Best death scene in a comic book

When's the wedding, guys?!

GBF wrote:When's the wedding, guys?!

What wedding?

Yours and Tony's...you seem to be getting on rather well!!

Of course we get on well - we've been arguing with grumbling at talking to each other for years.

Lucy McGough wrote:Of course we get on well - we've been arguing with grumbling at talking to each other for years.

I think Glenn is somewhat surprised that anyone actually gets along with me...

Whereas you are, in fact, almost bearable in small doses.

...ahem - as I said...when's the wedding??!!

Isn't Tony, like, already married or something? 'Cos bigamy is totally illegal in this country

You two should do stand up comedy

...I thought one had to be funny to do stand up??

...and lots of things are illegal in this country - doesn't stop people doing them!!

GBF wrote:...and lots of things are illegal in this country - doesn't stop people doing them!!

That's 'cos the government has made so many things illegal that people have lost respect for the law.

Maybe if people were more responsible things wouldn't banned because people didn't do them...it can't ALL be the governments fault. People need laws and restrictions other wise you have anarchy...

GBF wrote:Maybe if people were more responsible things wouldn't banned because people didn't do them...it can't ALL be the governments fault.

I agree.

Hunji The Hindoo in Hunji The Hindoo, from Chums in 1898. He is seeking (amongst other things) The Staff of Vashti, stolen from the temple of whatever weird religion he follows (which is nothing like Hinduism). Early in the story he finds it in the house of a scientist who had been studying it, but just as he picks it up a the scientist's excitable dog rushes in and "fetches" it, hiding it in the garden.
At the end of the story the now deranged Hunji, hunted by the police after all his plans have failed, stands on the edge of a cliff with the staff, raving that it will strike blind anybody who approaches, when the excitable dog puts in a final appearance and knocks Hunji off the edge. Reminds me a bit of the end of Judge Cal.

Which is another cracker. "I only have to command it, and our fall shall stop - STOP!" *splat*

The pity of it is that Judge Cal took poor Fergie with him...

Hourglass wrote:Do you have a particular death scene that moves you or like (I'm not morbid honest ).

Superboy, Legion of Superheroes #38. I still think there was no reason for it, but then, death never has a reason. It's just evil.

Death isn't evil. Death just is. Have you never read Terry Pratchett?
OK, I know he's a fantasy writer, but I reckon he's spot-on when it comes to his assessment of Death.

tony ingram wrote:Death isn't evil. Death just is. Have you never read Terry Pratchett?

Nope. I haven't. And, I think death is the ultimate evil. I know it's inevitable, but it's still evil.

Ah, now that I have to disagree with. Death is a part of life. Everything that is born, dies. If it didn't, we would be in serious trouble. Everything we eat was at one point alive, unless you only apply the concept of 'life' to animal life-and even then, most of us still eat meat. Or do you just mean human life? If so, without death, we'd be facing a serious overpopulation problem pretty soon, unless nobody new was ever born. And what about the fact that we age? Would you want to be old and decrepit forever? What about cases of serious illness or injury, where death is a merciful release? Death cannot be evil. Death is neither good nor evil, it's simply inevitable and necessary.

What he said.

tony ingram wrote:Death cannot be evil. Death is neither good nor evil, it's simply inevitable and necessary.

I still completely disagree. I can't think of anything more evil. Inevitable I get, but it's evil.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Death cannot be evil. Death is neither good nor evil, it's simply inevitable and necessary.

I still completely disagree. I can't think of anything more evil. Inevitable I get, but it's evil.

I'd be genuinely interested to know why you feel that way. How can a natural process be described as "evil"? Doesn't evil imply a deliberate act with a guiding intelligence behind it?

tony ingram wrote:I'd be genuinely interested to know why you feel that way. How can a natural process be described as "evil"? Doesn't evil imply a deliberate act with a guiding intelligence behind it?

This is the kind of discussion I told myself I'd avoid here. I'll answer, but then let it drop. Yes, calling it evil does ascribe an intelligence, and I don't mean it that way. I'm describing the results, though. It causes misery, suffering, anguish, and all sorts of emotional pain, along with destruction of life, loss of experience, intelligence and wisdom. I KNOW it's part of the structure of things, I just don't see it as anything but bad.

Okay, fair enough. Tony, I reckon we should stop talking about it now.

Agreed.

Lucy McGough wrote:Okay, fair enough. Tony, I reckon we should stop talking about it now.

