And are subsequently reborn. Again. And again. We all know this, we all accept it (somewhat) and we all know that this is just the world of properties we live in. But what about the people who see that every day of their life? What about the people who are living in the MarvelU or the DCU? How are they reacting to this? I imagine it something like that:
I woke up this morning, and when I turned on the radio, I heard that they gunned down Cap. Again. Wasn’t that guy dead already? Well, at least that meant that I didn’t have to work. Not really. The buzz was all over the web. There were some crazy theories out there, something about a magic bullet. Not enough that they run around in capes and whatnot, now they also have witches. Huh.
Or this fellow, lamenting the death of the Martian Manhunter:
So, this Martian guy’s dead, right? Did he have a hometown? I’m not sure. I only saw him hanging out with the JLA guys, and even then he appeared a bit weak. He was green alright, but I guess that passes for membership these days. In my times that wouldn’t have happened. The killing I mean. Heroes did something in those days, you know, besides posing. I have at least fifteen group-shots of the JLA, I’m a fan you know, and in most of them the green guy’s there. I still haven’t figured out what he does, though. When he’ll returns, I’ll better ask him.
Or this young lady. Her name is Sara, and she’s 11:
So, my mommy told me that Superman is dead. Again. But he’ll be back, she said. That made me happy, because I like Superman. Also, that means that Aunt Trudy will be back. I told Mom that, and she started crying. I asked her why are you crying. And she that Aunt Trudy won’t be back. Only Superheroes get to return. I asked her why and she cried even more.
Superheroes die and return. They’re like rappers who retire and return, or die and release a new album. It’s the sickness of the modern age, an instilled fear of the new. We, as a society, can’t have prejudices against people from different cultures anymore (and rightly so!), so we project our fear onto something else. It’s human nature. And god beware we get a new character in a comic book. Things need to stay the same. Even in death. Superheroes die and return. Again and again.
Happy Blackest Night!
Sorry for the grumpiness the last few entries. The next time, we’ll look at something funny again. Promised. I have something about Wolverine in mind…
Pete Schueler is currently residing in Berlin, Germany. He’s desperately trying to get his writing career somewhere. Where that is exactly, is not defined yet, but it should be somewhere where it’s visible. He’s been a comic book and pop culture geek all his life, but started reading them funny-books again on a weekly basis just three short years ago. In this time he matured from reading just DC books, to preferring mostly Indie titles. He still has a reverence for the Big Two and superheroes in general, and consumes them at a regular rate. The books, not the heroes. 
Benton Sartore on 
Merin on 
Evan Henry on 
It’s an interesting point. I just did a peice about the Captain America rebirth, and my main question was about how comic book writers can make a death meaningful when it’s universally recognized as being temporary, but I was focusing on how to give said death a literary meaning for the audiance. I thought Brubaker’s handling of that challenge was interesting, but he did rely almost entirely on the way Cap’s death affected his peers and the other denizens of the marvel universe, and really, would death mean anything more to them than it does to us, the readers?
Mike