I know death in comics isn't a static state of being, but I was wondering if people would humor me and help compile a list of which characters are dead, still dead, really dead, and probably not likely to be to be resurrected anytime soon.

Kitty Pryde wasn't explicitly killed off, and I don't really believe characters like Jean Grey or Steve Rogers will stay dead, so I'm not listing them. If someone disagrees with my reasoning, feel free to go ahead and list them anyway.

Just off the top of my head, I've got -

Heroes: Thunderbird I, Captain Mar-Vell, Genis-Vell, the original Swordsman, the original White Tiger, Namorita...

Villains: the Nathaniel Garrett Black Knight, Baron Zemo I...

Who else?

Roscoe; The kid who was Captain America 4 a day. When Steve was
running around tripping on his own cape as Nomad, Falcon had this kid wear the star and stripes, He was quickly killed by The Red Skull. Years before Joker ever off'd one-uh Batman's sidekicks. He was so low key he dont even rate a membership in a Legion of Unliving.

And then there's Jack Monroe, Nomad 2. He aint comin' back. When your killed by the hero whose place and identity you took, even editorial would be hard pressed to allow a writer to bring you back. Maybe.

Charcoal of the Thunderbolts. Never comin' back for legal reasons too inane to get into.

Ben Reilly.

Changeling. The mutant who pretended to be Prof. X, while the real played hide-n-seek from his students in the basement.

Miss America. Maddie Frank. One of the few golden agers who hasnt comeback from the dead Her husband Robert [Whizzer] too as well I guess. Although she is getting a 70th anniversary tribute issue in a few weeks so maybe an introduction of her character to modern times alongside former fellow Invaders like Namor, Bucky, Spitfire is not an impossibility.




The Thing doppleganger from the classic FF #51 "This Man, This Monster!"

Cornelius Van Lunt, Jake Fury and the rest of the human Zodiac Cartel. (But they SHOULD come back. All 12 of 'em. This time with mystical powers. Not like they've never dealt with a demon from hell [see Aquarius] before, to facilitate their return from the grave. They could give the Hood a run for his money as the kingpin of crime then.)

I totally forgot about this guy, and only know who he is because you've mentioned him before.










Now there's somebody who really ain't ever coming back!







Yeah, now that i think about it, the old Whizzer is dead too, though I can't recall when or where he bit it.

I'll also throw in some guys I forgot to mention before. Bill Foster, Eric Masterson/Thunderstrike, and Scott Lang. All guys who also aren't coming back.










I would love to see a demonically revived and re-imagined Zodiac Cartel.

Nah just wait for it. Bendis will bring back Scott, especially as Stature's popularity grows. He wont be able to resist projecting a father/daughter interplay onto the comic page kinda like he did with Baby Cage's birth.
Plus he claims to have liked Scott Lang which is why he enjoyed putting the character through the wringer. There's gotta be a payoff somewhere for Lang.
Now Jack of Hearts...He may very well stay dead at least until either George Perez returns to Marvel or they find an artist who doesn't explode like a Spinal Tap drummer from drawing that costume.










Think of the crossover issues alone that would fall under the umbrella title.
You got Van Lunt. With ties to Moon Knight, and a lot of grievances with the Avengers, Aquarius and Ghost Rider, Ares2, and the Falcon, Libra and Mantis (so even the GotG can be involved), Gemini has ties to Mockingbird, Kazar, Sagittarius, Daredevil, Scorpio and Nick Fury's Secret Warriors,
Twood be a blast.

Villains: Sergei Kravinov ( the first Kraven the Hunter), The Melter,
The Alex Gentry Porcupine,Egghead,the original Death Adder,
the original Eel,the original Viper,the original Enforcer,
and the Miracle Man.

I hope I've been or assistance here.

