It’s no secret that the world of comic books is a place where characters can be dead one second only to return to life in the next issue a month later. Comic characters die all the time and now that C.B. Cebulski is the top dog at Marvel Comics, he promises to pump the breaks a bit when it comes to killing off characters. At a recent ” target=”_blank”>Swedish convention appearance, Cebulski says that he refuses to use death as a way to sell more titles.
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“I don’t want death to be used to boost sales or to use as a shock value so people go ‘Oh my God, Johnny Storm is dead!’ or ‘Wolverine is dead!’ knowing that they’re going to be coming back,” the editor says. “If we choose to do it now, we’re going to add a little more weight and permanence to the situation.”
Earlier in the conversation, Cebulski had detailed the process the team at the House of Idea takes to determine whether to kill someone off in the Marvel Comics mythos.
“Ya know, death is a part of comic book universes, particularly a part of the Marvel Universe,” Cebulski said. “Every character has been killed off and come back at some time or the other. We always say there are two characters that will never come back and that’s Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben. We even said back in the day that Bucky would never come back and now we have the Winter Soldier.”
“But the process of killing off a character is not an easy one, and a lot of people think death is something that we don’t take seriously in the Marvel Universe but it really is,” Cebulski said. “There’s a lot of debates that happen because if a writer suggests that we should kill a character, it always has to be story driven first. It can’t just be for shock value and normally it’s a discussion that we have between first the writer and the editor and then the writer and the editorial team, so the process of killing off a character really is a group decision, and it’s made always with the best story in mind.”
What’s the favorite Marvel title you’re reading right now? What’s the one death that shocked you most? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt to chat all things Marvel!
