With the current return of Steve Rogers from the dead, I figured it would be time to look back at the way comic book characters can’t seem to say dead. Is it a good thing that our heroes cheat death or is it a sign post for the way we see the world?

Superheroes stare death in the face and laugh right? They defend injustice and all that jazz while bullets whiz by and death defying death traps abound, but what’s the deal when they finally kick the bucket? Why don’t fans rise up in anger when their emotions are toyed with? All these questions, let’s look for some answers.

The X-Men re-launched in the early 70’s, when they did they decided to add a little something extra into the story by killing one of the team in the first issue. This instance has two factors, one it was a killing that made people stand up and pay attention to the book, and two, Thunderbird never came back from the dead. Despite the popular cynical response not every character makes a comeback.

Some characters are just too popular to kill, years later the writers of the X-Men presented us with a new group of mutants called Generation X and again in that first issue a character dies. This time the character in question is the very popular Blink. In Blinks case she wasn’t exactly resurrected but reintroduced into the story as an alternate reality version of herself. In this instance it was her immense popularity that brought her back from the grave.

Maybe popularity is the barometer for whether or not a character can actually be killed. When you look at it, most of the top tier characters have had some sort of death and rebirth with the exception of Wolverine who’s arguably the most popular character in comics.

Superman died and came back, Batman is currently dead, is he due for a rebirth? If so how long will DC wait before they bring him back? With the speculation regarding his role in Blackest Night the answer is likely not long. The question sadly is not if but when, I say sadly because I think it says something about comics when characters come and go as they please.

How come comics can’t seem to commit to anything long term? I think the answer is twofold: money, and fear. There is too much money to be made from products, toys, and major motion pictures to just kill a character when it suits the writer. Batman is not only a fictional character, he’s also a huge cash cow, a cultural phenomenon even, no way DC does away with the character for the sake of a good story. I think there is also a huge fear of change in the comic book industry; every story seems to go the ‘two steps forward three steps back’ route where the more things ‘change’ the more they stay the same. Marvel’s current storyarc is the only real exception to that rule, but we’ll have to wait and see what Marvel looks like after the dust of Dark Reign settles.

To be fair there are a few deaths that have yet to be reversed, like the death of Captain Marvel. But even that has been toyed with in recent years. Adam Warlock, a lesser known Marvel character has died and returned seemingly whenever it suits a particular writer, it’s as if nothing is sacred. Even the long death of Barry Allen was reversed just recently.

Part of me empathizes with comic creators who bring characters back from the dead, like when Joss Whedon brought Colossus back. Imagine being in love with a character for years and then having to watch them die heroically in an explosion. The a few years later it’s your turn to write for that comic company; wouldn’t you bring your favorite character back if you could?

The revolving door in comic book heaven also makes comics unique in a way. Where else do characters constantly die and come back from the grave? Maybe the soaps but those are simply comics with no action (yeah I said it).

Ultimately the goal is to tell great stories while also making a buck or two, and to that end Comics do the job admirably and I think that most fans understand that. Yes Cap was only dead for about a year or so, but fans don’t seem to mind as long as his return is a well written story. And in the end, it’s the story that matters the most.