Who's the most famous superhero who has never died?

I was just thinking, by now almost all of the major superheroes have "died" at some point, right? (By death I mean that they really died and were later resurrected, or at least the readers were lead to believe they had died.) Off the top of my head, it's happened to Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Captain America Hulk, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Mr. Fantastic, Thor, etc. So who would be the best-known superhero who's never had a "Death of X" type of a story arc? Has Iron Man ever died?

He died two times in a year (in 1996 as part of the events The Crossing and Onslaught) which might even be some kind of record?

Jesus

Feel like I recently read something about Sue Storm never having died before? I guess maybe unless you count Onslaught? She's even one of the very few who survived the death of the universe post-Secret Wars Mk II.

If I could make one sweeping change to superhero universes it would be to institute permadeath. Because really, wtf does death even portend at this point beyond the inconvenience of waiting for the decedent's inevitable resurrection?

I guess really, at this point, you do have to consider Secret Wars in any consideration of long-lived Marvel characters, which limits the potential pool to like a dozen characters.

I don't think Secret Wars should be counted, because everyone knew it would all be reversed. Tho of course everyone knew the other deaths would be reversed as well, but it still feels different to have the hero of comic book to be killed in his/her own title than to kill almost everyone in a crossover.

And yeah, Sue Storm was my first thought too. Has the Thing ever died, outside crossovers like Onslaught or Secret Wars?

shaft

Why wouldn't Secret Wars count? It was established that 616 was completely destroyed and reconstituted from scratch aside from a handful of survivors. Technically speaking, everyone in the Marvel U at present has only been around for a couple of years aside from like half the FF, Miles Morales, Thanos, etc.

Did they ever manage to kill Swamp Thing? He's basically immortal afaict (not to mention billions of years old).

jean grey has never died iirc

Well, if Secret Wars counts, then the answer has to be some DC hero... Dick Grayson?

xpost And yet has been cruelly saddled with emphysema for the entirety of her unbroken tenure.

iirc Swamp Thing was killed on Earth and then re-grew on some other planet

with great power comes great shortness of breath xp

i think dick grayson might be the answer here actually, good call tuomas

has dc's captain marvel/shazam ever died?

Deadman

iirc Swamp Thing was killed on Earth and then re-grew on some other planet

But that was my point: Swamp Thing has never actually been killed because he's essentially incorporeal. His bodies are just temporary shells that he abandons (or is forced out of). He's been thought dead on several occasions but he's never actually been rendered inert iirc.

(I've read the Moore-thru-Millar run on ST like a half dozen times so just trust my expertise on this particular subject if none other whatsoever.)

Yeah, but like I mentioned in the original post, I think stories where the reader is lead to think the character has died count too... I mean, Cap or Batman or the Human Torch didn't actually die either, but the stories were presented as if they did, and Marvel and DC could advertise them as "the death of...". So, similarly, since the Swamp Thing issue ended with his "death", I think it counts.

I guess we may just be splitting hairs at this point, but in the other examples you cite, it was like a minimum of six months before the fate of the character was revealed, whereas I don't believe Swampy was even 'dead' for an entire issue.

(Notable, perhaps, that Cap, Bats, and Swamps have been 'killed' by having been hurled into the timestream.)

(This would be Swamp Thing's third 'death' I'm referring to, after the one that kicked off Moore's run and the one that sent him into space.)

nah Swampy "died" in issue 53 and didn't appear again until the very end of issue 55, which was his funeral issue.

Sorry: Swampy wasn't 'dead' for an entire two issues. My bad.

apology accepted

Didn't Batman "die" in Final Crisis #6, and was revealed to be alive at the end of FC #7?

Coaster Man

proud that we managed to bog this thread down in excruciating nitpickery in less than an hour, good work team

'bog down' pun unintended but happy to take credit for it anyway

I never could have foreseen such an outcome wrt the topic at hand, so I'm as shocked as anyone.

So since it's established that pretty much everyone in the Big Two has 'died' at this point the real question is who has actually DIED died, like who has been decisively and graphically ground into hamburger on panel in such a way that their resurrection was unlikely at best?

all resurrections are unlikely tbf

Chuck? xp

barry allen literally disintegrating into dust seemed pretty final but then... geoff johns

Anyway, I'm sure you understand that by "death" I mean stories where the hero dies, and isn't immediately revealed to be alive, either in the same issue, or (if the "death" is a cliffhanger) at the beginning of the next one... Meaning that some gullible reader might actually think he has died for sure. Often the next issue following the death features other characters mourning the fallen hero etc.

