Posted on: May 21st, 2010 Who Moved Doom’s Cheese? #2
I don’t remember where I heard it; maybe I read it. Somewhere along the line, someone shared with me a theory about deaths in comic books. In their eyes, the only reason heroes and characters are killed off during a storyline is so that further down the road, we can get the satisfaction of their return. It’s gnawed at my brain ever since then. It has become extraordinarily cumbersome in the recent months. I mean, we had the death of Captain America, Barry Allen, Bruce Wayne and then that whole Blackest Night debacle. Now Cap’s back, we just finished Flash: Rebirth, Bruce is coming back, and Brightest Day has arrived. 
Was it all just to see them return? Was it just a method of toying with the reader’s emotions? ‘Make them sad just to make them happy’ kind of situation. God, I hope not.
I’m not about to stand here (sit here) and tell you fine folk that I don’t enjoy a good back-from-the-dead story just as much as the next nerd. I loved seeing Steve Rogers back in action, I loved the the finale of Blackest Night with the enormous gate fold. I’m not heartless; I enjoyed it too. But do I think that the ENTIRE purpose of these deaths were for the pure love fest when we see them rise from the ashes? Call it naivety, call it wishful thinking, call it Betsy-I think that characters die so that we can see the growth of the supporting characters.
Check it out: Blackest Night just flat out spoon fed you and told you that it was all about emotional ties. The entire event begged the question, “What if your hero came back from the dead and it wasn’t all that great.” Then, of course, good triumphed and the heroes were back for real and everything was 78% great. I made that number up. It feels like a safe estimate though. Now as we fumble through all of the Brightest Day storylines, it just feels like an awkward post-coital encounter. I saw you do things I don’t normally see you do. I’m not entirely sure I can look at you the same way. This is…weird. If this entire event was produced to make me feel the way I feel now, now that everyone’s back, then maybe we should have left well enough alone. Maybe this feeling of discontent is because the struggle was over and done fairly fast…
Let’s take a look at some of the more typical death/life situations: Bucky wielded the shield. He had enormous shoes to fill, but he struggled along to find his place-to honor Steve and honor his country. You can basically copy and paste for Wally West and Barry Allen. Bucky differs in that he chose to blame Tony Stark for the death but at the same time, had to secretly work with him. Wally actually subconsciously suppressed his speed-powers just so that he didn’t feel he was replacing Barry. It shows the successors struggling with sense of responsibility over sense of self.
Bruce’s death is basically just a whole can of paternal-acceptance-worms (which, sounds really weird). Dick had to face his greatest fear of losing his “father” and having to take on the cape and cowl. Alfred lost his son but still has to keep on keeping on for the sake of all the other sons. Tim risked losing his friends and family by trusting his instincts on dealing/not dealing with Bruce’s death. Damian is a lovable mess-his mother’s a pyscho that has tampered with his neurological system and he basically never knew his father Bruce-but if he can prove himself to his father’s successor, that’s essentially proving himself to his father. Whoa.
What I enjoy most about these transitions is that all these characters started out as the quirky side-kicks. And instead of living in suspended time, these guys are actually growing up and taking over the helm. Were they kind of forced into it? Sure, but do I care? It shows progression. It’s what the world refers to as ‘character development’. It was the deaths that were the catalysts in the stories’ progression, not the anticipation of a return.
I’d like to think that coping with the deaths of characters is the main reason they’re killed in the first place. The truth is, it’s probably just a sales-based decision. I had people that don’t even read comic books call me and ask me if Batman really died. If a death can generate that kind of out-of-industry buzz, you know that the sales were phenomenal. Then, when it’s announced that their resurrection is coming up, the presale numbers are through the roof. At the end of the day, it’s smart business. So as much as I’d like to believe the stories come first, you can’t pay rent with character development.
Characters never truly die in comic books. That’s a given. But if we just pull one giant mulligan after giant mulligan, at what point do we stop losing that connection to the death of our characters? If we know they’re coming back, why should we, as readers, care that they died? Wouldn’t the big returns eventually lose their appeal? When will we start comparing resurrections-”What, that’s how he came back to life? I liked it so much better when he came back in issue #459. This one sucked.” I guess we’ll just have to wait and watch. Brightest Day isn’t over, The Return of Bruce Wayne just started, Prince of Power will deal with Incredible Hercules and I don’t know of anyone that really wants the Sentry back..