Marvel Heroes
----------------------------
Captain America I
Patriot
citizen V I
Captain Marvel I
Captain Marvel III (Genis)
Swordsman I
Ant-Man II
Vision II (Wanda's ex)
Wasp
Moondragon (though I think she's coming back if she hasn't already)
Night Thrasher
Namorita
Thunderbird I
Banshee
Marvel Girl I
Synch
Jackpot
Guardian I
Vindicator I
Puck I
Puck II
Major Mapleleaf
Shaman
Ms. Marvel I (PROBABLY faked death)
Dr. Druid
Thunderstrike
Nomad
Sersi (last I checked...she MAY be back)
Human Torch I
Whizzer
Miss America (can't believe noone has made a legacy for her)
Union Jack I
Aquarian
Seige
Caliban
Wolf Cub
Tag
Wallflower
Cypher I
Meltdown
Rusty Collins
Maggott
Stacy X
Red Neck
Goliath III (Bill Foster)
Deathcry
Gert Yorkes
Hornet


MARVEL VILLAINS
--------------------
Thanos (Yah right)
Baron Zemo I
Executioner
Black Knight II
Melter
Owl (???)
Swordsman III (Von Strucker)
Andrea Von Strucker
Angar the Screamer
Smuggler
Mr. Sinister (yah right)
Kraven the Hunter I
Proctor
Baron Blood
Egghead
Digger
Dansen Macabre
Tattermadalion
Needle
Sabretooth
Cordelia Frost
Frederich Von Rohm
Destiny
Stonewall (not really a villain)
Super Sabre (not really a villain)
Zaladane
Basilisk (forget all the other z-listers Scourge killed)
Porcupine
Steven Lang (back as a techno-zombie)
Bolivar Trask (see Steven Lang)
Graydon Creed (see Bolivar Trask)
Stiltman
The villains with Nitro at Stamford CT in Civil War
Alex Wilder
The Pride
Red Guardian I
Midnight
Midnight Son
Hyperion (Squadron Sinister)


SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
--------------------------
Uncle Ben
Happy Hogan
Karen Page
Jean DeWolff
Gwen Stacy
Rachel Van Helsing
Kate Nevill

quote]

You have, thanks.

When you put it like that, it does seem more possible that Lang could eventually return. I mean, Bendis even brought back Mockingbird, and that was one character I thought would never get resurrected.







That could practically be a mini-event all by itself - The Rise of the Zodiac. Maybe they could even add a new member, Ophiuchus, the thirteenth zodiac constellation.

Yeah, she returned recently in GOTG.




Probably.




I believe she is.




Yeah, kind of surprising. It's an iconic sounding name...










Thanks for the contribution.

When guessing which characters will come back, you have to look at alot of factors. Was the death important/memorable? Is the character easily replaceable? Was the character popular? Did the character fill some unique niche? How difficult would a resurrection be? etc.

Kitty, Jean, and Rodgers are all coming back.

But I'd go further and list characters I think havea good chance of coming back.

Genis - The only guy with the Captain Marvel name who had any kind of success. Death was lame. Character was popular. Resurrection would be easy.

Namorita - Some popularity, especially as part of the New Warriors. Death was lame. Would be easy to resurrect.

Ben Reilly - Alot of popularity, and his return is supposedly the most asked question at cons. I think we can all agree that putting Scarlet Spider would create a lot of interest in ASM right now.

Changeling - Nobody knew he was at his death. AOA showed us what the character could be like, along with his stint on Exiles. No good idea goes undeveloped forever. Resurrection would be somewhat easy due to the nature of his powers. The only problem would be that the X-Men are already crowded.

I don't see Scott Lang coming back. His death was somewhat important, and is reflected by his daughter all the time. Pym can serve as a father figure to the character if need be. We all ready have another Ant-Man, maybe even a better one.

Jack of Hearts might come back. Perez doesn't care about the character, and if he did come back to Marvel, he isn't going to do a Jack of Hearts title. But cosmic resurrections are real easy to do.

It's hard to classify Vision as dead. The current Vision has the "original's" memory. Even Marvel.com lists them as the same character.

Moondragon is back in GOTG.

Alpha Flight members are tricky, since there are duplicates of them out there in space.

Sersi is back, was in the Eternals series.

Aquarian is alive.

