead back to life more frequently. Are comic book deaths poignant anymore? Were they ever?

Bringing back characters from the dead is nothing new to comics nor even the world of fiction in general. However, there were certain dead characters that were considered taboo to bring back to life. This includes people such as Batman's parents and Spider-man's Uncle Ben as those deaths were instrumental in the shaping of these heroes. But they aren't the only ones. Marvel used to have an addage that said "only Uncle Ben and Bucky stay dead". It was a way of assuring fans that no matter who comes back from the dead, there are still some constants in the Marvel Universe. Those constants were shattered 2 years ago when Bucky was, indeed, brought back from the dead.

Bucky was Captain America's kid sidekick from World War II. It was while trying to save him from an exploding drone plane that Captain America got blown into the icy waters. It was here when Captain America was frozen to awaken in today's day and age. The failure to prevent Bucky's death weighed on the Captain's soul for years and helped shape him into the master strategist that he is today. Always pushing himself to the pinnacle of perfection to never lose another person again. That motivation was made moot when Bucky was discovered to still be alive. Blown into the ocean by the same explosion, he was recovered by the Russians and turned into a cyborg assassin for the old Soviet Union. He was periodically frozen and then unfrozen when needed, in order to get as much use from him for as long as possible. His death, and more importantly, the impact of his death on Captain America were essentially wiped out.

Sometimes the death is truly memorable and symbolic and then gets over-turned just to bring back a favorite character. This was most recently seen with the X-man, Colossus. He was always a favorite amongst fans as he was such a gentle giant who had known so much pain in his life. The most tragic being the loss of his little sister to the mutant-killing Legacy virus. A cure was eventually discovered for the virus, but a mutant would have to sacrifice themselves to activate it. While the other X-men contemplated how to get around this, Colossus knew what he had to do. He did not want any other families losing what he had. So without so much as a word, he injected himself with the cure, saving the world at the cost of his own life. A truly poignant death, it was remembered by fans for years. He was brought back to life a couple of years ago.

DC is just as guilty about bringing their dead back to life. Their most recent major resurrection was even silly by comic book standards. It was the death and resurrection of Jason Todd, the second Robin. He was brutally beaten with a crowbar by the Joker and then left inside an exploding building. What was even more important about this death was that it was voted on by the fans. In 1987, DC opened a toll-line to vote on whether Robin should live or die. Fans, hating Jason's attitude, voted for his death. This death went on to drastically change Batman's personality. It turned him into the darker character we would see for the next two decades. However, Jason Todd was not meant to stay dead as he, too, was brought back to life in recent years. However, his death had been so permanent, that a ridiculous manner was used to bring him back to life. His resurrection is a result of another person banging on the walls of reality. The vibrations brought the formerly dead Jason Todd back to life, much to the chagrin of many fans.

The most recent resurrection to upset fans and touch this writer the most, was that of Captain Mar-vell. Captain Mar-vell was a hero many decades ago who died. He didn't die in a flashy super battle or anything typical. He died of cancer. In the book, the Death of Captain Mar-vell, we see him going through the various stages of the terminally ill. The fear, the anger, the defiance, and finally acceptance. Here was a hero that had the power to do almost anything, except stop the cancer growing in his own body. As a reader, I felt the very human emotions that he went through as I read this. It taught me that we can care about a fictional character and their fate. It was one of the greatest stories ever told. A story pushed aside to bring him back a couple of weeks ago. He was pulled out of the timeline before his death so that he can exist in the current. Part of my heart broke when this happened.

While comic book deaths are expected to be over-turned, the readers have seen an influx of it within recent years. Blame it on the editors or the writers or even fan clamor, coming back from the dead is here to stay. There are no constants in life. And when it comes to comics, there are no constants in death either.