8 Comic Book Characters Who Should Have Stayed Dead

Barry Allen was the second man to take up the mantle of The Flash. During Crisis on Infinite Earths, Jay Garrick, the original Flash, would be folded into mainstream continuity just in time to see Barry die and the then-Kid Flash, Wally West, take up the main Scarlet Speedster mantle.

Like Allen with the Flash moniker, Hal Jordan was technically the second Green Lantern whose tales readers read. When Jordan died during the Emerald Twilight arc, his power ring would pass on to the then-unknown Kyle Rayner.

These two events would introduce the idea of "Legacy" heroes; heroes whose names and powers could be passed from one generation to the next, allowing the people under the masks to be more relevant to that age without altering existing characters, and also removing the certainty that they would survive beyond the next adventure.

Resurrecting Jordan and Allen negated these legacies, of course. It not only dilutes the individuality of the superhero identity but leaves their successors lost in the shuffle. No longer would Rayner and West star in their own monthly titles; instead, they would be supporting characters in someone else's. What was once a legacy is now a uniform.