Caliban is back as techno-zombie.

Meltdown may still be alive. The story isn't finished, and time travel is involved. The writers have teased that she might not be dead.

Cypher appears to be coming back.

Owl is alive, just came back in Daredevil.

I think Marvel's planning on letting Noh-Var run with the name for a while. It would be easy to bring Genis back though.




I'd like to see her back if for no other reason than to see the Sub-Mariner family finally united - Namor, Namora, and Namorita.










Trying to put aside my preference for Lang over O'Grady, I think that still remains to be seen.

I think Marvel's planning on letting Noh-Var run with the name for a while. It would be easy to bring Genis back though.




I'd like to see her back if for no other reason than to see the Sub-Mariner family finally united - Namor, Namora, and Namorita.










Trying to put aside my preference for Lang over O'Grady, I think that still remains to be seen.

I think that at this point, " Marvel dead " is another word for " taking a nap "; the moment Bucky came back was the moment when Dead means Dead lost any meaning it had left. So the characters you list like John Proudstar and Mar-Vell and Heinrich Zemo are more " 97% likely to remain dead " than outright dead. Mortality seems discussed by a Kinsey scale in the MU.

But what I will dispute is the likelihood that Jean or Steve Rogers or Kitty will come back sooner rather than later. Characters are resurrected either because their absence was missed, or because their value as an IP to be merchandised later is too high to waste. Unless the Brubaker/Hitch Reborn series is played totally straight ( and I expect/hope to God it won't be ), Steve has no reason to come back, since Captain Bucky has been well received and WW2/Silver Age flashbacks keep the character in circulation. Jean is a similar case since Emma has taken over her role, and the Phoenix Force further compounds the issue of her mortality ( she may never be totally dead, but is she totally alive, either? ). And Kitty's currency amongst the X-Men as the plucky girl sidekick has long since passed, taken over by Hisako and Pixie at the moment.

Janet Van Dyne might come back when Avengers tie-ins like the upcoming animated series and movie become closer to a reality, though.

This is pretty much true. I don't really expect any of the names that accumulate here to really be off-limits to an eventual return, just that the probability of their return is probably under 50%.

In those specific three cases mentioned, the presence of Warpath keeps the Thunderbird look and powerset in circulation w/out actually having to bring him back. Ditto Baron Helmut Zemo in regards to Baron Heinreich Zemo. Their very existence helps to keep their forebears dead, although I believe the strength of the Death of Captain Marvel story is what keeps Mar-Vell in his grave as opposed to the strength of his successors(we've gone through Monica Rambeau, Genis, Phylla, a HoM Carol Danvers, Skrull-Vell, and now Noh-Var since Mar-Vell). Is it impossible they could come back? Of course not. But certain factors make a return very unlikely.




Jean is Schrodinger's Cat!?!

I still hold it's only a matter of time. I think we're at a point where the X-books are crazy enough to finally do the unholy and have Jean hook up w/ Wolverine since Cyclops is still boffing the white Queen, so Emma's presence isn't necessarily a deterrent to a Jean return. She's an original X-Man with mainstream recognition due to the animated series and movies, who only died (again) because Morrison wanted to push the x-franchise out of its comfort zone. They've already done away with most of Grant's x-contributions, and honestly, the Emma/Scott relationship really isn't that interesting so much as its a novelty because its different. There aren't much more reasons to keep Jean in the grave than there are to revive her, and eventually the latter will win out because it usually does in cases like this.

As for Steve and Kitty: Steve, for all we know, it was always part of Ed's plot for Rogers to eventually come back - Marvel is no stranger to the 'get rid of them to make people miss them' approach of comics storytelling. As for Kitty, I think the ambiguous departure they gave her says it all. They didn't even try to kill her on-panel. Her disappearance occurred in the same title that revived Colossus, another character who some would argue didn't need to return either.




I keep forgetting she's dead. I guess that shows what I think of the Jan death.

Simple fix: The uniforce of the microverse reassembles his atoms as the newest (and destined to be the best) Captain Universe.
Doesn't mar the Vell name.
Stays a Captain.
Remains a legacy hero.




