DC Comics has been wowing readers of superhero tales for years, giving them stories that inflamed their imaginations. Over the decades, the publisher has had to change the way it did things to fit the different tastes of various generations. Early comics were somewhat low stakes and rather violent. There was a time when gonzo sci-fi and more humorous events were the order of the day. In recent years, comics have gotten more “realistic”, which usually just means more violent and dark. This violence and darkness has led to readers witnessing more characters die, and any time you have more characters die, that means there will be resurrections. Lots and lots of resurrections.
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Often times, death and resurrection are a catalyst of change for a character, and sometimes this change can take the form of a power increase. For whatever reason, many heroes and villains come back more powerful than ever. These seven DC characters left and returned to this mortal coil with an upgrade that made them more potent than before their date with the reaper.
7) Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman has a rich legacy, and has become one of the greatest characters in superhero comics. Over the years, she’s had a lot of changes, and her power level has changed numerous time. One of these times, that change came from death. In the John Byrne run (one of the worst runs on Wonder Woman in the least forty years), Diana was killed and awoke in Olympus. She was now the Goddess of Truth, a major power enhancement that would lead to Hippolyta taking over as Wonder Woman because Diana couldn’t leave the home of the Green Gods for a time. This change was rather short-lived, and it’s just about completely forgotten by fans of the heroine, mostly because they’re trying to forget Byrne’s run ever happened.
6) Reverse Flash
Reverse Flash was Barry Allen’s greatest foe, a fan from the future whose love of the Flash became a murderous obsession. Barry ended up killing his enemy himself, breaking Eobard Thawne’s neck before he could kill another woman that the Flash loved. The villain stayed dead for a long time, and would return in The Flash: Rebirth. It was revealed that this returned Thawne (who was resurrected in Blackest Night, which happened after The Flash: Rebirth, with the villain traveling back in time after returning to life) was the host of the Negative Speed Force. The Negative Speed Force was the parasitic opposite of the Speed Force, and gave the man once called Professor Zoom a new variety of powers, including unaided time travel, the power to change the past, and the ability to reduce Speed Force users to ash. These powers made him more dangerous than ever, and he’d re-take his spot as the Flash’s greatest villain.
5) Sinestro
Sinestro is the most storied Green Lantern villain, and this led to him tasting death’s cold embrace in the classic story “Emerald Twilight”. The Korugarian Lantern was brought back into the Corps to battle the Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan, and had his neck broken, killing him. However, he’d eventually get resurrected and was able to create his own Sinestro Corps, while also wielding the power of Parallax in Green Lantern: Rebirth. His mastery over the yellow light of fear was even greater than ever, and he even was the host of the Life Entity at some point, which never would have happened in the years before his death. Sinestro was powerful than ever, and became ever more important to the Green Lantern mythos.
4) Darkseid
Darkseid is the God of Evil, a force of death and destruction unlike anything else in the multiverse. We’ve seen the lord of Apokolips gets some major power upgrades over the years, and some of these changes came from death. In fact, the greatest power change to the villain came from being killed. In DC All-In #1, he created a Miracle Machine, which allowed him one wish after feeding it the blood of his family. He was able to take control of the Spectre, and would attack the Justice League. They killed him, but this allowed him to become Omega energy and suffuse himself throughout the universe, becoming a part of everything. He was also able to take control of the Alpha Earth, a blank Earth that Darkseid has molded into a world after his own heart. He’s a true god now, bending creation to his will.
3) Doomsday
Doomsday was the beast who killed Superman, but that was honestly just the beginning. We eventually learned the origin of the monster — he was a Kryptonian superweapon, made to be dropped on a planet and destroy everything. His extreme strength and durability were his main weapons, but he also had another, even better power. Every time he was killed, the living engine of destruction would come back to life and become immune to the method of his death. This made him more and more powerful every time he died. He’s recently become the Time Trapper, gaining great power over time, which comes from the numerous deaths that he suffered over the years. In fact, he asked Superman to kill him one final time so he could become a god, showing how powerful death can make him.
2) Barry Allen
Barry Allen was the second Flash, and became one of the most important heroes on Earth. Barry was the most white bread superhero imaginable, a man who believed in doing the right thing and science, and could be kind of boring. After killing Reverse Flash, he traveled to the future to be with his wife Iris (who was thought dead but really just escaped to the 30th century), but would be pulled back into superheroism by the Anti-Monitor, captured and imprisoned on Qward. Barry would give him life to destroy the Qwardian anti-matter cannon, and he stayed dead for a very long time. After his return, he became more powerful, his body generating Speed Force energy. He was finally able to move faster than the speed of light, and gained powers he never had before because of the greater mastery of the Speed Force that speedsters gained since his death.
1) Hal Jordan
Hal Jordan was the greatest Green Lantern, but would eventually end up being possessed by the fear entity Parallax. The fear monster made him even more powerful than ever, at the cost of the goodness inside of him. He ended up destroying the Green Lantern Corps, then tried to recreate the universe the way he wanted it, but failed, taking an arrow in the chest from his friend Oliver Queen. When the sun was extinguished by a Sun-Eater in Final Night, Jordan decided to use his power to rekindle the sun, an action that killed him. A few years later, when the rogue angel Asmodel became the Spectre, the Sentinels of Magic were able to take the power and give it to Hal. He became the new Spectre, gaining what is essentially godlike power. Eventually, he would be resurrected, losing that power and becoming a Green Lantern again.
What other DC characters came back from death more powerful than ever? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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