Marvel and DC Comics have introduced readers to some the coolest characters in fiction. The stories starring these characters have stood the test of time, taking readers on adventures that they’d never be able to have in any other fictional universes. Comic readers have seen it all, which can get to become a problem after a while. There’s only so many times you can see the same heroes fighting the same villains before it starts to get a little tired. At this point, creators decided that maybe the best thing to do would be to kill off characters and replace them. These replacements are always temporary, as there’s no way that profit centered companies like Marvel and DC are going to keep their moneymakers dead forever. That’s where the resurrections come in.
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Over the years, readers have seen some of the most famous characters in comics die and get resurrected. Sometimes, these returns are pretty bad (as a Wolverine fan, it still hurts me that Return of Wolverine was so legitimately terrible; the art was fantastic, but the writing was so bad). Sometimes, they’re perfectly fine, praised more for bringing back a favorite character than anything else (like the return of Barry Allen — it was a perfectly fine return in Final Crisis #2, but it was nothing special). And then, there are the amazing returns. That’s what we’ve talking about today. These ten comic books resurrections are the cream of the crop.
10) The First Krakoan Resurrection
The Krakoa Era was the X-Men’s most inventive era, and that was apparent from the beginning of House of X/Powers of X. Readers were served up quite a shock in House of X #4, when the X-Men attacked the Forge, the solar orbiting space station where the Orchis Initiative was trying to build the ultimate Sentinel Nimrod. The team incurred casualties right from the beginning, with every member of the team eventually dying. However, this wasn’t some scrub team of C and D-listers, this was Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Mystique, Archangel, Monet, and Husk.
It was a shocking issue, and no one knew what was going to happen next. We learned what was to come in House of X #5 — the mutants had figured out a way to resurrect the dead with the help of the Five, five mutants whose powers together, combined with Mister Sinister’s DNA library and Xavier’s mental powers. Death in the X-Men books was changed forever with this shocking and awesome moment.
9) The DC Multiverse
It sometimes seems like you need a PhD to understand DC continuity, and that’s because of the original DC Multiverse. When DC decided to reboot their old characters in the Silver Age, instead of just saying the new heroes came after the old ones, like Marvel would do, they created the DC Multiverse. Readers got multiple versions of their favorite heroes on different Earths, and eventually, DC decided that their multiverse was a problem and destroyed it in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Readers got Elseworlds, but the DC Multiverse was gone.
However, Infinite Crisis planted the seeds for its return, and we’d finally get it back in the weekly series 52. Mister Mind, the worm from Venus, metamorphosed into a universe-eating monster, and Booster Gold and Rip Hunter had to destroy it before it could devour the new universes in what was one of the coolest scenes you could ever imagine. Getting the DC Multiverse back was amazing; its resurrections brought back a crucial part of DC lore, and while one can question whether the publisher used it well, it was still great.
8) Jean Grey
Jean Grey’s repeated deaths and resurrections, by this point, have become something of a joke. There’s truth there too. Jean has long been one of Marvel’s most overpowered characters, thanks to the power of the Phoenix Force, and she’s had three major resurrections, mostly because of it. I’m most partial to the first one, where the Fantastic Four found her in a cocoon at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. Her body had been put there by the Phoenix Force, which made a copy of her to experience the world.
Her next resurrection would come in 2018. After being dead since 2004’s New X-Men #150, the Phoenix Force resurrected her again, and she became the leader of X-Men Red. Her least cool resurrection is her most recent one in the Krakoa Era (I’m not counting the one from House of X, since that was a group deal) after being killed at the Hellfire Gala. This was a generic Phoenix resurrection that wasn’t nearly as cool as her 2018 one. I love the first two, but the third one is pretty bad (there’s also her return to life in Uncanny X-Men #283, but no one but me ever seems to remember that one, and technically, she didn’t die — she put her essence in Emma Frost’s dead body).
7) Wally West
Wally West is the greatest Flash. Look, I don’t make the rules, but I enforce them. As cool as Barry can be, Wally is just the better Flash, which is why his being written out in the New 52 is so mystifying. Now, Wally didn’t actually die; the last time we saw him before Flashpoint, he was very much alive. However, he completely disappeared from the history of the DC Multiverse in the New 52, which would anger fans of the character. Eventually, the New 52 was declared a failure, and we got DC Rebirth #1, a book that promised to make fans love the DC Multiverse again.
Lots of things happened in this 80-page comic that they sold for $2.99, but the most important was the return of Wally West. It’s hard to make people who didn’t read this book on that far-off Wednesday understand why this return is so amazing; the story built it up perfectly, and when Wally reappeared and embraced Barry, it was such a beautiful emotional moment. This is basically the Platonic ideal of what a superhero resurrection should be.
