Death In Comics - SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FF# 587 SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN!!!!

Now that that's out of the way....

Above are a trio of images that have stuck with me throughout my comic book reading life.  Three images that coincide with death and sadness: two from the early 90's, one from this last year.  One of those images is definitely iconic and forever memorable to readers, while the other two are probably less so, but for me are much more powerful in the response they generated. 

Why? 

I think I know why but let's explore death throughout my own personal comic book history and see what pops up.

I think the first time I was faced with the death of a prominent comic character within my world would have been in 1989 when Madelyne Pryor died, willing herself to die, in an attempt to kill Jean Grey as well.  The effect on 10-year old me...sadness.  This was a character I had been reading for the last two years, one I had gotten attached to as she sacrificed herself alongside the X-Men during "Fall of the Mutants", as she became the eyes & ears of the team in Australia, and slowly became seduced by the "dark side" during the build towards "Inferno".  There was a bond, not terribly strong, but a bond to that character that made it rough to see her die, especially as part of a spectacular fall from grace.

As I moved forward in my X-reading years, I also backtracked into the "Classic X-Men" world which...although I already knew the outcome...brought about a great sadness as well by the time I read the historic "Dark Phoenix Saga".  The death of Jean Grey was so powerful that I can only imagine how it felt to those fans reading it as it happened.  This was the ultimate good guy, the heart of the X-Men, being corrupted by absolute power, and finding her only salvation (as well as that of the universe) in her death.  And with it coming only one or two issues after the proposal moment between Jean and Cyclops, it made it all the more heart-wrenching reading it for the first time several years after the fact.

The same was the case for Jason Todd and "A Death In The Family".  By the time I read that landmark story, the "Knights Trilogy" had occured, Dick Grayson had completed his 1st stint as Batman in "Prodigal", & Tim Drake had been established as Robin and was rocking it in his own regular series.  So why, before I even read the story, did I have an emotional connection to Jason Todd?  Because the Bat-Writers of the time (Chuck Dixon & Doug Moench among others) made sure that the readers knew of the impact JT's death had on Bruce.  It was included in flashbacks throughout "Knightfall", the presence of his costume in the cave, his "Zero Hour" appearance in "Robin", the memory of Jason Todd was ever-present to the point that he may as well have been an existing character in each issue.  So by the time I read his death, I felt like I was connected to JT and to this day, Bruce Jones run aside and thanks to Judd Winick, he remains one of my favorite characters.  I don't know how I would have voted though....

Sometimes, no matter how high profile the character, the death can hit you with all the impact of a feather.  "Superman 75" in all its media hyped, death armband packed, black polybagged glory was an amazing hit and sold some 6 MILLION copies (between the original run and reprint), only topped by "X-Men #1 (Vol.2)" (8 Million or so) and that had 5 different covers!!!

Yet, for me, that death was not so impactful.  It was crazy that DC Comics would kill off Superman, and I wasn't a cynical enough reader yet at 13 years of age to dismiss it all just because you knew he'd get brought back sooner rather than later.  I think it's the simple fact that I was not a reader of Superman comics, thusly I had no emotional investment in Clark Kent, Lois Lane, or any of the supporting cast.  Add that into the fact that it wasn't a surprise moment (the internet didn't own the world yet but the news did manage to become public in September in Newsday and other newspapers), but it was a comic that...while holding no emotional value for me...was something historic that EVERYBODY had to read.  Now that I think about it, I actually didn't even buy the issue, a good example of how little it meant to me, just read through it and bought the trade when it came out.  At least that way I had a record of this historic moment.  This was a huge moment in comics, but for me it wasn't even worth dropping a couple bucks to buy the book.

One year later (give or take) it was time for "Uncanny X-Men #303" and the death of Illyana Rasputin...a character that was, quite honestly by that point, window dressing in the larger character arc of her brother Colossus.  As a matter of fact, "UXM 304" came out before #303 so the whole damn story was ruined but that didn't take away from the emotional impact of watching the former Magik succumb to the Legacy Virus.  Here was a little girl who had been force-aged, now with an opportunity to live her life again after returning to her proper age, but fresh off having her parents slaughtered.  Now she's diagnosed with a virus designed to exterminate mutants, and she hadn't even developed powers yet.  The story was tragic as it was, but what really broke my heart reading the story was the character interaction.  The current youth of the X-Team, Jubilee, playing the hard-ass while Shadowcat, the once best-friend of teenage Illyana, cares for the youngster version as if nothing has changed.  The bedtime story reading, the shock as her body fails, and the page where they have to tell Peter what happened all led up to leaving me with tears in my eyes.  This probably would have been the most heartbreaking death in comics for me if it wasn't for "Identity Crisis".

See while "Identity Crisis" does get some critical panning for reasons I will never understand, I find it to be utterly heartwrenching.  It's a story of loss and pain, of betrayal and lies, and ultimately death.  The sad death of Sue Dibny and the utterly painful, shocking, tragic death of Jack Drake (Robin's father).  The build to Jack's death, given the relationship building in Robin's own comic, was probably the most painful thing I have ever experienced in comics. 