Soon as Namora's popularity dwindles, they'll bring her back. Probably turn out the Civil War Namorita was a Skrull and Norman Osborn discovered the real one captive and unconcious and has been secretly hiding her as an ace-in-the-hole in case Namor betrays him.
Yeah. Pretty lame.













Technically...you don't have another Ant-Man anymore than you have a Slaying Mantis.
You have G.I.Ant-Man.
A suit created by the Pymskrull for SHIELD.
And I still stand behind my own made up theory about Bendis bringing Scott Lang back.
Key word: Scott Lang.
For all we know that doesn't mean he has to be Ant-Man anyway. Hello Yellowjacket III.
And Pym can surrender the title of the Wasp to Cassie, returning to the original Ant-Man. So the adventures of Yellowjacket (Lang), & The Wasp (Lang) can have a whole new dynamic.
Nah, not even Bendis would do that.




...ah, but the joke was nobody liked drawing the costume but Perez.
I agree he could come back easily. I just think if he does he'll be in a simpler design. Not saying thats a bad thing either. With that purple glowy energy surrounding his fists, visually he could even look cool in all black with just ared heart over one eye.

My reaction to her death was the same as her resurrection. A shrug and a whatever. The only time i ever liked reading Mockingbird was The Lost in spacetime/phantom rider stuff in WCA. By the time Byrne took over, all interest in her faded away. To this day i cant recall if i have ever bothered to read the last dozen or so issues of AWC. I know i have never gotten around to reading issue 100.
But I am enjoying the reunion mini currently going on, but thats on a whole different warped level of seeing Marvel do their version of Green Arrow/Black Canary.
(And Bendis said he wasn't JLAizing the Avengers. Ha!)







Wasn't that a DC comic a few years back?
And is that 13th constellation thing for real?
How does one pronounce that? I know you research mythologys so I'm taking your word for it. (Dude, dont make me look it up. And no, I can't wikipedia it cause I hate wikipedia. I once wikipedia'd 'wikipedia' and my laptop imploded into something that very much resembled a cosmic cube...minus all the cool powers and wishes...which might i add fell on my middle-finger-toe causing me to lose the nail. So now I'm just a no-toenail-wearing, jack-in-the-box-lookin'-laptop using, guy who hates wikipedia. sue me)

I think the one problem is that the cosmic characters are little too similar. The concept is just too crowded. Genis wouldn't really be unique powerwise, or even personality wise. The current GOTG series is already too crowded, and there are really characters that deserve a spotlight more then Genis. The biggest question is what do you do with him? I can see Nohr-vell getting a new name, and Genis returning with the Captain Marvel mantle.




Depends on the time before they bring her back. Her and Dwayne/NightThrasher have the advantage of being apart of the original team of New Warriors, which are still a great concept. Members of original teams tend to always come back When they wanted to reunite the original X-Men, they brought back Jean. For the same reason I think we will always see the original Avengers alive.

Also in this group I'd include the original members of Generation X. It's just a matter of time before Marvel decides to reunite this team. Banshee included.




O'Grady is the current Ant-Man however you want to look at it. When he gets an action figure, it's going to say Ant-Man. The publishing side of these discussions will always be more important then the "story" elements. And the suit was created by the real Pym. We first see the suit while Fury is still in charge of Shield, and Pym wasn't replaced until after Fury left Shield.

Bendis isn't bringing back Lang. Why would he kill the character only to change his mind 10 years later? Name a creator that killed a character only the resurrect them a decade later? Lang might be brought back, but it would be by Bendis. The Ant-Man concept has moved on. Even if we were going to get a new Ant-Man it would either be Pym or a new creation.

Bendis doesn't even write Stature, so why would he care about the father/daughter angle? Bendis can write any character he wants, why would he choose Lang? Bendis would resurrect the character, only to have him play a supporting role for a character he doesn't write?

Lang is like Thunderstrike or Goliath. Marvel might create another Goliath (which they did), but they aren't going to resurrect the old one.

