(I tried to explain to Christopher Reeve why it was a bad idea to have Superman get rid of all the nuclear weapons on Earth. We don't really want to walk out of the theater and be instantly reminded that the movie we've just watched is absolutely not true.)

***

I don't know if it's the same, but it's why I am wary about superheroes getting involved in real-life conflicts. By all means have them slapping around a few fictional banana republic dictators, but I'd find it slightly uncomfortable if Superman or Spider-Man were active now in Libya or Afghanistan, given real-life horrors taking place.

I was on an 80s TV forum when Gulf War II started and one topic was deleted. People were asking what KITT (from KNIGHT RIDER) and Airwolf would do against Hussein's forces. They were posting detailed entries of how KITT would handle this and Airwolf would handle that. Meanwhile, real people were dying in that conflict...

And then the real Elektra, and other missing heroes, were released en masse from some Skrull ship where they were been held captive.  At the very least, why WOULDN'T the Skrulls kill the dangerous beings they were replacing?  My "Brilliant!" turned into "Dumb."

Cue today when we only wish the Joker was our worst offender. 

Back when I was a kid, the Doom Patrol was dead. They weren't coming back. I was very disappointed when DC chucked dramatic credibility out the window to bring them back; All except for Elasti-Girl, of course, who no one felt was necessary, because, well, she's a girl, right? It was more likely a sop to the readers that no, the death of the DP story DID matter because the bad guys at least got ONE of them, but still... Very annoying. Does death matter or doesn't it?

Clearly, the industry has decided that it does not. As a sales ploy, sure! As an actual event in a story? No. Not even remotely would they consider character's death as anything but a fleeting inconvenience...

Bruce Banner is dead, dead, dead as a gamma-irradiated doornail. Forever. Or until someone decides it would be f*ckin' brilliant to dose the corpse with some Super-Soldier Serum and give him his own book under the title, "The Star-Spangled Banner!" Thunderbolt Ross will be revealed to be worthy to carry the hammer of Thor in his new book, "Thunderbolt!" Glen Talbot will wear Golden Armor and battle beside them as "Iron Mandroid!" Betty Ross will lose her super-strength but remain bright red in her new book, "Apple Betty!" They can all fight a Hulked-up Bucky in a massive Marvel crossover called... (wait for it)... WinterGreen!!

(Okay, I admit it... I would happily trade away whatever dramatic credibility they might gain from keeping Bruce dead to see this happen... :-)

I didn't mind when they brought back Cliff, because it kinda made sense (well, to a teen-age reader with an active imagination). I liked how Marv and George dealt with the Doom Patrol 'murder' in New Teen Titans; even though I wasn't really familiar with the characters or history, it was an entertaining tale springing from their 'deaths'.

Hey, Marvel is 'killing' the X-men (shrug). Oh well, back to my longboxes for some good comics lol.

It reminds me of a great blurb on an old issue of Mike Allred's 'The Atomics':

This issue, someone dies!  But who!?  And for how long!?

***

This is it. When death merely becomes an 'occupational hazard', no different to a carpenter cutting his thumb in the real world, it's time for change. ;)

The death of Jean Grey was a BIG THING.

A founder member of the X-Men.

A well-loved character.

It was a HUGE thing to kill her.

Now, we can argue about how much damage it did to comics to kill her,  but the actual build up to the event and the execution (for want of a better word) were brilliantly done -- and there was no diminishing effect. On the contrary, the story was a powerful and enhancing thing.

The resurrection was well done, for that matter. But with the power of hindsight, the resurrection was more damaging than the death itself. And really did have a diminishing effect.

Every subsequent death was viewed through the lens that said it might later be undone.

Also, looking back: how short a time Jean was dead for! It seemed like a permanent thing at the time, but barely more than a decade. Seems like the blink of an eye now.