Maybe it comes from being someone who almost lost their father at a young age, but even as I write this and look at that panel, I find myself with tears in my eyes.  No bullshit, that's how hard this death hit me.  Not only was I connected with these characters from years of reading them, but the personal element of the way it happened made it so much more painful.  No one dies from battling a raging alien super-villain or being shot by lasers on the Moon, but people die everyday from gunshots.  And the utter despair from Tim, his right foot in the blood, Bruce so uncharacteristically holding him...all those little touches add up to the most painful moment of my life as a comic book reader.  I didn't read this, I experienced this.

The next time I felt that, though definitely not with the same level of intensity, was during "Second Coming" when Nightcrawler sacrificed himself to save the life of the mutant messiah Hope.  Here was a character that I had read since the very beginning of my career as a comic book reader, and now he was dead.  Noble and heroic as it was, he was dead.  And I cried, not hard, not like I did with "Identity Crisis" but certainly more than I expected to as it became increasingly obvious that Elf was soon to be shuffling the mortal coil.  This was a character I suffered through a crisis of faith alongside (his not mine, no worries there), went through devastating injuries with, saw the evolution of the character from supporting cast to team leader to bedrock of the team.  His trials and tribulations have been been a big part of my interest in X-Men & Excalibur (although let's forget the whole Azazel demon daddy thing...why "X-Men: First Class: The Movie" is using that character is beyond me and a story for another time), and his friendship with Wolverine is something I have cherished.  Yet it was the type of death perfect for 'Crawler's character as it represented the culmination of his faith in what Hope represented, and as it appears now, his faith was well placed.  Do I think 'Crawler will be back?  Probably in some fashion, but that doesn't make the storyline impact of his sacrifice any less spectacular nor does it take away from the impact his death had on me as a fan.  He is already missed...

Now, this brings me to the whole SPOILER ALERT that kicked off this little piece: "Fantastic Four #587" and the death of Johnny Storm.  This, for me, was like the death of Superman but even more so.  Superman is, at the very least, a character deeply entrenched in our cultural lexicon.  He is Americana in so many ways and as such, the impact of his death was a little more...felt....than that of Johnny Storm.  If I was disconnected from Superman, than I am light years removed from the world of the Fantastic Four.  In fact, the only FF issues I ever bought were the "Heroes Reborn" issues as well as the first 3 "Heroes Return" issues that followed.  I did purchase "Books of Doom", but that's a Dr. Doom story and even that was only on persistent recommendation.  But despite this total disconnect, I read the most recent FF issue to see just who died (managing to avoid spoilers in the process), and when it was done I said to myself, "Okay that's done".  I may as well have read the phone book for all the emotional impact it had on me.  Not because it was badly written, but because I have no context and no ties to these people.  In fact, the most intriguing thing in the book for me was Leech because I've been wondering what happened to him for quite some time.  I dig Jonathan Hickman's writing for the most part, and I do find myself interested in perusing his entire FF run to see what brought it to this point, so I suppose that's the best case scenario for a series I didn't have interest in.  Perhaps that will generate the emotional investment, but it won't be like the decades of connection I had with Nightcrawler.  But then again, I could find the same love for the characters that I found for Jean Grey & 'Crawler in reading "Classic X-Men".

So there's a little run through my life of....errrrr....death in comics.  And what's the one thing that connects the big moments: the connection.  I doubt that's something ground-breaking, a huge revelation, or a "holy shit" moment but that's my big idea.  The history between the reader and the subject creates one bond, if a story has an emotional resonance that's another bond, and if the writer can hit a truly personal connection that's the strongest bond I believe.  That's the "Jack Drake" moment so to speak, and that's the moment that can elevate a comic book death from "just another one" to "a historical one".

Before I go, let me quickly mention two seperate things that can ruin deaths: retconning and the internet!  With the first I'll just use Magneto as an example.  He had to two great deaths that I can think of; the first being "X-Men #3 Vol. 2" and the second being "New X-Men 150".  Each one was a great, appropriate death in my opinion, yet rendered pointless by retconning.  Resurrection isn't bad, but when it's done in such crappy fashion, it ruins the whole thing.

The second ruiner, the internet, is the place for everyone to find out anything sometimes before it even happens.  Look at the last FF issue where Marvel put it out early to try and counteract internet spoilers, but the internet just jumped it up a day anyway.  So here I am avoiding the internet in order for the purpose of avoiding spoilers, and Howard Stern spills the beans in such an off-handed fashion I didn't even realize he said it at first.  It's damn near impossible to avoid spoilers in this day & age, and that sort of thing can certainly ruin the impact of death in comics.

Neither of those things are something that are going to change anytime...well ever really...so we must suck it up and deal.  It amazes me though how strong an impact something like a comic can have on the reader.  Like a novel, a movie, or a TV show, comic books can linger just the same.