Do They die really?

The death of an icon- be it on telly, in the comic books or in a novel, normally leads to a whirlwind of emotions and a storm of protests from their ardent followers. I mean that’s what fiction is about right – good triumphing over evil, the main protagonist going through everything and coming out unscathed. That’s what provides hope to millions. That’s half the attraction of fiction- thinks that can’t happen in real life, happen there and they normally end with a happily ever after, and increasingly now, they don’t end. So, even when an author decides that he has had enough of a character and decides to make it a mortal, the audience just refuses to let go. “You are an author, use your imagination and give us more or even give us more of the same, but don’t you dare kill my superhero. ” And so for the comic book sellers, it has become a tried and tested formula. Kill a superhero, generate loads of hype, see sales skyrocketing and then give in to popular demand and bring him back. And then watch the sales go up even higher.

I almost feel that now even the readers know that death in comics or even on telly is often temporary. So when Rowling killed Dumbeldore or Sirius Black, almost every Potter fan was confident that they would return. Rowling stuck to her plot. But not so with others. So today when an icon dies,  the readers feel very little loss, they are simply left wondering how long it will be before their icon is resurrected. The excitement is to see how they are bumped off and how they will be made to return and in what form. Here is a look at the death of some of the important comic and fictional characters.

The 1992, DC comics storyline, “The Death of Superman”, created a lot of buzz around the death of Superman. In the story, Superman is killed in an engaging battle with the machine named Doomsday. Both the contestants succumbed to wounds caused due to fight. The later issues depicted the world’s reaction to Superman’s death in “Funeral for a Friend,” the emergence of four individuals believed to be the “new” Superman, and the eventual return of the original Superman in “Reign of the Supermen!”

In DC Comics’ Batman: RIP: storyline, Batman was apparently killed. The “Final Crisis” storyline revealed that he had survived, only for him to disappear into the time stream. Dick Grayson took on the mantle of Batman, and Batman came back to the present in the “Return of Bruce Wayne” storyline, published about a year and a half after “Final Crisis”.

DC Comics has revived the character of Batwoman with a 21st-century twist: The masked crime fighter is a lesbian socialite. Batwoman made an appearance in the July issue of DC comics called 52, in 2008.
The hero’s real identity is Kathy Kane. Interestingly, the former Batwoman, created in 1956, was also known by the same name. However, The first Kathy was killed off in 1979, murdered by an assassin.

While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, even though was not the work he valued most.  In fact Conan Doyle once referred to them as  “an elementary form of fiction”.  He was very proud of his historical novels and considered them some of his finest work. As time went on Conan Doyle found himself more closely identified with Sherlock Holmes to the exclusion of his other works.  “I weary of his name,” he told his mother.

After a visit to the Reichenbach Falls, Conan Doyle contemplated the death site for Sherlock Holmes.  The Adventure of the Final Problem was published in December of 1893 in The Strand magazine.  People were so upset that more than twenty thousand of them cancelled their subscription to The Strand magazine. It took a story of a ghostly hound to inspire Conan Doyle to bring the great detective back.  In 1901 Sherlock Holmes reappeared in “The Hound of Baskervilles. The Hound of the Baskervilles was also first published in The Strand. The magazine’s circulation rose by thirty thousand overnight.

The publisher of the Spiderman series said that Parker’s alter ego, Spider-Man, will finally succumb to one of his most pernicious foes in the final issue of “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man”. He will end up dying, after an epic fight, by the hands of the Green Goblin, on the last issue of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man. Fans of Spider-Man can take a sigh of relief, as the “Ultimate” imprint will have no bearing on Marvel’s bigger universe and Amazing Spider-Man series.

Jerry Siegel

(October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996)

“It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman.” For millions of comic book fans across the world, these lines automatically conjure the image of the most popular superhero till date: Superman. But what most do not know is that Superman was first introduced in 1933 as a bald telepathic villain determined to dominate the world. He appeared in a short story called “The Reign of Superman” in a science fiction fanzine printed by Jerome Siegel and was a flop.

Jerome Siegel was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. The youngest of six children he was a big fan of comic books and science fiction and went on to start the first Science Fiction fanzine. It was there that he published all his sci-fi stories that has been rejected by various sci-fi magazines. At the age of 16 he met Canadian born artist Joseph Shuster and the two became good friends. They started created characters and stories together and in 1933 the villainous Superman was born. According to comic book legend, one night in 1934, Jerome kept tossing and turning in bed. Suddenly he had a vision and Superman in his new positive avtaar was born. But for 6 years, the superhero had no takers and Shuster in a fit of anger and desperation burnt the entire strip. Siegel managed to save the cover of the strip though and in June 1938, just a few months after the first costumed superhero Phantom was born, the world met Superman in National Action Comics. He was an instant success and in 1939 he made his appearance as a newspaper comic strip. Ten years later when the contract with National expired, Siegel and Shuster sued for rights over the superhero character. Subsequently, Siegel went on to write for Marvel comics and Archie Comics and created many other superheroes, but none came close to Superman. In 1996, Siegel died in Los Angeles. In 2005, he was posthumously awarded the Bill Finger Award For Excellence in Comic Book Writing.

Robert Jordan

(October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007)

Source: wikipedia

Born James Oliver Rigney, Jr. in Charleston, South Carolina, Robert learnt how to read at the age of 4 with the help of his 12 year old brother. At the age of five he was engrossed in Mark Twain and Jules Verne. He served as a helicopter gunner in Vietnam for 2 years and earned many military honours. Later he rejoined college and obtained an undergraduate degree in Physics. He went to work as a nuclear engineer in the US Navy. Jordan enjoyed hunting, fishing, and sailing, and collected pipes. It was in 1977 that he began writing. He wrote the Wheel of Time series which is often regarded as the best selling series in the history of Fantasy. Jordan also wrote dance and theatre criticism.In 2006, Jordan was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, cardiac amyloidosis. He died on September 16, 2007 but before his death he disclosed all the details of Book 12 (the final volume of the Wheel of Time series that has now been divided into 3 parts) to his family. The second part of this final book is due for release this November.

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