GRABBINGSAND

Some of you might’ve noticed a distinct lack of comic book posts lately. In fact, it’s been about three months since the last one. I haven’t offered a reason why, though I’ve felt the compulsion to do so. After all, when someone is such a positive advocate of something, as I have been about comics, abandoning most of that advocacy isn’t done lightly.

So what’s the problem? Death. Death is the problem.

When comics strive for relevance and realism, character death is always a ready arrow in the writer’s arsenal. Sometimes, these deaths are massive, deserving of media attention outside the immediate attention of fandom. Even if you didn’t read comics in 1992, you knew about the Death of Superman. Of course, this death was short-lived, resulting in the Man of Steel’s inevitable resurrection. Only a few years prior, readers of the Batman comic were given the opportunity to determine the fate of Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin, at the hands of a more-ruthless-than-usual Joker. Via phone-based survey, thousands of readers sent that Boy Wonder straight to Sidekick Heaven.*

But these events were few and far between. They were Big Deals.

But now, it would appear that character death has become a wholesale commodity. Got a problem with your sales? Solve it with a little warm death. Marvel Comics has been pulling this trigger for years, but even my beloved DC Comics has fallen into a similar pattern. Starting with the murder mystery of Identity Crisis in 2004, each successive multi-title cross-over event has involved the clearing house slaughter of heroes and villains at all tiers of the superpowered food chain. Infinite Crisis was a veritable grand guignol of buckets kicked at a cosmic scale. Even 52, the weekly series that I couldn’t say enough good about in 2006, featured at least one or two continuity-affecting demises per issue. Sometimes this would result in the eventual rebirth of a character, better and stronger than ever. But for the most part, the end was just the end. And out of those ends, very few of them allowed the hero to go out in something resembling a blaze of honor or glory.

2007 brought us the follow-up to 52, another weekly series entitled Countdown. Countdown had an interesting premise, one that involved an intermingling of all the various alternate Earths that DC has created over the years. But with each successive issue, not only has the art grown progressively worse, but the entire plot has boiled down to watching children smash heroes against one another like so many battered action figures. At the halfway mark, the run was re-titled as Countdown To Final Crisis, just to make sure we were all getting the point they’ve been hammering all along.

Oh, and lest we forget, there is another mini-series running alongside Countdown … The New Gods were created in the late 60s / early 70s by Jack “The King” Kirby, one of the last almighty greats of the silver age. While not as familiar to the household reader as Superman or Batman, several of the New Gods have maintained a loyal fanbase. Mister Miracle. Big Barda. But thirty or so years later, it is not enough to simply put aside these creations or retcon them. Which is why this series is called The Death of the New Gods.

Hmm. Wonder what’s gonna happen in the first book of that series? And the second? And so on?

Now, there is all manner of buzz about Final Crisis. Not about the plot. Not about any new characters it might introduce. No, the hype is all about who’s going to die. Speculation has hovered over the head of the big three, the so-called Trinity of DC’s hero pantheon. But Superman has already slipped this mortal coil and returned. Wonder Woman has just seen a kind of rebirth. And though it seemed like Batman was going to get the axe, it would appear that Warner sees too much future film potential in the Dark Knight to let his two-dimensional counterpart meet an untimely end.

So who’s next?

Maybe Aquaman, though that character has been reinvented about three or four times already in about as many years. Death might be too cliched of a way out, but in the case of Arthur Curry, it might take nothing less to reestablish the character.

And the other name on the DC death note? Rich Johnston at CBR says it might be J’Onn J’Onzz, the Martian Manhunter.

This would normally be the part where I go all fanboy in defense of a favorite, but instead, I will defer to Mike Nasser / Michael Netzer, a comic book writer with an established history writing the character and a strong desire to save the Manhunter from the axe:

Now, I understand that comics publishers just need to kill somebody every once in a while and that sometimes they get the best results when they kill someone very central and important to their universe. And though I am somewhat grieved by the taking of the life of any comic book character, many Martian Manhunter fans and myself would much rather see the axe fall on someone else’s neck this time, noting and mourning all the undue sorrow this might also bring upon others.

And so… in the spirit of the image I produced to illustrate this plea, I’d like to offer my services as an artist to help revive the Martian Manhunter again, as I did back in 1977, and prevent the possibility of his untimely death… and to do it within an upcoming project of your choice for DC Comics.*

Maybe DC will take him up on the offer, but I doubt it. If J’Onn J’Onzz has been marked for disposal, I’m sure the dialogue has already been written and the art has already be inked.

So in a nutshell, I’m just not so interested in reading more stories where bloody death is substituted automatically for actual story and character development, particularly when the medium has proven itself so powerful, time and time again.

Instead, I’ll go back into my collection to rediscover the good stories that have gone before, all the while keeping my eye on the horizon, watching and waiting for signs of life.

* – Of course, Jason Todd rejoined the living in 2006. How? Something called a “Continuity Punch.” Really.