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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 29, 2020 17:28:08 GMT -5
Jean Grey was killed off in Uncanny X-Men #137, in the summer of 1980. She was retconned to be alive in Fantastic Four #286, in late 1985. So; Jean remained dead for 5 years, before revival, with the retcon that she was cocooned at the bottom of the ocean, in Uncanny X-Men #101, by the Phoenix entity, who took on her form and was the one killed on the Moon, in #137. I count this as Jean was dead, declared dead by Jim Shooter and it was made clear she was dead int he comics that followed, until the decision to bring her back to use in X-Factor. I didn't really care about the decision to kill her off; but, I really hated the decision to bring her back, as it cheapened the previous X-Men storylines.
Iris West was killed in Flash #275, in 1979 and revealed to have been pulled into the future, in #350, in 1985.
Superman died in Vol 2, #75, in 1992 and returns in the Adv of Superman #505, in 1993
Barry Allen was killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, in 1985, and brought back in Final Crisis #2, 23 years later.
Hal Jordan was killed in 1996 and brought back in 2004.
Ollie Queen was killed in 1995 and revived in 2001.
You can question of captain America even counts, as he is time displaced, not killed, though that isn't apparent, from the start, though it was the intent. Also, Superman's death was intended to be temporary. Jean Grey, iris West, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen were all meant to be killed off, without plans for a revival.
Don Hall was killed off in Crisis on infinite Earths and remained dead, while hank acquired a new partner for the Hawk and Dove team. Don remained dead, to my knowledge.
Bucky was one you could justify, as we never saw a body when he was retroactively killed, when Captain America was revived, in Avengers #4. Captain America was published after 1945 and both he and Bucky survived the war to be part of the All-Winners Squad and also returned in the brief 50s revival. When Stan brought him back in Avengers, he retconned the history, saying Cap disappeared in the war and Bucky was killed, though, as I say, we didn't see a body, and just have Cap's hazy memory of the event. Reviving Bucky could have easily been done at any point, though most writers seemed to think that angle did more for Captain America's characterization than the possibility of a revival, and, instead, gave us surrogate Buckys (Rick jones, Nomad), before the real one was revived in Winter Soldier. So, Bucky's "death" last from 1964 to 2005, over 50 years.
Mark Shaw, the Kirby Manhunter from First Issue Special #8, was killed in Eclipso 13, in 1993 and revived in 1995, in the Chase Lawler manhunter series, when they ended the series. he then turned up in the Kate Spencer series, in 2004.
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Post by rberman on Mar 29, 2020 18:26:31 GMT -5
The Legion of Super-Heroes had a surprising fatality rate for the Silver Age, usually with one Legionnaire dying to save another. Lightning Lad died in Adventure Comics #304 (1963, story by Jerry Siegel) to prevent Saturn Girl from sacrificing her own life. Edmond Hamilton resurrected Lightning Lad a few issues later (#312) in a bizarre Russian Roulette death pact in which several Legionnaires expressed their willingness to die to restore Lightning Lad, a move that he surely would not have approved. But usually dead Legionnaires stayed dead a good long time, e.g. Ferro Lad.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 29, 2020 18:49:34 GMT -5
What a bizzare death. . How many pages did he last ? Well, he died on page 18, so it was a pretty short career.
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Post by foxley on Mar 29, 2020 19:45:12 GMT -5
What a bizzare death. . How many pages did he last ? Well, he died on page 18, so it was a pretty short career. Longer than most of the never seen before heroes Kevin Smith had killed by Onomatopoeia in his first appearance in Green Arrow #12.
(On a related note, dos anyone except Kevin Smith actually find Onomatopoeia an interesting villain?)
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 29, 2020 20:38:00 GMT -5
The red shirt superheroes ?
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 29, 2020 21:22:01 GMT -5
Well, he died on page 18, so it was a pretty short career. Longer than most of the never seen before heroes Kevin Smith had killed by Onomatopoeia in his first appearance in Green Arrow #12.
(On a related note, dos anyone except Kevin Smith actually find Onomatopoeia an interesting villain?)
Oh, I don't know, he's right up there with the Silencer...
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 29, 2020 21:26:09 GMT -5
I know alot of you guys that were reading at the time hate Jean coming back, but was it really so shocking? I mean, she was the Phoenix, who, by very definition, rises from the ashes to come back. I read it after it was no longer new and already knew she came back, so maybe the place I was coming from was the reason, but why was it so shocking?
To me, bringing Hal Jordan back was far worse (I would have been OK if he stayed the Spectre, since that's not really 'alive' exactly).. the guy had a noble, redemptive death, then they just trashed the whole thing.
To answer the original question, when I was most into DC (just before and after Zero Hour).. I definitely didn't think Hal Jordan, Barry Allen or Oliver Queen were coming back. All three had excellent legacy characters that were popular and interesting in their own right, and it didn't seem like there'd be any reason to ever go back.
