On Death and Dying

EDITORS NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for Fantastic Four 587 and BtVS 39.

Fantastic Four 415 was the first of that title in my collection.  I bought it back in 1996 shortly before the whole team died.  But as often happens in comic books, the team was resurrected.  I have been buying Fantastic Four ever since and have extended my collection back to issue 130 with several others older than that.  Needless to say, I am a big fan.  So I was disappointed when I heard that Jonathan Hickman was planning to kill one of the Four.  When Marvel made the announcement, I predicted that it was Johnny's turn to die.  So I was not surprised when at the end of issue 587 the Torch was trapped in the Negative Zone by himself facing an Annihilation Wave.  You do not actually see the dead body, so it will be easy from him to be brought back from supposed death some time in the future.  The last of the Four to die was Ben (Fantastic Four 510).  The other three traveled to Heaven to bring him back to Earth.  God (who looked more like Jack Kirby than Alanis Morissette)offered to let the whole team stay, but they chose to return to Earth.  It was a stupid story, but I am glad that he is alive again.

There have been some great death scenes in comic books, though I usually prefer the following issue when the survivors are grieving the loss of their friend.  The silent issue following Odin's death (Thor 546), Katya taking Piotr's ashes back to Russia (X-Men 110), the team coping as best they can after Jamie died (X-Factor 101), and Jubilee breaking down after Illyana's death (Uncanny 303) are just a few.  Hopefully the next issue of F4 will be a memorable one.

I was having some trouble writing this blog last night.  Some times when I have too many thoughts on a subject they get clogged up in the funnel of my mind fighting to be the first one out.  So I sit there deleting sentence after sentence until I can finally put an entire thought together.  I eventually gave this eulogy up as a bad job and decided to read some comics instead of writing about them.  I had enough time before work to read the last two issues of Buffy Season 8.  There I witnessed the death of my friend Rupert Giles.

The contrast between these deaths says lots about the publishers/storytellers.  Marvel has been advertising for months that a character would die.  Human Torch's death took up a two page splash.  Whedon/Dark Horse killed Giles with no warning like he did with Tara, Wash, and Joyce.  Marvel left the door wide open for Johnny's return.  Giles is no longer here to take that call.