Just to be clear about it, I wasn't trying to be snotty here. I just know from experience on the DC boards that discussions like that can get "intense" and I don't always comport myself the best. I don't see me getting rude here, I genuinely like all the people on here I've spoken to, but I would just rather avoid that.
Mike

It's okay, we know what you meant

Mbast1 wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:Okay, fair enough. Tony, I reckon we should stop talking about it now.

Just to be clear about it, I wasn't trying to be snotty here. I just know from experience on the DC boards that discussions like that can get "intense" and I don't always comport myself the best. I don't see me getting rude here, I genuinely like all the people on here I've spoken to, but I would just rather avoid that.
Mike

Entirely understundable Mike, though to be honest, i can't remember the last time an argument got heated on here. Some people on the DC boards were quite frighteningly volatile at times.

Putting this back on topic (as it were), and to come somewhat belatedly to Jim Starlin's defence as the death of Adam Warlock has been mentioned as 'most confusing death', I'd like to nominate The Death Of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin.

Another one who's never come back (so far as I know. Not read a Marvel comic in years).

BluesShark wrote: The Death Of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin.

Another one who's never come back (so far as I know. Not read a Marvel comic in years).

I think he was back, briefly. A "taken out of time before his death" storyline, IIRC.

Ughhhh. I find that ncredibly depressing. Another reason not to buy Marvel comics.

Mbast1 wrote:

BluesShark wrote: The Death Of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin.

Another one who's never come back (so far as I know. Not read a Marvel comic in years).

I think he was back, briefly. A "taken out of time before his death" storyline, IIRC.

Actually, no; the Avengers (and the readers) believed that to be the case, but that Mar-Vell turned out to be a Skrull sleeper agent.

tony ingram wrote:Actually, no; the Avengers (and the readers) believed that to be the case, but that Mar-Vell turned out to be a Skrull sleeper agent.

Ah, ok, that makes sense. Sort of.

About as much sense as the fact that the Mockingbird who died in Avengers West Coast all those years ago was also a Skrull, and the real Mock was being held prisoner in space until Secret Invasion...

tony ingram wrote:About as much sense as the fact that the Mockingbird who died in Avengers West Coast all those years ago was also a Skrull, and the real Mock was being held prisoner in space until Secret Invasion...

I wonder if Marvel just got wind of Blackest Night and tried to come up with their own way to explain all the resurrections. How about this one - They're comic books. Few people care why someone comes back.

Secret Invasion was a year or so before Blackest Night, so I don't think that's it.

Hmmmm.

We joke about this sort of thing, but I can't help feeling it's connected to the twin phenomenon of falling sales and ridicule of the medium by non-fans.

Characters have been returni ng from the dead for decades. The first major resurrection I can recall offhand was Jean Grey, and that was in 1986. it's not a new thing. Nor is the ridiculing of the medium by non fans, really; comics have been seen as childish, worthess and possibly corrupting by those who've never so much as glanced at them for as long as they've existed. I think if there's any one root cause for falling sales, it's probably the rise of other forms of entertainment and the decline in reading generally.

Mbast1 wrote:I wonder if Marvel just got wind of Blackest Night and tried to come up with their own way to explain all the resurrections. How about this one - They're comic books. Few people care why someone comes back.

Hear, hear!

tony ingram wrote:Characters have been returning from the dead for decades. The first major resurrection I can recall offhand was Jean Grey, and that was in 1986.

That's relatively recent in the history of comics. Before that editorial had more sense than to let you kill characters as a sales gimmick only to resurrect them later as another sales gimmick.

I said on the DCMB that Hush was utterly ruined for me by the 'great reveal' that the villain was (yawn) a resurrected Jason Todd. About as interesting as the great reveal that the great mystery character is, to quote Harlan, 'Old piss-face' from panel 7 of a three decade old issue of a comic that hasn't been in print for a decade and a half.

The minute death became a revolving door the believability of the universes Marvel and DC had established went straight out of the window. I had a friend in university who maintained that characters in comics were mostly meaningless, and the only thing that really mattered was the creator. The older I get the more I think he was probably right.

Mbast1 wrote:I wonder if Marvel just got wind of Blackest Night and tried to come up with their own way to explain all the resurrections. How about this one - They're comic books. Few people care why someone comes back.

Now there's a very interesting point and one that fits quite happily with my idea that continuity is a sham at best. Let creators write stories with the characters they do or don't want to use.

BluesShark wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Characters have been returning from the dead for decades. The first major resurrection I can recall offhand was Jean Grey, and that was in 1986.

That's relatively recent in the history of comics. Before that editorial had more sense than to let you kill characters as a sales gimmick only to resurrect them later as another sales gimmick.

