Death in Comics

I've talked a few times this week (and overall in the past of this blog) about the consequences of death in comics. There are plenty of opinions out there about this by people who are more qualified than I am but that hasn't stopped me before. This is a complicated issue for me. On the one hand, having characters who are able to come back from the dead, maybe even multiple times, certainly cheapens death in comics. Like I've said before, no death in the 616 seems permanent, meaning that when Spider-Man died in issue 700, we were sad but the question wasn't "what now?" but rather "when will he be back?" When Captain America died a couple years ago, we followed the same basic thought, even though that one lasted a little longer. Johnny Storm died a year or two ago and came back. These are three major characters in the Marvel Universe who have died and come back within the last five years. Hawkeye's on that list too, but his death was, I believe, a couple years before Cap's so it's out of the time range I'm inexplicably exemplifying. Although Peter Parker hasn't officially come back yet, his consciousness is still seemingly in his body somewhere, just not in control of the body. We know he'll be back. He's Peter Parker.

The movies, as great as I've found them, further complicate things. I don't see real risk in an Iron Man book or a Cap book, at least not real risk to the title character. Comics are a business and it would be awfully silly for Marvel to throw some of their biggest cash cows away at the height of their popularity. Not to say they wouldn't or they wouldn't do a death like Spider-Man's right now (who also has his own series of movies going on right now but those are less directly tied to Marvel), but we REALLY know there that it isn't permanent. A major character's death grabs headlines and could time out well for a popularity boost, but even the mainstream media is catching on to the inevitable resurrection.

So what does this temporary view of death mean for comics? That's a tougher question. Yes, it forces us to pull back and remember that Marvel is a business and they're not just writing compelling stories to write compelling stories, no matter the end. They still do write an awful lot of compelling stories (or else this blog would be in much worse shape) but we know now that they won't kill off a popular character for good. They might even kill him or her off seemingly for good but it's just a matter of time before someone later on says "boy, what happened to that guy? Let's get him involved again!" Does it cheapen their death in the comic itself, in terms of the story? I don't really think so. I mean, it pulls us out a bit. As sad as I was over Peter Parker's death, my brain was saying "right, so when's he going to be back? How will he come back? What clues were left in this series that someone will build on to get Peter Parker back?" But like I said quickly in my Age of Apocalypse review this week, the characters don't realize they'll be coming back. The sacrifice they typically make (it's almost always some sort of sacrifice when they die) still holds the same weight because they didn't sacrifice themselves saying "aw geez, this sure is an inconvenience. I'll miss half a season of Lost!" (or whatever it is people watch these days that's more recent) Instead they sacrifice themselves with the intention of dying.

So that's not the issue. The issue isn't heroes being less heroic. It's about an audience being made cynical by the business of comics. Now here's where it gets messy, even for me (SPOILER: I don't come up with a genius answer one way or the other by the end of this post). I don't want to be reminded that Marvel is a business and these comics are available because people are getting paid to make them. I also express my gratitude for the Ultimate Universe and other universes where characters stay dead and new characters may rise up and take their place. HOWEVER, at the same time, if Captain America had really died, I'd be devastated still. If Peter Parker wasn't eventually coming back, I don't know how I'd be feeling right now. Comics are escapism, right? They always have been. Most literature is. But most literature is also finite. Comics probably are too, but we never really see that end. God willing, they will be infinite. In escapist fantasies, do we want to be reminded that everyone we love dies? That everyone we love, no matter how strong or how seemingly invincible, falls eventually? Or would we rather believe that there's always a power to come back? I'm not saying it's the best lesson to teach whoever is reading comics, but I don't think we need to worry about that lesson. Throughout any person's life, they'll learn countless times that people die. It's sad but it's true. I can't imagine that people are reading comics and saying "geez, this is just like real life!" At least, not as it pertains to superheroes or death. The good comics emulate real life in the way they show their characters, which is why we're so sad when they die. We might as well know these people. It's not teaching us a lesson about death or about how it's possible to overcome death. It's just letting us escape like we wanted to when we first picked up a comic book. Is death still a real threat in comics? I don't know. People can come back at will in some places but will stay dead in others. Less important characters die and stay dead all the time in comics. If a more important character dies, their sacrifice and their death still means a lot, even if they'll eventually be resurrected. Every death still has a weight to it. Maybe I'm a bad comic reader, but I'm not going to complain if my favorite character breaks reality by coming back from the dead. He's already broken reality plenty of times before this and I certainly didn't mention it then. What's so different now?