Batman's death is kind of a borderline case, because he was revealed to be alive in the following issue, but DC had already advertised the death long in advance, and weren't the gaps between FC issue longer than normal too?

The original Cap Marvel remains dead, right? That's most likely because of they way he died, as even Marvel would probably think reversing a cancer death would be in bad taste.

Previously unknown sons and alternate universe counterparts of him have appeared, of course.

Yeah, him and Unca Ben are pretty much it. Jim Wilson also (for reasons likely similar to those you posit).

Oh wait, Ben was kinda sorta briefly resurrected during the recent Clone Conspiracy iirc.

since we're on the topic, i'd like to just take a moment to underline dc's uniquely weird decision to make superman's death - a colossal media event which brought tens of thousands of new eyes to comics - the result of a savage physical beating over the course of numerous issues, which must have been a v odd experience for those new readers

i can only assume mel gibson was taking notes for the passion of the christ

Has Bill Foster been brought back to life? That was a pretty disgusting death imo.

Has Namor ever died?

He was briefly beheaded a couple years back.

same

lol I have no idea what the answer to this question is but this discussion is p hilarious

realizing that ALL SUPERHEROES MUST DIE is like an article of faith with the big two now

As mentioned upthread, I don't think anyone has lasted longer than Dick.

xpost I guess it's still a reliable selling point? Even though everyone surely knows it's totally bogus by now?

presumably the audience just likes watching its heroes suffer, over and over. isn't there a term for this?

I sort of assumed some of the lower-tier X-Men would have gotten through it all without dying, but it seems like they've all been killed off and brought back at some point. Apparently Nightcrawler died, went to Heaven, and then BAMFED himself back to life.

Most of the (then current) X-Men "died" in the late 80s because Claremont wanted to deconstruct the whole team for some reason... Only Wolverine and Longshot survived that story arc.

Trying to think of an X-character who (line-wide universal upheaval/rebootage aside) has managed to avoid even the brief presumption of their having died. Err...Beast? Wolfsbane, maybe? There aren't many. And even those two probably have 'deaths' I've forgotten about.

has dc's captain marvel/shazam ever died?

reading Gotham Central from the library rn, just hit an Infinite Crisis crossover issue where Cap bemoans over and over that Shazam is dead, but I dunno if he was just mistaken, in whatever comics that actually took place in

Oh yeah, the actual wizard Shazam died and Captain Marvel took his place on the cave throne iirc.

he get better yet?

Dunno, I abandoned DC prior to Flashpoint and never looked back. Maybe he's one of the Watchmen now.

Secret Wars aside, Peter Parker has never died, right?

(I'm talkin OG, 616-Peter)

Yes he did, and then Doctor Octopus transferred his mind into Peter Parkers body and became Superior Spider-Man.

Oh yeah

How 'bout Howard the Duck (just grasping at straws here)

got kidnapped out of the Marvel Universe and went into witness protection in 1996, so is safe from death now

also not a superhero

Luke Cage maybe?

Jesus

― I can't dérive fifty-feev (Noodle Vague)

sounds like somebody needs to read irenaeus

Peter also "died" during Kraven's Last Hunt.

IIRC DC meant to kill Nightwing in the Infinite Crisis, but they changed their mind and offed Superboy instead. So Dick Grayson really seems to be the answer to this question, unless someone can come up with a better example?

Dick Grayson gets killed by Luthor during Forever Evil.

Admittedly it's resolved in the same storyline as he needs to die to escape the Murder Machine and is nearly immediately resurrected (also by Luthor) but he is dead dead for a very short time. This death is also what allows him to go undercover in the Grayson book in a new identity.

Ugh, Forever Evil

Dick Grayson is also currently 'dead' in that following being shot through the head by the KGBeast in Batman, Dick hasn't no memory of his previous life and is living as a taxi driver called Ric (which is making the current Nightwang book less than rivetting as he mainly plays pool in a bar).

A long time since I've read it but surely the only acceptable Marvel answer is Fred Hembeck?

They brought back KGBeast? Wow.

Ok, so Dick isn't the right answer, I wonder who is? Maybe Sue Storm then?

Ray Palmer?

He's shrunk himself into isolation plenty of times but were any of them teased as death?

I would argue Sue Storm is more famous than Ray Palmer...?

Still curious about the Thing, though. If you don't count Secret Wars, has he ever died?

Fred Hembeck killed Sue Storm and The Thing.

In a (slightly) more serious answer, Sue's death in Secret Wars isn't an 'oh everyone dies so it doesn't count death's, it's a specific different thing. Does it even happen in Illuminati and not Secret Wars?

