Being Dead Just Ain't What It Used To Be!

Sometimes I have no problem at all coming up with ideas for my weekly column here at the CBJ website. But this week I have had all sorts of problems. I tried EVERYTHING!

I paced, brooded, ruminated, contemplated, pontificated, disseminated, and played 75 hours of Dead Space 2.

STILL nothing.

And then it hit me.

It was Happy Hour! Time for drinks and hot wings.

I ordered delivery from the local choke and puke, and poured my own special martinis (made in 20 oz Superhero Tumblers. This week I was drinking from my ROM glass, hence a Romtini , so I would not be driving under the influence of booze and hot sauce.

When I was fed and VERY well oiled I STILL had nothing. So I said to myself….”Self, I’m DYING here”

Instant inspiration (and several other alliterative exclamations!)

I’ll just write about dead guys (and girls). More specifically I am going to write about dead guys (and girls) in comics.

Not undead, mostly dead, comatose, zombified, ossified, or just plain drunk….

Not Walking Dead, crawling dead, Generation X Dead or “The Cape Dead”….just…
DEAD!

Now this might seem like an easy subject but it really isn’t. I mean just how many characters killed off in comics have had the good taste to STAY dead? You see my dilemma.

Superman died but got better.

Batman not so much dead as Time Tunneled.

Martian Manhunter is now formerly dead, as is Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Nick Fury, and Green Arrow, The original Torch (who is actually an android so not exactly ALIVE), Toro who is NOT an android but also torchy, and Norman Osborne (among MANY others).

Captain America AND Bucky came back (they got a two for one deal)!

Hell! Even DEADMAN isn’t dead anymore. I mean if you can’t count on Deadman to be…well… dead, who can you trust anymore?

And what do we call him now any way? “Alive Man”, “I Don’t Feel Well Man”, “The Artist Formerly Known as Deadman”?

Buffy died TWICE...

And don’t even get me STARTED on Spock!

Johnny Storm JUST died so the body isn’t even cold yet. (Would The Torch get cold?) Don’t bet on HIM staying dead. (He always WAS a pest!)

Gwen Stacy stayed dead but she always was a good girl.

The Manhunter, Paul Kirk, stayed dead. I suspect he COULD have come back but is just trying to prove a point. When he’s done pouting I am pretty sure HE’LL come back too….

And I know that some of you out there, CAT! , will take great glee (the emotion, not the show) in giving me a list of characters who stayed dead. All I will say to that is one word…BUCKY! Do you really want to bet on any of them staying dead?

Didn’t think so.

The villains are no help either because THEY have been coming back since the 40’s!

I mean how can I write about dead comic book characters when they just keep coming back??!!

About the only thing you can expect to “die” and STAY dead these days is the Mets!

My path was clear. I needed to find someone to blame!

Who started all this “back from the dead” stuff?

THREE WORDS…

Arthur
Conan
Doyle!

You got it. The venerable creator of one of the most beloved characters in literature, Sherlock Holmes. HE did it. And why? Why else?

MONEY! And I’m not even talking Madoff Money here (Fortunately Holmes was to smart for THAT scheme, and are you listening here Mr. Wilpon?)

Doyle first introduced the great Consulting detective back in 1887 in “A Study In Scarlet” but by 1891 the old boy was becoming tired of Holmes and wanted to become a fulltime spiritualist (you could look it up!).

So he decided on a climactic battle between Holmes and his arch nemesis Professor Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls in “The Adventure of the Final Problem”. Both Holmes and Moriarity would die so…

”No problem” for Doyle and he could go off chasing ghosts.

Well it seemed like a good idea to Arthur at the time but the readers of The Strand were ready to throw HIM over the falls for bumping off Sherlock. So a couple of years later he revived Holmes in “The Adventure Of The Empty House”. His explanation?

Holmes didn’t REALLY die that day. He just went on a two year walk about.

So there you have it.

The Man Of Steel was saved by “Superman’s Pal, Arthur Conan Doyle”

Now I think I have a couple of wings left in the fridge….

That’s 30!

Mitch