Sometimes, dead is better. (apologies to Stephen King)

Today I want to address one of the most annoying and most prevalent comic book trends, the resurrection.

In no other genre, with the exception of the Soap Opera, will you find death and resurrection of a character used so continuously as in the superhero genre. For some reason, after decades of dramatic deaths and ridiculous returns, the killing of a character is still a moneymaker in comics. I am appealing to you, the comic book buyer, to help stop this.

I, for one (and perhaps the only one), have grown bored with a creative team killing off a character that has either outlived their popularity or usefulness to the plot only to have some later writer reverse the death because they didn't like the decision.

Characters such as Oliver Queen (Green Arrow), Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Jason Todd (Robin) and Donna Troy (Wonder Girl) have been killed off and had their mantles picked up by perfectly viable characters. These characters weren't axed because the sales of their titles (when they had solo titles) were so strong the editors decided to get rid of them. Even the messiah of superheroes, Superman himself, was killed off to boost sales only to return a short time later.

I know that there are skilled, creative writers in the industry. Why must they constantly move back to the old instead of investing in the new?

Case in point, I think Geoff Johns is probably one of the most talented scribes every to write a comic. He writes compelling plots, believable & likable characters and can hold a story line together across multiple titles. So why did he have to bring back Hal Jordan?

Hear me out. Hal Jordan was at best a two dimensional character. Fearless and bucking authority, he was never wrong and never very compelling. Then his city was destroyed. This breaks Jordan; he loses it and lashes out against his comrades when they try to rein him in. Jordan doesn't just fight back; he consumes the source of the most powerful weapon in the universe, the Green Lantern Central Battery. In the process, he kills friends and allies, the Guardians appeal to his greatest enemy, Sinestro, to stop him. Mercilessly, Jordan kills him too.

His attempt to recreate reality fails and Jordan loses everything, his city, his corps, and his friends. Now a god, the Greatest Green Lantern is a villain. Then comes his chance at redemption. When the sun is extinguished, only Jordan has the power to reignite it and save all of humanity. The cost, however, is his life. His sacrifice does not go unnoticed and he is offered the mantle of The Spectre, a spirit of vengeance he is given a chance to redeem his soul but is unwilling to enact the retribution the duty calls for.

This is the stuff of Greek Tragedy.

But, nah, let's undo it.

With Green Lantern Rebirth, Jordan's body is still intact in the heart of the sun and his spirit is reunited with his flesh. Turns out Jordan never went bad, but was possessed by the alien entity Parallax. The Lanterns Jordan killed, turns out they didn't die after all but were imprisoned by Manhunter androids, only to be rescued by none other than Jordan himself. Sinestro, not really dead, turns out it was just an illusion created by Parallax. In addition, it turns out that thanks to Parallax inhabiting Jordan the yellow impurity that once plagued the Green Lantern's power rings is purged and the corps is now stronger than ever.

So, to summarize, Jordan's alive, he never killed anyone and his actions strengthened the corps. Years worth of drama and character development reset in six issues.

If only this were the exception and not just a well written example of the rule. Marvel Comics is not only guilty of this, they are repeat offenders. Jean Grey and Magneto have died and come back so many times their friends don't even bother to bury them anymore. Recently Captain America was killed and no one in the comic industry understood the media attention. Heck, he'll be back in about a year. Sabretooth was beheaded, no one doubts he'll get over it, after all, The Guardian was burned to a pile of smothering bones, but he got better.

Hell, even Aunt May came back from the dead. When a frail, sickly 90-year-old woman doesn't stay dead, why do they even bother with a character like Mr. Immortal? EVERYONE in the Marvel Universe will come back from the dead. Right now, someone is thinking of a story line to bring back Captain Stacy, Jean Dewolff, and Gwen Stacy back from the dead. Hell, why not bring back Uncle Ben and the radioactive spider while we're at it?

The need to undo what is considered a classic story seems to be at the core of every comic book writer's driving desire. For years, Jim Starlin's The Death Of Captain Marvel was considered to be one of the greatest comics written. A hero of cosmic proportions is felled not in the heat of battle but by a consuming cancer. An emotional tale when the majority of comics were still bombastic, The Death Of Captain Marvel lifted the medium to a higher level.

Of course, Marvel brought him back.

In a tie-in to their Civil War event, Marvel pulls Captain Marvel out of the past, before he dies, and sets him into the middle of a mediocre one-shot issue. I guess they just didn't have enough characters who weren't dead to fill up their pages.

This leads me to my final point. As anyone who has been reading comics for any amount of time can tell you, the big publishers have hundreds of characters that were introduced and left behind over the years. Perhaps the challenge should be not how to bring back a character with a dramatic and dignified end, but how can we take this obscure character and make him/her someone worth reading?

Or as Roger Ebert put it, "Why does Hollywood always remake good movies and never make them as good as the original. Why don't they try remaking bad movies and making them better?"

Until that happens in Hollywood and the comics, however, I'll just wait for them to kill Batman and bring back Captain America. Bastards.