16 Years Ago, Marvel and DC Resurrected Their Two Biggest Heroes (and It Will Always Be Weird)

Marvel Comics and DC Comics are the two biggest names in American comics, each of them taking the superhero in different directions. DC is known for their more powerful, iconic heroes while Marvel’s heroes have always been a bit more grounded and gritty. However, there’s way more overlap than most people would realize between the two companies; they’ve been copying each other for years. Just look at all of Marvel’s wannabe Supermen or all of the times that DC has tried to make their own Spider-Man or Wolverine. Then there are more inadvertent overlaps, ones where both companies create very similar characters and teams (Man-Thing and Swamp Thing were both in development at the same time) or take their stories in the same directions. 16 years ago, this happened and it’s always been one of the weirder little happenings in comic history.

2010 was a different year in comics, with Marvel and DC both firing on all cylinders and giving readers some amazing stories. However, two very big parts of both universes were missing: Batman and Captain America. Cap had been dead since 2007’s Captain America (Vol. 5) #25, killed in the aftermath of Civil War, and was replaced by Bucky Barnes. Bats had been “killed” by Darkseid in Final Crisis #7 and was replaced by his former sidekick Dick Grayson as the Dark Knight. Fans had actually gotten use to these changes and it honestly seemed like they were there for the long haul. Before the year was up, though, both of them would be back in a weird case of inadvertent corporate synergy.

Batman and Captain America’s Returns Were Strangely Similar

Honestly, from the beginning, the deaths of Captain America and Batman seemed related. Cap’s death was a major part of the ending of Civil War, changing the superhero community completely in the aftermath of that story, and Bats’ was one of the cherries on top of Final Crisis. Looking at the two deaths, it doesn’t really feel like one was done because of the other, though. You could try to make the argument that Cap’s death inspired the Dark Knight’s, but one gets the feeling that Batman’s death was always a part of Grant Morrison’s run on the character. The deaths may have seemed related, but they almost certainly weren’t.

At the time, strangely enough, it felt like these deaths were actually going to stick for a while. While he knew that Batman wasn’t actually dead, Dick and Damian Wayne as Batman and Robin was hitting hard with fans. Meanwhile over at the Marvel, Cap writer Ed Brubaker had been building his entire run to Bucky becoming Cap and was delivering amazing stories every month. Both of these replacements felt right; there were even some fans who started to think that maybe Steve Rogers, at least, was never coming back. However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had reared its head in 2008, Captain America was on the film docket, and there was no way Steve was staying dead.

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Captain America: Reborn came first, starting in 2009 and ending in 2010, the six-issue series revealing the ultimate plan that Red Skull had been hatching since his return at the beginning of Captain America (Vol. 5) and the truth behind Cap’s death – he hadn’t been shot and killed, instead his body was placed into the time stream where Red Skull could use it for his plans. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne came out in May and was about Darkseid’s ultimate plan to use Batman as a weapon to destroy the multiverse as he traveled forward through time.

It’s honestly weird how similar they are. Both of them involve their main character in a time period other than the present, with Batman moving forward through time and Cap having flashbacks of his many adventures over his life. Both Cap and Bats needed help from the members of their family of characters in order to save the day. Reborn ended with a big battle and Return didn’t, but their similarities made the whole thing ever weirder. The two characters were both in middle of long, creator-driven stories that would have been pitched in their entirety, so there’s no way that one was copying the other. It was all coincidence, even if it seemed like anything but.

Coincidence Is the Spice of Life

Batman and Captain America hold similar places in their universe – both of them are smart, capable tacticians known for punching way, way above their weight class and armed with iconic weapons – so it makes sense that sometimes, similar things happen with them. To an extent, at least. Usually, their differences in character keep their stories pretty disparate, but their deaths and returns have always had a weird kind of synchronicity.

In 2010, Captain America: The First Avenger was on the way and Marvel almost certainly didn’t want Bucky as Cap when hypothetical new readers were going to be looking for comics with Steve in the suit. Meanwhile, over at DC, it had been two years since readers were teased with the true fate of Bruce, so it was about time to pay it off. The stars aligned and readers were treated to two of the best returns in comic history in the same year. It was a bit weird, but it worked out for readers.

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