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Post by rberman on Mar 29, 2020 21:31:57 GMT -5
I know alot of you guys that were reading at the time hate Jean coming back, but was it really so shocking? I mean, she was the Phoenix, who, by very definition, rises from the ashes to come back. I read it after it was no longer new and already knew she came back, so maybe the place I was coming from was the reason, but why was it so shocking? 1) Her death was widely heralded as a quality moment in superhero comics, so its undoing could not help but undo some of the positive feelings associated with that. 2) The method of her return was not even to undergo a phoenix resurrection, but rather to deny that she had ever died. It basically became a clone story, in which everything we thought Jean did as Phoenix was really done by some space force incarnated in Jean's form. while the real Jean was chilling at the bottom of the bay in hibernation. Her concern over Scott's supposed death, her date with him on the mesa, her seduction by Mastermind, her destruction of D'Bari and subsequent suicide, none of it was Jean anway, just a cosmic force playing human.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 29, 2020 21:36:54 GMT -5
OK, I can see that... I always did picture it as Phoenix-like (she was at the bottom of the bay recovering to return in my head), I never really made the connection that there was essentially an imposter around for that period of time...that IS pretty annoying.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 29, 2020 21:42:08 GMT -5
Neither have Junior Juniper or Pam Hawley from Sgt. Fury's early days, either. Unless there's been some serious ret-conning I'm unaware of. (And that could be!) Pam herself didn't come back but she was reincarnated as sometime Dr. Strange love interest Morgana Blessing, as revealed in Doctor Strange (1974 series) #50.
Cei-U! I summon the old wine in a new skin!
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 29, 2020 21:51:02 GMT -5
The format of work for hire will always result in status changes that shake long time fans. The writer that kills a characters is almost never the same writer that resurrects them. Stan Lee kills Bucky, Brubaker brings him back 50 years later. Marv Wolfman kills the Flash, Johns brings him back 30 years later. Conway kills the Green goblin, J. Mark DeMatteis brings him back over 25 years later. Only if the character has the same creator can a death remain permanent. Erik Larsen the creator/ owner of Savage Dragon has killed the lead about 4 years ago and he's not coming back.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 29, 2020 22:37:09 GMT -5
The format of work for hire will always result in status changes that shake long time fans. The writer that kills a characters is almost never the same writer that resurrects them. Stan Lee kills Bucky, Brubaker brings him back 50 years later. Marv Wolfman kills the Flash, Johns brings him back 30 years later. Conway kills the Green goblin, J. Mark DeMatteis brings him back over 25 years later. Only if the character has the same creator can a death remain permanent. Erik Larsen the creator/ owner of Savage Dragon has killed the lead about 4 years ago and he's not coming back. Unless it is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Ian Fleming.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 30, 2020 0:22:49 GMT -5
Not wanting to exacerbate the thread going off topic but as someone who bought and read these comics at the time (and not saying others didn't also)... what ruined the Phoenix stoy and character was the mawkish rehashing and exploiting of it practically from right after... the blunt What If she had lived ( the universe is destroyed after she turns Kitty into dust and does in even closer team mates) was bad enough and made the character look like a '60s DC sudden change job, but the Kitty's fairy tale and later impersonating Phoenix was in bad taste if you bought into these characters as at all real. Then the return of Phoenix (and Mastermind, who was supposed to have been made a vegetable by her in punishment) as a look-alike red head with no past (which never resulted in anything other than another alternate future child to come back in time), and all the future children from alternate timelines one of which was another Phoenix... some of it made the parodies of Dark Albatross and Dark Cutey look less laughable at times. Claremont despoiled his own greatest story multiple times (did you see Professor X as Bald Phoenix in The Starjammers mini series, brown and gold costume and all? I am glad I didn't see it at the time myself).
I liked the original story at the time and agreed with Jim Shooter's logic. Kurt Busiek and John Byrne salvaging Jean Grey from that disgraceful mess Claremont made after that was the best thing I read on my way out the door for a few decades. It made a waste of character who had been around from 1963 and that a lot of people cared something for. That the Phoenix entity just in adopting Jean Grey's form/personality was still compelled to make a noble sacrifice was no slight towards Jean Grey at all, the slight was in the joke the tragedy had been turned into by the time they did the Avengers-Fantastic Four-X Factor storyline, unfortunately someone being not very original or creative went and put the two together again for the first time, because, well, got to get the costume on the cover to sell copies basically, just like X-Men #157 and #175. And on buttons and other stuff... I had a Phoenix Lives button myself.
Anyway, the question was about who was dead in 1992 and who had been brought back before that. The criminal murdering Phoenix entity was brought back by 1983-84 like a re-edited rerun! Rescuing an innocent Jean Grey from that mess that would not die, but keep mutating into every lousy opportunity to bring attention back to that story, in 1986 was one of the few defensible restorations. Jean Grey turning 'dark' from Mastermind invading her mind was a bit laughable by the time you see Kitty re-telling it as a cutesy bedtime story and then in the costume on a cover only sixteen and twenty issues past #137 respectively. I really did wish someone would've taken the X keys away from Claremont once he was drunk in the adulation of that story and kept bringing it back up again and again and again ad nauseum.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 30, 2020 5:50:34 GMT -5
Neither have Junior Juniper or Pam Hawley from Sgt. Fury's early days, either. Unless there's been some serious ret-conning I'm unaware of. (And that could be!) Pam herself didn't come back but she was reincarnated as sometime Dr. Strange love interest Morgana Blessing, as revealed in Doctor Strange (1974 series) #50.
Cei-U! I summon the old wine in a new skin!
Well, that makes sense. And did Junior show up again as one of the identities of Moon Knight?
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 30, 2020 10:40:58 GMT -5
Pam herself didn't come back but she was reincarnated as sometime Dr. Strange love interest Morgana Blessing, as revealed in Doctor Strange (1974 series) #50.
Cei-U! I summon the old wine in a new skin!
Well, that makes sense. And did Junior show up again as one of the identities of Moon Knight? Nope, Moon Knight's identities were Marc Spector (his birth ID), Jake Lockley (cab driver), and Stephen Grant (millionaire playboy).
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