Geek Rant Topic 13: Which Superhero Hasn't Died?

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

The other day I was talking with some geeky associates of my at the community college and I was notified that Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, was dead and Spider-man had replaced him in the Fantastic four (Which makes sense since Spidey is the perfect funny guy to replace Johnny and the two are good friends). But we also know this: The Human torch would be back. It was a fact of life, we said it like it was a bad joke, because it was. It was also noted that Nightcrawler of the X-men had died recently and was one of the few mainline X-men who hadn't died in their history, until recently.

It was then we got to talking and we realized: Who hasn't died in superhero comics? We we came up with a fairly small list so we decided we would venture onto the net and contact the message boards we closely associate with and find the answers. On our own we found that Spider-man hasn't died Tim Drake as Robin/Red Robin hadn't died and neither had Dick Grayson as Nightwing/Robin, The Invisible Woman, The Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Luke Cage. This was just off the top of our heads with no research, and that's a minuscule list. I mean, when you think about it, it's a really interesting questions because comic books are practically known for killing people and for them to not be dead for very long. I mean when Superman was supposedly killed some time ago by the creature designed to kill him known as Doomsday, that was a big deal. Same when Batman got his back broken by Bane in the 90's, and Batman was killed not too long ago (But it turns out he was somehow sent time traveling. Yeah, comic books are weird.).

Obviously they wouldn't be dead for long. The big thing with the comic book industry is that they're not interested in making stories or characters, they make their money off of making long running legacies, which I sort of brought up in my previous entry, Modern Mythos. Which means even if they kills these characters, they won't be dead for long, they're too beloved for that and they have to stay to make the fans happy. The deaths were originally designed to "shake things up" but now they're just quaint to comic fans now. which means they don't serve as much purpose as they used to because we all know the guys will be coming back.

So it's just interesting to know who hasn't died because a lot of deaths has occurred. I mean it's almost like dying gives you superhero street cred or something. We set up some parameters for our quest though:

1. A big name or close to big name superhero, which I guess is hard to define, but let me put it to you this way, "Who is more important/well known? Iron Fist or Captain Mar Vell?" If you answered Iron Fist, you're own the right track. If you said Captain Mar Vell, you're a bigger geek than I am.
   
2. Someone who has had a minimum of 10 years of continuity behind them.
3. They had to have been dead or presumed dead for more than one issue. Enough to have had an impact on their universe.
4. It's a DC or a Marvel hero, obviously.
5. It's in the main universe. None of this "What-if" or "Elseworlds" nonsense.
   

Happy Hunting.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 12: Modern Mythos

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

Once upon a time there were these deities worshiped by ancient civilizations. These people told many stories of the exploits of these deities. However, these stories were all primarily from word of mouth, there was no single comprehensive and linear and consistent story of any of these gods, only what was told and what little was written down. These deities by modern day became primarily abstract concept with vague yet specific jobs and exploits and rulings that can be interpreted and spun around in a myriad of ways by many different writers in the present day.

We called this ancient incomprehensible library of vague references mythology. These deities and heroes such as Gilgamesh or Zeus were mere concept that could be twisted and turned into whatever we wanted within certain pre-established guidelines. The idea was there and we could make up the details ourselves, it was all based on the person telling the story.

I want to you to think long and hard about this. Does this sound familiar to anybody, anybody at all? Anything in the modern day that works on this exact system of vague pre-established concept that many people write about and with each different writing, different interpretations re made and different details are added based on personal preference. Perhaps this is too vague. After all, mythology of old had specific groups, we had the Grecko-Roman Gods, The Norse Mythology, Agyptian gods, and far many more I don't even know the names of. I'll keep this simple, this modern day version I'm referring two has only two self contained groups.

Now I'm going to stop treating you like an idiot and tell you this modern day mytholgoy is superhero comics and the two specific mythologies are Marvel and DC.

Despite the obession with "Continuity", American comic books are a mess. and probably have the least amount of continutiy that make sense. Especially DC. These things have gone on for decades wit hcharacters that age in reverse dog years and basically they're environments where characters and stories are allowed to exist. These comic histories are incomprehensible and with all the crossovers, one shots, and and tie ins, not even counting the alternate universes, I doubt even the most devoted geek can keep track of their favorite superhero and if they can, they need to go outside and start smelling the frikkin' rosies becuase their dedication most likely took up 75% of their existences and I wish I was joking but that's how extensive these things are.

I saw the comic book industry needs to quit it and geeks need to quit it. You know why? Becuase the DC and Marvel comic universes are now nothing but big flipping mythologies, worlds where anything can happen and anyone can do whatever based on the mythology behind them. At this point no continuity matters and I doubt we can ever go back to the days of everything being separate individual characters and stories that may have a a conclusion, the connected universes will never end so let's just go all out, write whatever we want, we already disregard continuity ad consistency anyway, let's just run with this. We just remove the concept of "canon" and have everything be right depending on the writer. It's easier on the fans that way.

Isn't that awesome? We invented a mythology without having it being centuries of lost archives behind us!

Wanna hear more about how this whole continuity and comic books are a mess? Movie Bob has got a few vids that helped inspired this: Continuum, Continanity, and Nerd Gods, mind you the man uses stronger language than I do.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14