Talking of which, Reed killed the Thing in Latveria that time, which led to the whole FF eventually going to heaven to persuade Ben to come back to life. Jack Kirby was God in it.

This is a good question though.

Oh and there was also a future Invisible Woman that came back so two of them were in the timeline together and one of them died in a 'death of the invisible woman' storyline (unsurprisingly it was the future one).

Ah yeah, I've heard about the story of Ben's death, but I've never read it.

IIRC, Sue's "death" in SW was kinda ambiguous... I mean, she falls out of the life raft in SW #1, which would mean she died, but then at the end of the story the Sue Doom took as his wife somehow has the memories of 616 Sue, which could mean that this Sue wasn't an alternate universe version but the 616 version who Doom had saved. Though much of the finale of SW doesn't follow any kind of internal logic, so who know what happened there?

Btw after having Captain America go Nomad under Nixon, and killing him off under Bush 2, have they done anything with him this time?

Made him into a Nazi?

I guess Bendis did a future story in which Daredevil died, but has it ever happened in regular continuity?

I guess Born Again doesn't count, because the whole "there is no corpse" narration by Kingpin means the reader is never supposed to think he had died?

Daredevil is currently dead.

In that he died a couple of issues ago.

oh

lol

rip big man

I haven't read the issues, but the reviews seem to suggest DD is merely at death's door and in a coma, but not actually dead?

No he's actually dead. For several pages at least.

I might start reading this with the Zdarsky reboot. It's been a totally disappointing followup to the Waid run.

Daredevil also died in Shadowland, I think, although iirc there'd already been an announced 'Daredevil: Reborn' series when it happened.

Underdog

Underdog was shot in the face at the climax of the episode 'Polly's Wild Ride'.

Miles Morales hasn’t been around long enough to feel like a satisfying answer, but he’s fairly famous atm, and has never died(?)

Yeah, as I noted he's one of the few to have survived the hard reboot of the multiverse. Actually, I think Black Panther was, too, and I don't believe he's ever died.

Has Franklin Richards ever died (outside of Days of Future Past continuity)? He's been around 50 years.

Actually, unless there's been a T'challa death I overlooked, that might actually be the answer to the question posed itt. No mean feat, maintaining your Marvel mortality for 53 years.

death in a movie doesn't count then?

xpost Sorry, staving off your Marvel mortality, rather. The lure of alliteration overpowered my brane.

No, I don't think we're counting movie deaths here.

The movies are Earth-99999 or something, rite?

for dc and marvel, literally every character has been killed at least a few times in canonical universe razing stories and then brought back to life. theoretically, this includes our comic doppelgängers as well.
that said, i think the current iteration of younger-skewing characters haven't been killed yet? moon girl/devil dinosaur, kamala khan (ms marvel), squirrel girl

The latter two died with the multiverse in Secret Wars. Moon Girl wasn't introduced until post-SW.

And SW is the only universe-razing Marvel event I'm aware of.

Shit, it just occurred to me: was Black Panther among the deceased 50% in Infinity Gauntlet? That would take him out of the running, if so.

marvel zombies comes to mind. i dunno, your mileage may vary depending on how much IMAGINARY STORY/ALTERNATE UNIVERSE stuff you're willing to endure
gaiman/ superheroes aren't dead until they're forgotten /gaiman

Yeah I think (pushes glasses up) we should perhaps restrict discussion of this topic to characters from earth-616 and/or (takes hit from inhaler) characters such as Miles Morales or Old Man Logan who survived Secret Wars and immigrated to the newly-formed Prime Earth (returns to perusal of AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide).

http://img.fireden.net/co/image/1450/74/1450746196723.jpg

A long time since I've read it but surely the only acceptable Marvel answer is Fred Hembeck?

Fred Hembeck ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED the SJWs, Punisher killed the Marvel Universe iirc

The latter two died with the multiverse in Secret Wars.

I’ve never read a comic featuring her, but surely Muslim Ms Marvel wasn’t created until about 30 years after Secret Wars?

2015 Secret Wars, bruh.

Surely I get a No-Prize for catching a sic mistake. Surely I do.

have TMNT ever died?

apparently they sort of killed Donatello for a few issues

gonna have to say it’s no mistake to not know there was a remake of Secret Wars

It's not a really remake of SW, more like a Marvel version of Crisis on Infinite Earths. And it was quite good, better than almost any other big crossover Marvel or DC have ever done, including CoIE and the original Secret Wars.

Shit, it just occurred to me: was Black Panther among the deceased 50% in Infinity Gauntlet? That would take him out of the running, if so.