That wasn't really what happened with Jean. Claremont fully intended her to be dead for good, and she was for some years. I believe he was ordered to resurrect her because Marvel wanted an X-Men spin-off book featuring the original team.

I said on the DCMB that Hush was utterly ruined for me by the 'great reveal' that the villain was (yawn) a resurrected Jason Todd. About as interesting as the great reveal that the great mystery character is, to quote Harlan, 'Old piss-face' from panel 7 of a three decade old issue of a comic that hasn't been in print for a decade and a half.

The minute death became a revolving door the believability of the universes Marvel and DC had established went straight out of the window. I had a friend in university who maintained that characters in comics were mostly meaningless, and the only thing that really mattered was the creator. The older I get the more I think he was probably right.

Mbast1 wrote:I wonder if Marvel just got wind of Blackest Night and tried to come up with their own way to explain all the resurrections. How about this one - They're comic books. Few people care why someone comes back.

Now there's a very interesting point and one that fits quite happily with my idea that continuity is a sham at best. Let creators write stories with the characters they do or don't want to use.

It's a valid point of view, but I'm afraid I'm too much of a continuity freak to accept it myself.

BluesShark wrote:The minute death became a revolving door the believability of the universes Marvel and DC had established went straight out of the window.

I don't see anything realistic about most superhero comics anyway.

BluesShark wrote:one that fits quite happily with my idea that continuity is a sham at best. Let creators write stories with the characters they do or don't want to use.

I agree. Use continuity when it helps a story (as Morrison's idea in Batman that they "all happened") but ignore it when it doesn't.

tony ingram wrote:but I'm afraid I'm too much of a continuity freak to accept it myself.

I'm a middle-grounder on this one. I think it can be used to a story's advantage, when it connects to the larger framework. But, I also think a total "all things must connect" continuity is too much and can ruin fun stories.

I'm afraid that for me, direct contradictions of established continuity ruin any story. I can't really enjoy a story that I know conflicts significantly with a previous one since I'm too busy worrying about the continuity gaffe. Sad, I know.

It's not sad. You just have a tidy mind

tony ingram wrote:I'm afraid that for me, direct contradictions of established continuity ruin any story. I can't really enjoy a story that I know conflicts significantly with a previous one since I'm too busy worrying about the continuity gaffe. Sad, I know.

I don't know about sad, it's just not something that I care about. I don't get it, but if that's how your mind works, that's how it works. They're stories, you either enjoy them or you don't.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Death isn't evil. Death just is. Have you never read Terry Pratchett?

Nope. I haven't.

Correct this at once.

Anyway, as regards the various topics:

The best death scene I ever read was probably that of Barry Allen's. I knew it was coming, he'd been dead since before I was born, but when I finally got around to the scene I still felt. . .let's just say. . ."emotional" about it. Same thing happened with the "death" of Superman, but Barry's was better. Nowadays a comic book death is tossed in as a thoughtless, emotionless form of spring cleaning. (Pantha's still alive?!?! Seriously? Well, we cant' have THAT, now, can we?)

I prefer my continuity to actually BE continuity. The stories don't all have to tie together, but I strongly dislike stories that contradict other stories without even offering an explanation. I even MORE strongly dislike the people who defend comic book writers for not knowing their stuff. Comics is my hobby and I can spot the mistakes. If comics is your JOB you have no excuse. None at all. I mean, small mistakes are one thing and can even be funny, but disregarding something just "because" is unacceptable and defeats the point of serial fiction.

Death cannot be evil because Death has not intent and no choice. It just happens. It sucks and it's sad, but it's no more evil than a natural disaster. "Evil" is a concept that can only apply to people who have the agency and ability to act and to choose. That's just how I see it, anyway.

That's how I see it, too.

And as regards writers not knowing their stuff, that's bad enough, but I really have to wonder what editors are paid for these days. Jim Shooter considered keeping the continuity straight to be a major part of an editor's job, but that seems to be no longer the case, so what do they do all day?

Sam_Vimes wrote:Correct this at once.

He's on my list of people to read, it's just a looong list.

Sam_Vimes wrote:I prefer my continuity to actually BE continuity. The stories don't all have to tie together, but I strongly dislike stories that contradict other stories without even offering an explanation. I even MORE strongly dislike the people who defend comic book writers for not knowing their stuff.

Then you're gonna hate me. Thing is, I just don't care. Comics have been contradicting themselves since really early on, and it doesn't bother me. I read the story, if I like it good, if not I move on. I like when things connect, but I don't really see why the writers should be held to making it all fit.
But, that's my own preference.