10 Superhero Resurrections That Actually Worked

8. Steve Rogers/Captain America

While that return did go slightly awry in Secret Empire (catastrophically, is perhaps the better term), Ed Brubaker's decision to resurrect the character he'd killed off in the aftermath of Civil War made for one of the most engaging storylines of the last decade, even if it did echo some of the beats made by Grant Morrison's stint on Batman during the same period.

Cap's death off the back of his arrest in Civil War was the most prominent the medium had ever seen, with multiple news outlets having fixed their attention to the storyline and in particular the symbolic value of seeing an American icon perish on the page. Cap's longtime ally and BFF Bucky Barnes later succeeded Steve as the star-spangled man with a plan, pushing the series in a fresh and exciting direction that was as much about Bucky himself as it was a dissection of the nature of the Captain too. It was later revealed that Steve's conscious was lost in time, but still, his presence was duly missed on the page as well as off it.

Despite this, Bucky's stint as Cap ranks among the highest points of Brubaker's long period spent writing the character, and, while Steve's return did initially feel bittersweet - as it seemingly ended Buck's time as the Captain - it made sense in the long run, as it allowed Brubaker to further analyse the wartime friendship that had come to define his run on the character.

Steve's post-rebirth stint as the hero has, as we all know, suffered greatly, but here's hoping that Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's imminent arrival does Cap right.