Comic Book Deaths. Seems talking about death would be a heavy subject. It wouldn't be if you lived in a comic book. Over the last couple decades, it feels like more and more characters are dying. I wrote about deaths being cheap a few months ago.
Deaths in comics are meant to be shockers. The only ones that are shocked are the comic characters in the issue. When we see a character die, we all know that character will return someday somehow.
Deaths still occur and we're supposed to react to them as if it was a big deal. For the friends and loved ones of a character that dies, it's always a sad time. They have to stop whatever they're doing and honor the fallen one. With the number of times that this has happened, shouldn't they be used to deaths and the inevitable return by now?
== TEASER ==
If you think about your favorite characters, it's almost harder to list characters that haven't died (I'm sure this will be rectified soon). Some characters die more often than they get a new look. Death is just too common these days. Consider some of the biggest deaths we've had lately. The two that come to mind are Captain America and Batman. They both got better. Recently in X-Men: Second Coming, we had the death of Nightcrawler (I won't mention the character that just died last week). Nightcrawler's death was sad because of who his character was. Yet the X-Men are still mourning for him. Don't they know by now that if you're an X-Men, cheating death is like putting on a new pair of shoes? Who thinks Jean Grey is never coming back?
The only cure for not coming back from the dead is if you don't have superpowers. Other characters like Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy don't have the ability to return from the dead. I know you could argue that Bucky Barnes "died" and came back and he doesn't have superpowers. Technically he didn't die, as far as the story goes. He was just sort of blown up after he tried stopping Baron Zemo's bomb. It seems if you hang out with superheroes long enough, you start becoming immune to death.
Deaths and resurrections occur so often in comics that it's becoming as common as characters being able to fly. The next time a character like Nightcrawler dies, those around him should raise a glass in his honor but there's no need to be sad. He (and others that die) will be back. It's just a matter of them getting better (and the next writer coming up with the way they'll return).
Do comic book deaths have any impact on you these days?