Previous Post You don't see that you've disagreed with anything I posited. The big difference in my mind is that writers have tended to display significantly more "clearly dead" killings than they used to. Whether it is for effect, to leave their stamp on a book, or some other reason, these deaths seem a dime a dozen. With that said, there are more bodies to resurrect than ever before. In the past, these characters may have been left alone, but there are tons more that have been "killed off" in recent years than ever before. Ned

Is there a "not" missing in that first sentence? I'm a little confused. Yes, we both agree that resurrection is part of the genre, but my additional point was that certain deaths were considered permanent in a way that Kavanaugh bumping off Moon Knight at the end of the 90s series wasn't. And Kraven certainly qualifies as one of them.

Anyway, I can see the argument that the "Someone DIES!!!" bit is a tad overrused, but I don't see that as an excuse to bring them all back. I think there should be a "don't kill 'em unless you REALLY mean it" rule to go along with "if there's a body, they're dead" rule. (With allowances made to correct "errors" within a couple of years.) But when you get to the point where characters in stories consider honest-no-fooling-death to be a minor inconvenience (see Ollie's "Hal, how come you haven't been resurrected, yet?" in Identity Crisis or the climax of Blackest Night where a couple of the heroes are disappointed that Ralph and Sue weren't also resurrected), then you've made a wrong turn somewhere.

If a character gets bumped off, it should initiate a series of eulogies, not a betting pool regarding when they'll return.

There may be more corpses now than there was in 1990, but that's because there have been quite a few stories published since then. And there's still a ton more characters in any given universe to play with. Let the dead rest.

And a lot of recent resurrections have characters killed off when death was less common. See Bucky, Barry, Kraven, etc. Undoing an unpopular story from last year is one thing. Undoing a reasonably popular one from 20-40 years ago is a bit much. Why I feel that way gets back to my original preference that old stories be left alone (in terms of continuity and their effect on present day stories - I'm well aware no one is breaking into my house and scribbling over my comics). That aside, I have no idea who in the target audience (young teens) that old timer resurrections are supposed to appeal to.

I can accept booting "my generation" of characters and stories for a new one as part of the greater good. Booting my generation for the previous one comes across as 40somethings trying to restore their childhood. Your mileage may vary.