As for YellowJacket, I suspect we will see a new ethnic character take up the role. Marvel's own Blue Beetle.

Just me let know when we are taking bets for Lang.

lol, yeah, it's real enough. Not sure of the pronunciation, but I know its translation has something to do with serpents. It's an actual constellation that the sun passes through just like the other zodiacal constellations, but I think since it only spends a couple of days in Ophiuchus, its not included in the zodiac. If it were, it would fall right in-between Scorpio and Sagittarius, I believe. I'd have to do some more reading on why it wasn't included in the traditional zodiac.

i like Scott Lang. i'm sorry that he's dead. but, even if he were brought back, i'd rather he stay retired from superheroism. he has other skills. he was one of Stark's go-to engineers for years. he'd make a decent supporting character in 'Iron Man' or 'Young Avengers.'

but, anyways, i think people overlook just how unique Eric O'Grady is. he's a representation of your average person whereas most marvel heroes are an exaggeration of that same person. Peter is superhumanly noble/well-meaning. Punisher is superhumanly obsessive and skilled at carrying out "justice." Matt Murdock might as well be jessus christ w/ the amount of suffering he endures to protect Hell's Kitchen. the Hood is uncharacteristically ambitious for a supposed street-level thug.
all of these folks are distorted images of humanity.

for contrast, O'Grady might save someone because it's the right thing to do. he might also walk right by a person in trouble because it would require too much effort to save them. he might help out a friend. he might betray a friend. O'Grady is human as can be. that's why i think he's the perfect fit for the Ant-Man role; one that really shouldn't be taken so seriously. plus his power-set and look fit his personality. he's small-minded, prone to hiding, feeding off of other people, and almost entirely amoral. it's silly that greatness is expected from someone calling themselves "Ant-Man." what was Pym smoking?

Pym Particles, apparently.

marvel micro handbook http://marvel-microheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Marvel-Microheroes_Wiki

In light of your comments, I've listed what I feel are likelihood percentiles of the following characters coming back from the grave in the next year..

John Proudstar: 1%. He could have been a great character, as evidenced by his cyborg alt. U counterpart in the early Exiles. But he lasted all of three issues, didn't have his backstory fleshed out that much, and has his entire shtick adopted by James.

Heinrich Zemo: 5%. Zemo family drama could be used as a reason to bring him back, but again, Helmut took over his Daddy's gimmick ( and did so without having spent twenty years in a Central American jungle, reading scientific journals for new developments in adhesive removal ).

Mar-Vell: 20%. Noh-Varr seems to be the current heir to the " Marvel-titled cosmic figurehead " character, and the Mar-Vell we thought returned in Civil War was a Skrull; however, the Distinguished Competition has found success in their seemingly pathological obsession with returning the exhumed, so Marvel might follow suit. I mean, if Barry Allen can drag his corpse out of the eighties...

Kitty Pryde: 33%. Though the Sisterhood could bring her back, the attention seems to be on Psylocke for now; plus, a sub-plot in the last Uncanny arc focused on Peter getting over her death, it'd be a stupid interruption if brought into the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men crossover, and Hisako and Pixie are sharing Kitty's iconic role as the team's plucky girl sidekick. Inevitable, but not likely.

Jean Grey: 66%. Definitely inevitable, but you were correct when you described Jean's state as that of Schrodinger's cat ( with the White Hot Room being the box ); Grant Morrison removed Jean's consciousness so far from the limits of human perceptions that unless Marvel somehow just yanks the human Jean out of the White Hot Room, it'd be hard to have Phoenix convincingly return. ( Though the upcoming covers to Uncanny suggest a Jean-type character, which might be more of Maddie, but still... )

Steve Rogers: 90%. Even more inevitable, but I'm hoping for a radical swerve, which wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Brubaker ( the guy who brought back Bucky, and did so well ).

Any others to add?

Back in the latest Fin Fang Four special, not sure if that is canon or not though.

Back in the latest Fin Fang Four special, not sure if that is canon or not though.