I didn't know they were doing this until just now, and I'm not sure how to kill him in a way that won't feel a little bitter, I the only thing they really can do is the clichéd grand sacrifice.
I've never understood why you have to kill somebody in comics to permanently remove them from the picture, what happened to retirement? Yeah they can use the character again, but they would have done that anyway, they'd just find a way to bring the character back.
Three other ways you can permanently get rid of a character: Time Displacement, send them into the far future or past. Alternate Dimension, speaks for itself, just send them into one. Strand them on another planet with no way to go home and nobody knows they are there.
Now I don't think you can't kill characters, just this mentality that you HAVE to kill them if you don't want to use them any more.
Yes and no. If they actually want to give the character some dignity when going out then a sacrifice stopping a villain's plan is usually the way it happens. Unfortunately these days many authors have taken after "Oh, he's dead now" sudden shock deaths to try and make the comic seem edgy or exciting. It's sadly extremely common now, and many pointless deaths which did not do the characters any justice are trying to be forced down people's throats as permanent. The few who have actually been sent off in some grand way (Star-Lord and Nova) tend to be brought back so Marvel can milk more cash out of them when people say positive things about their last story.
Retirement is a bit of a difficult thing for a few reasons. The first is that this was actually tried before with Cyclops during the 70s, who was supposed to leave the team happily married and settle down. Marvel stepped in and shot the whole thing down, leading to a story which marred the character in the eyes of many, so people tend to avoid it. The other is that you'd need them to accept this knowing that there is some world ending crisis which is being faced every other week thanks to their ongoing trend of endless event comics. It would make it look as if they were turning their back on saving lives or willingly putting the world at risk for personal happiness. That said, Nick Fury is supposedly going to retire so Marvel can force a Samuel L Jackson clone on readers. The latest in a long series of efforts to try to make themselves superficially more like the film universe, rather than actually emulating what works there.
Yeah, unfortunately even that doesn't work thanks to lazy writing and Marvel not caring. The two I mentioned before, Star-Lord and Nova? Both died in a collapsing alternate dimension trying to take Thanos down with them after the death of Drax. Star-Lord and Drax promptly show up again with absolutely no explanation so Marvel can try and make money off of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. Time displacement or sending them elsewhere is not much better, the latter we actually had with the Hulk a few years back. He stayed there for all of five minutes.
The problem is that killing is just as temporary, it's the marvel universe, where some characters seem to just do a pinky swear the grim reaper and tell her they won't leave.
Yes I get that there are special cases where you can't touch a character any more, abut I can't see why this can't apply to this too.
I just think that if you want to get rid of a character permanently there's no reason you can't end their career on a happy note.
This just feels darker than 40K: You became a superhero, so you have to die, it's the only way out. Your villains? Oh they'll keep coming back, and they'll keep doing their evil schemes, sometimes they'll bring you back as an unwilling servant, and even if you get free you have to die again, and again, and again, until the world has forgotten about everything you've ever done for it and nobody wants or even remembers to bring you back any more.
Kind of depressing really. One of the reasons I like buying trades is because I don't need to see everything that happens to the characters until they die, I assume they go off to do what they do best, and I like to think the trades aren't really related aside from direct connections they usually tell you about in the trade.
I didn't know they were doing this until just now, and I'm not sure how to kill him in a way that won't feel a little bitter, I the only thing they really can do is the clichéd grand sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteI've never understood why you have to kill somebody in comics to permanently remove them from the picture, what happened to retirement? Yeah they can use the character again, but they would have done that anyway, they'd just find a way to bring the character back.
Three other ways you can permanently get rid of a character: Time Displacement, send them into the far future or past. Alternate Dimension, speaks for itself, just send them into one. Strand them on another planet with no way to go home and nobody knows they are there.
Now I don't think you can't kill characters, just this mentality that you HAVE to kill them if you don't want to use them any more.
Yes and no. If they actually want to give the character some dignity when going out then a sacrifice stopping a villain's plan is usually the way it happens. Unfortunately these days many authors have taken after "Oh, he's dead now" sudden shock deaths to try and make the comic seem edgy or exciting. It's sadly extremely common now, and many pointless deaths which did not do the characters any justice are trying to be forced down people's throats as permanent. The few who have actually been sent off in some grand way (Star-Lord and Nova) tend to be brought back so Marvel can milk more cash out of them when people say positive things about their last story.
DeleteRetirement is a bit of a difficult thing for a few reasons. The first is that this was actually tried before with Cyclops during the 70s, who was supposed to leave the team happily married and settle down. Marvel stepped in and shot the whole thing down, leading to a story which marred the character in the eyes of many, so people tend to avoid it. The other is that you'd need them to accept this knowing that there is some world ending crisis which is being faced every other week thanks to their ongoing trend of endless event comics. It would make it look as if they were turning their back on saving lives or willingly putting the world at risk for personal happiness. That said, Nick Fury is supposedly going to retire so Marvel can force a Samuel L Jackson clone on readers. The latest in a long series of efforts to try to make themselves superficially more like the film universe, rather than actually emulating what works there.
Yeah, unfortunately even that doesn't work thanks to lazy writing and Marvel not caring. The two I mentioned before, Star-Lord and Nova? Both died in a collapsing alternate dimension trying to take Thanos down with them after the death of Drax. Star-Lord and Drax promptly show up again with absolutely no explanation so Marvel can try and make money off of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. Time displacement or sending them elsewhere is not much better, the latter we actually had with the Hulk a few years back. He stayed there for all of five minutes.
The problem is that killing is just as temporary, it's the marvel universe, where some characters seem to just do a pinky swear the grim reaper and tell her they won't leave.
DeleteYes I get that there are special cases where you can't touch a character any more, abut I can't see why this can't apply to this too.
I just think that if you want to get rid of a character permanently there's no reason you can't end their career on a happy note.
This just feels darker than 40K: You became a superhero, so you have to die, it's the only way out. Your villains? Oh they'll keep coming back, and they'll keep doing their evil schemes, sometimes they'll bring you back as an unwilling servant, and even if you get free you have to die again, and again, and again, until the world has forgotten about everything you've ever done for it and nobody wants or even remembers to bring you back any more.
Kind of depressing really. One of the reasons I like buying trades is because I don't need to see everything that happens to the characters until they die, I assume they go off to do what they do best, and I like to think the trades aren't really related aside from direct connections they usually tell you about in the trade.