10 Superhero Resurrections That Actually Worked

3. Bruce Wayne/Batman

Batman Inc David Finch
DC Comics

While it was a move that literally everyone saw coming, given the ending of Final Crisis, it was the journey behind Bruce Wayne's resurrection that made this storyline so worth it - not the revelation that preceded it.

For those unfamiliar with the events of Final Crisis, Bruce Wayne was one of those heroes unfortunate enough to seemingly perish at the hands of Darkseid's forces. The character didn't half leave a mark before he departed though, having fired the god-killing bullet that weakened Darkseid enough for Barry Allen and the three Flashes (great band name, by the way) to leave him at death's door. Bats couldn't outrun Darkseid's omega beams, sadly, which resulted in the character being project thousands of years into the past, subsequently jumping through time all the way up until his eventual return in 2011.

What makes this revival so special is how delicately Morrison wove his Bat-run. Bruce's absence paved the way for a whole new wave of Bat-titles, and a new duo in Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne. This period - dubbed Batman Reborn - galvanised and altogether reinvented the Bat-mythos, concluding with the equally ambitious Batman Incorporated, which really played into the symbolism behind the character and Batman's place in modern mythology.

Plus, Bruce's return came complete with a brilliant reinvention of the Bat-suit, which, until Rebirth's came along, had to be the coolest looking one we'd seen yet.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.