Oct
03
2008
Some characters are created to die. Their creators never intend them to live on past a certain point in the story: once they serve their dramatic purpose, they exit the stage, generally never to return. In the first two posts in this series, I dealt with characters dying to provide motivation to the hero, but there are of course other reasons for characters to die soon after being introduced, other roles for those who are about to die to play.
The rest of this post contains spoilers for the Phalanx Covenant: Generation Next storyline running through Uncanny X-Men #316 and 317, and X-Men #36 and 37.
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Sep
27
2008
The deaths of Spider-man’s Uncle Ben and Batman’s parents are crucial to the characters’ origins. In Spider-man’s case, losing Uncle Ben because of his own mistake teaches him the lesson of responsibility that will shape the rest of his heroic career: he already had the power and the costume, but did not have direction. In Batman’s case, losing his parents is a tragedy that convinces him that his city needs a protector; the costume and training come later than the direction. These are two classic super-hero origins that involve death as a motivation, and it was only to be expected that other writers would reuse the classic concept.
However, it is difficult to match the emotional impact of the Spider-man origin and the inherent tragedy of Bruce Wayne losing both parents so young, especially when writers ignore the essence of these plot ideas. The deaths illustrate something the hero doesn’t know. Furthermore, when mishandled, deaths during character origins can weaken the whole story, making it seem like a cheap shock for shock’s sake.
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Sep
24
2008
After 20 excellent issues, series creator Peter B. Gillis left Strikeforce: Morituri, to be replaced by James D. Hudnall, who would see the story of the Morituri to its conclusion. Brent Anderson also departed, and after a couple of fill-in artists (Huw Thomas and John Calimee), Mark Bagley, now best known for his long run on Ultimate Spider-Man, took over as the regular artist. With the new creative team came a change in the status quo and the style, and by its cancellation in mid-1989, it had become a very different book.
The rest of this review contains some spoilers.
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Sep
19
2008
Avenging the loss of a loved one to crime is a common initial motivation for heroes in comic books. Batman was motivated by the death of his parents, who were gunned down in front of him by a mugger. The hero vowed to clean up the streets of Gotham so no other child ever had to lose his parents to crime in this way. Spider-man was motivated by the death of his Uncle Ben, who had raised him. Ben was killed by a robber who Spider-man had let escape earlier that evening. When he realized what had happened because of his inaction, he vowed to never shirk his responsibilities again. Continue Reading »
Sep
18
2008
I don’t like meaningless deaths in mainstream super-hero comic books. When characters die as cannon fodder or for shock value, or because the writer never liked them, it pulls me out of the story, weakening rather than strengthening the impact. I’m not suggesting that super-hero books should avoid death: there have been some superb stories over the years that involve heroes valliantly sacrificing themselves or villains receiving bitter punishment for their monstrous crimes, and there have been moments of great pathos in the deaths of supporting characters. I believe the death of a character should be integral to the storyline, an emotional moment that gives the reader pause, not a cheap shot to show that the writer is serious.
It particularly irritates me when the character is a minor one that was had received a lot of development at the hands of one writer, only to be unceremoniously bumped off by another. If the writer really felt the need to kill off a character, why not create their own one-off character to die? Why take someone else’s work and end it?
I realize of course that there is always the chance of resurrection if the character is popular enough, but that’s beside the point: the moment of death should still be something significant for the story to ring true. Perhaps one of the reasons why so many otherwise good writers resort to cheap deaths is because death in comics has been cheapened by the frequent resurrections.
I’ve been feeling like character death has become more frequent over the past few years, so I thought I’d take the time to go back and see if that’s true or not. Were shock killings and cheap death scenes always part of comic books, or is it a more recent phenomenon? Are the current writers and editors really more bloodthirsty, and the current readers more blasé about characters being unceremoniously killed off? Am I over-reacting? Over the next few Thursdays, I aim to find out. Also, I’ll be looking at characters that were created to die in the next few Friday posts. I’d like to hear from you about your opinions on character death, resurrection and shock tactics too.
Sep
17
2008
It must be seeing all the Secret Invasion books on the shelves that has me going through my back issue collection reading all the super-heroes-fight-alien-invaders comics, like DC’s Invasion! and Marvel’s Kree-Shiar War. Happily, that gave me an excuse to re-read Peter B. Gillis and Brent Anderson’s Strikeforce: Morituri, an excellent super-hero comic and a good science-fiction story.
Strikeforce: Morituri is more than just a super-hero book, more than just an alien invasion book. It is an analysis of what it means to be a hero and a patriot, and a story about what drives people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. A number of things make it a book worth hunting down: Brent Anderson and Scott Williams’ excellent and expressive artwork, the rich cast of characters, the originality of the concept, and the intelligence of the writing. Continue Reading »
