10 Comic Characters Who Actually Stayed Dead

In comics, being dead requires a lot of effort.

death of captain marvel
Marvel

It's a well documented fact that death in the comic book world is pretty much a revolving door, with characters kicking the bucket all the time, only to pop up a few months or years later.

Half the time it will turn out Superman was really just in a coma or that it was a Doombot that died all along, but even when characters do actually die, they constantly find some magical method of resurrection. And that's not even including all the alternate universe doppelgangers who conveniently show up to take the place of their fallen counterpart.

However, once in a blue moon, dead will actually mean dead. A character will shuffle off this mortal coil and that will be that. These characters are dead and there's no magic spell, or scientific device, or even universe changing retcon that can bring them back. Some were heroes, some were villains, but all that really matters is that they've stayed dead.

Once they died, all the characters on this list were never seen again... or at least never seen again alive.

10. Aztek

death of captain marvel
DC Comics

Surprisingly for a character created by comic superstars Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, Aztek's story is a pretty short one.

The boy known only as Uno was raised by the mysterious Q Society to be the champion of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and battle his rival god Tezcatlipoca (thankfully it was a fight, not a spelling competition). Donning a magic suit that gave him near limitless powers, he became Aztek 'The Ultimate Man' and moved to America, taking up the identity of the recently deceased Dr. Curt Falconer.

The Ultimate Man didn't really live up to his moniker though. He briefly joined the Justice League, but quit when he discovered one of the Q Society's benefactors was Lex Luthor. Then he discovered Tezcatlipoca was actually a world destroying machine call Mageddon and died fighting it. He wasn't even the one who stopped it; he died to give Superman a chance to beat his archenemy.

Ironically, the first issue of Aztek's series advertised him as "A hero for the new millennium... if he lives that long." And he did... just. Aztek died in May 2000 and hasn't been mentioned since

Contributor

I was just a mild-mannered NCTJ accredited journalist until one day I found out the truth... that I could share my nerdy ramblings with people on the internet! It's just like mumbling to myself on the train, but without all the strange looks.