I just checked my omnibus, and yeah, he was among them. After Thanos's fingersnap they have a scene at the Avengers headsquarters where a video wall shows images of all missing superheroes, and T'Challa is one of them.

Though if IC deaths also count, pretty much all the heroes who survived the fingersnap die in the later fight against Thanos. I think Silver Surfer, Starfox, Warlock & co, Dr. Strange, and Hulk are the only ones who survive, maybe a couple of others too?

IC = IG

i feel like hembeck has died multiple times in his own cartoons btw

Yeah I thought he might have done.

Man, I've been going about this all wrong.

Super Grover is clearly the answer here.

Oh wait I forgot about the time he was gruesomely disemboweled, nm

maybe a better question is who's the most famous superhero who has never died for at least five months/ in a particularly public way that attracted comicdom's attention.
because they all died in one story or another and then came back as that is a sort of defining prerequisite for being a superhero.
But Supes, Batman, Spiderman, Hulk, Iron Man all died in multi-chapter NOT A HOAX NOT A DREAM storylines
so if we're going by that metric, i would maybe posit wonder woman? can't remember an extended "she daid" run of books... somebody wanna remind me when that happened?

this thread condensed:

they have all died

i don't think kitty pryde ever died

xxp
The Sesame Street universe was destroyed/rebooted as part of the HBO move, and only Snuffy and Guy Smiley survived in the life raft.

because they all died in one story or another and then came back as that is a sort of defining prerequisite for being a superhero.

this is only the case post... what, 1980?

had Matter Eater Lad ever been resurrected?

probably by Giffen!

kitty died in Morrison's xmen

According to Wikipedia, Tenzil Kem is present in some “Retroboot” Legion stories.

xpost Wait, what? No. She wasn't even in Morrison's NXM iirc. She did ride a giant projectile into deep space in Whedon's subsequent run but she was more just feared lost forever than presumed dead.

xp when? i don't remember that

In Superman #694, Matter-Eater Lad is revealed to have been masquerading as Mon-El's friend Mitch, owner of a local cafe. He reveals his identity by stepping in to save a woman trapped in a burning car, allowing Mon-El to continue fighting the larger threats.

As revealed in Adventure Comics (vol. 2) #8, Matter-Eater Lad is part of a secret team sent by the late RJ Brande to the 21st century to save the future in the Last Stand of New Krypton storyline.

rmde

(Total aside, but I just saw a news blurb the other day positing that Bendis may be doing a Legion book. You're welcome, fans!)

did Matter-Eater Lad ever die such that he could be resurrected?

xp Yeah, I saw that tease... sheesh

RE: Kitty - WHEDON not Morrison; memory failed me. She was presumed dead! Not being in the book means you're dead!
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/kitty-pryde/4005-3548/forums/she-cant-be-dead-can-she-416473/

I don't think Kitty's fate at the end of Whedon's run counts as death, because, A) by the end of the story she was still not dead, just incapacitated, and B) Whedon wrote it so that any future writer could easily bring her back, which is indeed what happened.

no way she never died and she was not presumed dead (which anyway isn't the same thing as being dead)

xp

Buuuuut at any rate she did die in Secret Wars so she's out of the running unfortch.

kitty pryde wasn't in secret wars!

xp thank god, i was afraid this was gonna turn into a semantic nerdfight about the death of kitty pryde
wait never mind apparently we're gonna do this

Every mention of Secret Wars itt is threatening to devolve into a 'who's on first?' routine.

FTR: the 2015 Secret Wars involved the wholesale destruction of the Marvel multiverse and everyone in it with the exception of like a dozen or so characters who managed to escape that fate through various means.

I honestly think it makes more sense to count what happened to Kitty Pride as an example of what we're talking about, rather than something like the entirety of the Marvel Universe being gone for a couple of pages in Secret Wars. I know she definitely didn't die, but I like Old Lunch's notion that she was 'feared lost forever'. Which is kinda also what happened to Batman in Final Crisis. It's not as good a thread title: 'Who's the most famous superhero who has never been feared lost forever?' But it's kinda what we're talking about, no? Noble sacrifices, leaving the title for a while, as other characters fill the void.

I have an extra-nerdy answer to

have TMNT ever died?

which is that in the exclusive bonus mini-comic included in TMNT role-playing-game post-holocaust supplement Road Hogs, all the TMNT are dead except for an ancient, dementia-riddled Raphael, living in a post-nuclear-war future

Old Man Raph is the winner then

The logical conclusion of this kind of thing (effective superhero immortality) is those stores that Marvel likes to do — including recently — in which someone like Reed Richards or Steve Rogers or Thor or Logan is the last being alive at the end of time, witnessing the heat death of the universe, etc.

