15 Comic Book Characters Who Should've Stayed Dead

If you've been reading comic books for longer than, say, five minutes, then you're familiar with the concept of heroes dying and coming back to life.

The list of people who have bitten the big one and then revealed that it was, in fact, a smaller one than previously believed, is so long that it would actually be faster to list the people who have died and not come back.

Uncle Ben. Gwen Stacy. Jonathan Kent. Thomas and Martha Wayne. Mar-Vell (aka Captain Marvel). Abin Sur. Thunderbird. Thunderstrike.

Notice that there are very few heroes or villains on that list. It's mostly civilians, often ones from superhero origin stories.

It's become such a trope that even people in those fictional universes have noticed. The Daily Bugle's obituary writer, Dilbert Trilby, has complained on more than one occasion about all the retractions he's written over the years!

Although some deaths are heartrending moments that lead to big emotional arcs for the characters, that's increasingly rare. Instead, we expect deaths as part of the yearly big crossover stories, and we expect them to be reversed or retconned within a year. They simply don't hold the same punch that they used to.

Sometimes, it would've been better if they'd just stayed dead. Fifteen times, to be specific.

It's true that Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday in the famous "Death of Superman" storyline is one of those death-and-resurrection storylines that virtually everyone knew would happen, so that's not the subject matter here.

No, we're referring to Superman's miraculous recovery from the deadly Kryptonian ailment known as Virus X.

A living virus that, much like Superman, grew more powerful under Earth's living conditions, Virus X is fatal to all Kryptonians within 30 days (and in some storylines, highly contagious and fatal to Earth creatures as well). When Superman contracted the virus in a 1968 storyline, he was launched into space on a funeral spaceship after the appropriate pomp and circumstance.

It really hampers a heroic storyline when the hero survives due to dumb luck instead of their own cleverness and guile, and this storyline is no exception. Superman survived the always-fatal Virus X after accidentally being exposed to incredibly rare White Kryptonite (that was thrown at his funeral ship by several Bizarro supermen as the ship passed).

With goofy storylines and resolutions like this, Superman deserved to stay dead.