6) Animal Man’s Family
Grant Morrison and Chas Troug’s Animal Man is legendary, and for good reason. Morrison went hard on the meta fiction for the 26-issue run. It’s a story about how we, the creators and readers, treat the characters we create and read for our own entertainment (as well as animal rights and just plain amazing storytelling). This was brought home to Animal Man when his wife Ellen, and kids, Maxine and Cliff, were killed by agents of the US government, who wanted Animal Man to end his eco-terrorism because it was getting popular and costing their backers money.
Animal Man #26 saw Animal Man meet Grant Morrison. They had a talk about the nature of fiction and the future of the comic, and Morrison made a decision at the end of the issue — to bring back the Baker family. There was no big resurrection or anything like that. Animal Man just appeared at his home again, and in walked his wife and kids. It’s a beautiful resurrection, not just for the emotion of the moment, but also because Morrison decided to do the right thing for this character whom they had hurt. It remains one of my favorite moments in any comic ever, and you really need to read Morrison and Troug’s run on the character.
5) Superman
“The Death of Superman” was one of the most important DC stories of the ’90s. Not only was it a huge success, but it also showed DC that they could successfully kill off and replace major characters, and fans would still keep reading. Of course, Superman wasn’t going to stay dead forever, and after the reveal of Cyborg Superman as a villain, we started seeing a massive purple mech making its way from the Fortress of Solitude towards civilization.
Steel, Superboy, Supergirl, and the Eradicator — on edge because of the Cyborg Superman — prepared for a new attack, but when the mech opened, they were surprised to find Superman, wearing his black resurrection suit. His powers weren’t all the way back, and he had a mullet, but this was the real Superman. It was an excellent moment; DC played it perfectly, and while it wasn’t as huge a seller as Superman (Vol. 2) #75, it was still a resurrection for the ages.
4) Green Goblin
The death of Norman Osborn was a major moment in the Spider-Man mythos. Osborn, in his villainous guise as the Green Goblin, had just killed Gwen Stacy and was locked in battle with Spider-Man. Osborn tried to impale Spider-Man on his Goblin Glider but Spider-Man ducked and Osborn was killed. Marvel left Osborn dead for years, but he would eventually return at the end of the Clone Saga. Osborn was revealed to have survived thanks to the healing factor the Goblin formula gave him, and ended up engineering the entire Clone Saga from the background. This led to one of the best Spider-Man/Green Goblin fights ever. This moment was a major surprise resurrection; back in the mid ’90s, we never expected Norman Osborn to return, so the shock of his resurrection, combined with the excellent battle, make this one extremely memorable.
3) Captain America
Steve Rogers surrendered to the forces of Iron Man at the end of Civil War and was put on trial in Captain America (Vol. 3) #25, before shockingly being killed on the steps of the courthouse by the hypnotized Sharon Carter. This would lead to Bucky becoming Captain America. However, we’d soon learn the truth — Red Skull had engineered the whole thing, trapping Captain America in a bubble of null time so he could take over his body and use it to destroy the heroes. Of course, Steve Rogers was able to retake control of his body, and led the heroes in a battle against Red Skull’s forces. Captain America: Reborn is easily one of the coolest character resurrection comics ever, as Captain America replays the events of his life and triumphs once again over his greatest enemy and death itself.
2) Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man #700 saw Doctor Octopus finally kill Spider-Man. Otto Octavius was able to put his mind in Spider-Man’s body, and Peter Parker disappeared. However, Peter left his memories there, and because of these, Otto decided to be nominally heroic. This led to Superior Spider-Man, where Otto proved that he actually was a pretty great hero when he wanted to be. However, the return of Green Goblin changed everything, and Otto gave Peter back the wheel to his body. This is one of the most shared Spider-Man comic moments ever, four perfect panels that show how amazing a moment this is.
1) Supergirl
Supergirl was one of the standard bearers of the Silver Age, Superman’s first superpowered sidekick. She’d end up sacrificing herself in Crisis on Infinite Earths, fighting the Anti-Monitor to save Superman’s life. A version of Supergirl appeared in the post-Crisis DC Universe, but it was a protoplasmic shapeshifter and not the real Supergirl (who later bonded with an Earthbound angel for Peter David’s brilliant late ’90s Supergirl series).
However, in the mid-’00s, when DC decided to bring back aspects of their pre-Crisis universe, we got “Supergirl from Krypton”, a six-issue story in Superman/Batman that featured the return of Kara Zor-El. Her origin was slightly different — she had been launched from Krypton as the planet exploded instead of out of Argo City after the destruction of the planet because the city had been jettisoned in the explosion — but she was the old school Supergirl. What followed was an excellent story that takes readers from Gotham to Themyscira to Apokolips, and ends with a wild battle between Superman and Darkseid. Supergirl’s return was amazing, and it remains one of the coolest resurrections ever.
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