Saturday, May 04, 2013

What's Marvel's Most Heroic Death?

Here's a question I've been working on for the last few weeks: Does Marvel have a heroic death on the level of Barry Allen's in Crisis on the Infinite Earths?

My first thought was that most of the notable deaths at Marvel were people the heroes failed to save. Uncle Ben, Bucky, Gwen Stacy. Which could relate to marvel being a bit more of a tragic universe than DC, in the same way that DC's future (via the Legion) usually looks pretty good, whereas Marvel's are usually a disaster, whether it's Sentinels, the Badoon (original Guardians of the Galaxy), Martians (Killraven), Apocalypse, whatever.

Then I considered Jean grey's death at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Heroically sacrificing herself to protect her friends and loved ones. Two problems: One, she was trying to protect them from herself. Two, it turned out it wasn't Jean at all. Now I'm not sure the second one should count, since that was a retcon, and not part of the original story. After all, if I'm going to penalize Jean's death for that, I'd have to penalize Barry for coming back in Flash Rebirth or whenever it was he returned*, then penalize him some more for screwing everything up at the end of Flashpoint. Still, the retcon doesn't change the fact that Jean/Phoenix' death was to stop her from destroying everything, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it as saving 5 universes from some other madman.

Looking over some others, Thor died breaking the Ragnarok cycle somewhere around Disassembled, but that seemed notable more for people waiting for him to come back. Reed Richards appeared to die in DeFalco's FF run, but I think most people would rather ignore that. The same could probably be said for the FF and Avengers giving their lives fighting Onslaught, if that's even what happened. I'm not sure, I didn't read Onslaught. Spidey's died a couple of times I know of, once in the '90s Clone Saga, again in The Other, but each death lasted about 5 minutes, and once again, are part of stories most people would rather forget. Captain America died in handcuffs at the end of an incredibly stupid event, until it turned out to have been time bullets he was shot with. The less said about Hawkeye's stupid death in Disassembled, the better. Could probably say the same for Cyclops' death in, what was it, The Twelve?

The one I thought of that might hold was Colossus dying to spread the cure for the Legacy Virus across the globe. It doesn't really seem like it's on the same scale, but it's a deadly external threat (it had begun to mutate to infect non-mutants as well, so he was really saving everyone, potentially), he made the choice willingly, without real prompting, but there was a sense he was kind of eager. Life had worn him down, the death of his sister and all. I think Barry was in the same kind of state, since his murder trial had concluded recently, and even though he was acquitted, it kind of wrecked his life. Still, Jean's big finale is definitely the more cosmic, and more remembered sacrifice, and she was saving people for a potentially malevolent force, even if that force was her.

I suppose Marvel might be at a disadvantage, since they don't reboot their entire line regularly, and thus can't imperil multiple universes at once. Plus, we're all kind of jaded now. They kill someone off, we roll our eyes and wait for their resurrection. Though I feel like a lot of the writers don't know how to build things up so the death actually looks suitably impressive or heroic. It's like they're looking at some "Plot by Numbers" chart and it says "Character Death" so they throw one in.

Beyond that, I wonder if it isn't part of how the Marvel Universe works. There, it's less about the ultimate sacrifice, and more about all the little ones. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them. Ben Grimm has to keep becoming an orange rock monster, Spider-Man misses birthdays and rent payments. It isn't that the job kills you (though it might), it's that it costs you in all sorts of little ways.

That's what I've got, but I probably missed a really great death in there somewhere. If you know of one, chime in. Or if you've got an idea about why Marvel wouldn't have one, go for it.

* I don't think those sporadic time-traveling appearance he made during Wally's time as Flash are the same, since they were brief, and they were supposed to predate his big hero death.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first one that sprang to mind, and shows my age, is the death of Capt. George Stacy, father of Gwen. He died saving an innocent during a battle between Spider-Man and Dr Octopus.

For all I know he's been revived/exhumed many times since...possibly not a "great' death, but hopefully he's been allowed the dignity to rest in peace ever since.


cheers
B Smith

CalvinPitt said...

B Smith: I hadn't considered Stacy myself, even though I have that issue. It definitely is selfless, and he has been left in peace.

I think I'd lumped him in with Ben and Gwen. it's perhaps not fair, but I feel like his death was treated as yet one more thing for Peter Parker to feel guilty about. Which shouldn't remove it from consideration, necessarily. I feel like it would help if Peter acknowledged that sacrifice as something which had a great impact on him, which maybe he did. I don't have any of the comics that followed.