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This article is about the deaths of characters in comic books. For the personification of death in comic books, see Death (comics) . ''Comic book death'' is a term used somewhat cynically in the Comic Book fan community to refer to the killing off and subsequent return of a long-running character. A synonymous term is '''''Marvel Death''''', because Marvel Comics supposedly engages in this gimmick more frequently than other publishers. Comic book writers often kill off characters to gather Publicity and dramatic Tension . Occasionally, a writer will allow readers to think a character has died and conceive of a complex way to reveal that the character is actually alive within a single storyline. More often, however, the publishing house intends to permanently kill off a long-running character but fans pressure the company to bring the character back or writers are once again in need of publicity and dramatic tension and the character returns in a subsequent storyline through Retcon ning. The two most famous comic deaths are arguably the 1980 "death" of Jean Grey in Marvel's '' Dark Phoenix Saga '' and that of Superman in DC 's highly-publicized 1993 '' Death Of Superman '' storyline (although of the two, only Jean's was actually intended to be a true, permanent death). Since the ''Dark Phoenix Saga,'' comic book deaths have been particularly common in X-Men -related series. The prominence of comic book deaths has lead to a common piece of comic shop wisdom: "No one in comics stays dead, except Bucky , Jason Todd and Uncle Ben ," referring to Captain America 's Sidekick (dead since 1964 ), Batman's second Robin (dead since 1989 and killed-off as a result of a fan poll) and Spider-Man 's uncle (dead since 1962 ), respectively. With the return of both Bucky and Jason Todd in 2005 , this saying has been sarcastically amended to "Absolutely no one in comics stays dead". Note that sometimes a character can be dead in the mainstream continuity, but alive in an alternate reality, such as the aged Bucky in the Ultimate Marvel universe, or Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy's return in the House Of M storyline. Comic book deaths have been Parodied by Peter Milligan in '' X-Statix ,'' in which all the characters had died by the end of the series, and by Dan Slott in his 2005 miniseries '' Great Lakes Avengers ,'' in which some characters have lasted only a single issue. '' The Simpsons '' also parodied comic book deaths in the episode " Radioactive Man " in which Bart mentions an issue of '' Radioactive Man '' in which the eponymous character and his sidekick Fallout Boy die on every page. CHARACTERS WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED A COMIC BOOK DEATH DC Comics Marvel Comics PROMINENT CHARACTERS WHO HAVE DIED AND HAVE THUS FAR NOT RETURNED DC Comics Marvel Comics OUTSIDE OF COMIC BOOKS The return of a character previously thought dead is certainly not limited to comic books. In many Slasher Film s and monster movies, the killer or monster seemingly dies at the end of the film only to return for a Sequel . Daytime and prime-time Soap Opera s are notorious for comic book deaths; famously, an entire season of '' Dallas '' was Retcon ned into one character's dream so that a character killed in that season could return. In the '' Archie Sonic The Hedgehog '' Comic book, there have been quite a few comic book deaths:
The precursor of comic book deaths was the attempt by Arthur Conan Doyle to kill off both Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty (Victorian equivalents of superhero and supervillain) so that he could move on to other writing. But Doyle eventually ceded to pressure to return Holmes. Also of note, the Japanese manga/anime series Dragon Ball Z uses this plot device quite extensively as well. Not only has the main character of the series, Goku died multiple times only to be brought back to life, but Piccolo , Vegeta , Tenshinhan , Yamcha , Kuririn , Chaozu , and many others have been brought back to life as well. In this case, it's always by wishing on the DragonBalls to have them come back, and is usually planned. Furthermore, the character 'Murdoc' in MacGyver is repeatedly killed (via three explosions, two falls from great heights, and being crushed, electrocuted and drowned once apiece). The motif even made it into the script wherein the authorities state there is no way Murdock could have survived the falling boulders and elevator-shaft plummet, and MacGyver counters that he's already survived falling off of a cliff, explosions, etc. Also, Mr. Spock from Star Trek died in the end of the second movie, only to be brought back in the third one. . He was then brought back to life at the end of the third season of the cartoon, possibly due to fan pressure. The concept is parodied (albeit in the arena of Soap Opera rather than comics) in the movie Soapdish . There, Kevin Kline plays an actor whose character on a soap opera is killed via decapitation in an attempt to permamently ban him after a falling out with the show's star ( Sally Fields ). Twenty years later, backstage politics lead to Kline's character being brought back, much to the dismay of writer Whoopi Goldberg , who must figure out how to resurrect the character. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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