Who’s the most famous super-character (hero or villain) to have died and stayed dead? No clones, no alternate universe or timeline versions, etc.

I guess that was already sort of discussed above.

I started a thread on that subject a long time ago:

Major superheroes/villains who died and have stayed dead - are there any?

those stores that Marvel likes to do — including recently — in which someone like Reed Richards or Steve Rogers or Thor or Logan is the last being alive at the end of time, witnessing the heat death of the universe, etc.

Sniffing through Alan Moore’s bins for old teabags they can dry out & try to use again.

Which Moore story did that, I can't recall?

Wildstorm Spotlight #1

How could I have forgotten such a popular + feted work.

it was pretty feted at the time!

https://www.tor.com/2012/07/09/the-great-alan-moore-reread-mr-majestic-voodoo-and-deathblow/

That seems to have come out years after Books of Magic #3 tho, which has a similar plot.

iirc that has magic people in a magic chamber ruminating on a time when various different magic worlds have passed into history? the Moore story is "Superman one immortal superhero is the last being left alive at the end of time, witnessing the heat death of the universe, etc"

Was specifically gonna mention that BoM issue (which is rad)!

iirc that has magic people in a magic chamber ruminating on a time when various different magic worlds have passed into history?

no, Mr. E takes the kid "walking" to the end of time, it is def the heat death of the universe and is literally described as such (that's when Death shows up!)

okey doke! I still think that's "magic" though

maybe I'm conflating with the Paul Johnson issue re ppl ruminating in a chamber

it is magic, I don't see why that matters. I mean, Thor is magic.

it's magic that takes them there, but they are literally *there* and they interact with various entities that can see them.

The lure of alliteration overpowered my brane.

― Hootie and the Banshees (Old Lunch), Tuesday, January 8, 2019 4:22 PM

That's the ghost of Stan Lee trying to possess you.

Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Super Sentai team, Bananaman, Darna, One Punch Man, Kick Ass & Hit Girl, The Mask, Witchblade, The Incredibles? All guesses.

The Spirit started by faking his death? Didn't The Phantom or The Shadow do something similar? The Crow and Spawn died in their origin and I bet they probably died more times.

I presume Hellboy died at some point?

Storylines discussed above sound incredibly stupid, even by DC and Marvel standards. I guess some characters are just killed off so we can get sentimental about them and then show them looking ICONIC *retch* when they come back.

Hellboy's death is one of those 'death is not the end' stories, as quite a few of the last Hellboy comics are after he is dead and Mignola came to the end (for now). The current series are working in the 50s etc filling in stories earlier in the cycle.

Was Swift from The Authority ever killed?

Didn't she die in a really disgusting way? I've never read it, but I remember that.

https://www.cbr.com/comic-characters-went-heaven-hell/

https://www.cbr.com/major-superheroes-avoided-dying

Bryan Cronin recently addressed this question over at CBR, and it seems to correct answers are Nightwing, Daredevil, and Batgirl. He doesn't seemt to count DD's recent "death", though.

He also doesn't count Nightwang's recent death, but weirdly does count Deadpool's.

The Stephanie Brown Batgirl died also, so his last option is ruled out. (Yes I know he makes the Babs Gordon distinction but there are something like 20 years in age between the 2 versions currently in continuity - yes, I do mean Babs only versions - so all bets are off. See also Wally West, of which there are two different continuity versions at the moment and I'm willing to bet the dead one won't be dead by the end of Heroes In Crisis.)

Doesn't stand up to the academic scrutiny we applied above I'm afraid.

Wally West, of which there are two different continuity versions at the moment

christ i fuckin hate dc

By different, I mean the two versions of Babs are arguably the same one excepting their age - both shot by the Joker, both cured, both had a relationship with the Wang when he was Robin - but one experienced all that while at high school and the other one as an adult.

The two versions of Wally though are the ginger 90s title one (who might be currently dead) and the black Johnsiverse one.

i refer you to my earlier comment

See, Marvel does this stuff too but they're often able to make it coherent and fun. DC just seems like they're completely unaware of the narrative conventions which might render their bad ideas at least readable.

pro-tip for dc: rebooting your entire line every few years makes it really fuckin hard to care about what's happening month-to-month, especially when the detritus of those reboots leaves you with multiple versions of the same character which i'd venture to suggest shows your reboots aren't actually doing anything good or useful anyway

It's pretty sad that my Marvel/DC pull list went from maybe 75/25 pre-Flashpoint to a fairly consistent 98/2 ever since (and almost none of that 2% has been in-continuity material).