Timetable for a Resurrection

I was thinking about character death recently. I suppose it was prompted by the return of Uncle Ben, and someone at the store sarcastically commenting, "Nobody stays dead". This, of course lead to us pointing out a few characters who have died and remained that way. I'm not sure what to draw from this, but Spider-Man seems to have quite a few. That, in my grumpy frame of mind over Alternate Universe Uncle Ben shooting people (even if one of them was that tool, Spider-Man of 2211), lead to me contemplating how these characters will make their seemingly inevitable returns to the printed page. So here's what I've got:

There's Captain George Stacy, Gwen's dad, killed by falling bricks during a Spidey/Doc Ock fight, in the one Amazing Spider-Man comic my father still has (so naturally, no covers). Spider-Man somehow used webbing to block Ock's commands to his arms, causing them to go crazy. Not only do I not understand how that works, I'm not really sure it's that great of a plan. Now we have four impossibly long metal tentacles just flailing about wildly! Um, hooray?

Anyway, there's a rumor* that Captain Stacy was going to return, but saw what JMS did to his daughter Gwen and had Death divert a heart attack that was meant for Aunt May to him, and he went right back into the ground before we ever saw him. So they'll just use his brother Arthur Stacy instead.

*I am completely bullshitting about there being a rumor about this, I just made it up.

I noted that Harry Osborn was still dead, but that's probably because the writers consider him superfluous as long as they have Big Daddy Osborn. To be honest, I'm quite alright with that. The more I look at it, the more impressed I am with Spectacular Spider-Man from about #178 (beginning of "The Child Within")-#200 (Harry's death). It does such a nice job of depicting Harry's slow descent, with him struggling not to get buried under the weight of all the lousy stuff he's been through. It's sad, but it's powerful. I'm less pleased with the revelation he was behind the "Peter's fake parents" plot, but that's another story.

Still, I'm going to offer a prediction. Harry Osborn will return from the dead in a Spider-Man comic in November of 2016 (23.5 years after his death, just like Norman), revealing himself to be behind all of the mystic crap that's plagued Spidey recently {Edit: Looks like I was off by 8 years. Harry's back as of the start of 2008, in an even stupider way than I came up with.}. See, whereas Norman went to Europe and hung with the Brotherhood of Scriers, Harry went and learned from some of Dr. Strange's old enemies, becoming a powerful mystic. And just as an advance warning, keep your eyes out for Norman's 2nd death in April of 2013 (35 months prior to Harry's return, just as Harry died 35 months prior to Norman's reemergence), killed alongside his offspring in some battle royale involving them and a hairy, six-eyed, five-armed, stinger-wielding Spidey (he hasn't completely become a Spider-Monster yet, just close to it). Spider-Man will ensure victory by biting all their heads off. And I'm depressed now.

I think the last person I brought up was Jean DeWolff, who died again recently at the hands of Ultimate Punisher, for the crime of being a dirty cop, which lead to a page of the Ultimate Kingpin being sad (which was oddly touching, what with him being evil and all).

In my typical cynicism, I think Bendis was just doing that to set the stage for the return of Marvel Universe Jean DeWolff. I'm sure that very soon we're going to find out that Jean faked her death to join SHIELD for the purposes of getting revenge on. . . someone, for the death of. . . someone. "Detective Stan Carter", aka The Sin-Eater, was in fact a SHIELD-employed shape shifter, with no actual skeleton or internal organs, and the ability to alter his density. In this way he was able to absorb a beating from an enraged guy who can lift a bus (who by all rights should have shattered Sin-Eater's face with the first punch, enhanced strength through SHIELD use of PCP or not), and even retaliate with punches that could stun Spider-Man.

As for the judge and the priest that Sin-Eater killed? Well, I'm sure it'll be explained those were actually MODOK's evil AIM technicians, hiding out until the could put forth a plan involving Communion wafers and jury duty to make an army of mindless drones.

So, what character out there that's currently dead, do you have a brilliant (or depressing) resurrection story for? If you're worried the honchos at DC or Marvel might actually read this, and use your idea, and you don't want the character resurrected, then just leave their name. Maybe someone can come up with a super-cool idea to resurrect Nightwing!

What do you mean he's not dead? What do you mean he's just horribly written?