Today is Easter Sunday, when most Christian denominations celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from his three day sojourn to the grave. Religious implications aside, Jesus shares more than a few similarities with modern day superheroes, with mysterious transfiguration powers, the ability to levitate, and a God sized heaping of parent issues.
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Nowadays, it’s all but a rite of passage for superheroes to die so they can make a dramatic comeback.Although it’s always fun to watch a superhero die, it’s even more fun to watch them come back in some convoluted and wacky fashion. So what better way to celebrate Easter Sunday than to run down some of the best resurrections in comics?Here’s our Top Five superhero resurrections:
Superman
One of the most iconic comic book events of the 1990s, The Death of Superman saw the Man of Steel succumb to wounds sustained during a city-leveling battle against Doomsday. With a world in mourning, four new Supermen rose to replace the original Man of Steel, although each had their own weaknesses and/or secret agendas. One of the new Supermen, the “Last Son of Krypton”, was actually the reformed Superman villain Eradicator. The Eradicator stole Superman’s body and placed it within a Kryptonian regeneration matrix that would eventually bring the superhero back to life
Superman emerged from the regeneration matrix rocking a new shoulder length haircut and a black costume just as the Cyborg Superman, another one of the four “new” Supermen, teamed up with Mongul to destroy Coast City. Superman defeated the pair with the help of the three “good” Supermen and then revealed his rebirth to the rest of the world.
Captain America
After his arrest at the end of Civil War, the Red Skull had Crossbones and a brainwashed Sharon Carter assassinate Captain America right before his trial was to begin. Bucky Barnes became the new Captain America, while Carter broke free from her brainwashing and investigated the events surrounding her lover’s death. She discovered that she had shot Captain America with special “time bullets” that had trapped the superhero within his own timeline so that the Red Skull could take control of his body.
Eventually, Carter and the Avengers tracked the Red Skull down just as he assumed control of Captain America’s body and prepared to lead an army on Washington DC. However, the real Captain America was too strong for the Red Skull and he regained control of his body just in time to save Washington DC. The American populace welcomed Cap back as a conquering hero and everyone forgot that he was supposed to go on trial for crimes against the United States before he died.
Batman
Captain America wasn’t the only supposedly dead superhero trapped in time. During Final Crisis, Darkseid and Batman faced off in a deadly confrontation. As Batman mortally wounded the Apokoliptian leader with a specially made bullet, Darkseid blasted the superhero with his Omega Sanction. While the Omega Sanction typically disintegrated their target instantly, Darkseid instead used the beams to send Batman to the dawn of history.
As Batman travelled from prehistoric times into the present day, Batman realizes what Darkseid’s plan was all along. The Omega Sanctions transformed Batman into a sort of reality bomb. With every leap forward in time, Batman’s body collected Omega Energy that would cause reality itself to collapse once he returned to present day. However, Batman outsmarted Darkseid by leaving clues for the Justice League to find, which alerted them that he was still alive. The Justice League intercepted Batman during his final leap and medically stopped his heart, causing the Omega Energy to disperse harmlessly. Free of the Omega Energy, Batman returned to the present day and became Batman once again.
Jean Grey
Jean Grey is the poster child for comics resurrections, since she was one of the first comic characters to return from the dead. Jean Grey originally died in the climax of the Dark Phoenix Saga when, upon realizing that she could no longer control the Phoenix Force, she committed suicide by turning a powerful alien weapon on herself. Nearly a decade later, Jean Grey returned to life with no memory of her death or her actions while possessed by the Phoenix Force.
It turned out that the Jean Grey who died during the Dark Phoenix Saga wasn’t Jean Grey at all, but rather the Phoenix Force itself. Years earlier, Jean and the Phoenix Force had merged when Jean nearly died saving the X-Men during a crash landing from space. However, the Phoenix Force saw that Jean was too badly injured to live, so it placed Jean in a healing cocoon at the bottom of the ocean, while it assumed the identity (and memories) of Jean.
Now alive and totally absolved from her genocidal actions as the Phoenix, Jean reunited with her original X-Men teammates, eventually married her one true love Cyclops and then died a second time.
Green Arrow
When Green Arrow died saving Metropolis from a bomb, it didn’t seem like there was an easy way to bring him back to life. After all, Superman watched Green Arrow get vaporized by a bomb. But Green Arrow’s best friend was Hal Jordan, who at the time had nearly godlike powers as the supervillain Parallax. Shortly before sacrificing himself to reignite the sun, Jordan resurrected Green Arrow, albeit a version without Green Arrow’s soul (so that Oliver could continue to enjoy the afterlife) or the memories of Green Arrow’s later and more painful years.
This old/new Green Arrow operated as a vigilante in Star City for years, flying under the radar of DC’s other superheroes. When Oliver’s family and friends discovered that he was alive, they helped him reunite with his soul in order to defeat a sorcerer planning to claim Oliver’s body for his own.
