10 Comic Characters Who are Still Dead After 20 Plus Years.

With so many characters returning from the dead in comics I thought it would be interesting to look at who has remained dead over the last couple of decades. This is the first in a series off such posts.

Rules I’m playing by in this post and any time I revisit this post:

A death still counts if:

·        They returned briefly but returned to the grave in such a way that their original cause of death applies, even if they died again in their return;

·        A character time travels to the present from a time period before their death, as long as this does not interfere with their death;

·        A character appears because they were actually visited in the afterlife;

·        In the case of DC’s changing timeline, their status in the current timeline is unconfirmed.

·        A clone is distinct from the original.

A death does not count if:

·        A character’s adventures take place in the future (and therefore are alive/not yet born in the present);

·        A character continues to have an active or semi-active present due to being a vampire, ghost, zombie, or other member of the undead, or due to being “one with the universe”;

·        In the case of DC’s changing timeline, a new version of the character who is more or less the modern continuity version of the deceased character has appeared.

·        A clone is likely to have the soul of the original.

Finally, in the event that a dead character is revealed to be an imposter, the death still counts for the imposter (barring other circumstances) but not the original.

For this first post I’ve tried to avoid characters who were intended to die in their first appearance such as Ben Parker, though I may cover such characters in later posts. I’m also saving a key female Marvel character for a later post; as Marvel has a more stable continuity than DC, I want to space out the Marvel characters where I can. Plus I don’t want to use up all the “big guns” in one post.

1.      Aquababy (Arthur Curry Jr.; infant son of Aquaman and Mera; a water breather, Black Manta trapped him in a sphere and filled it with air, causing him to gradually suffocate to death). First appearance: Aquaman #23 October 1965. Death: Adventure Comics #452 August 1977.

2.      Black Hood (Matthew “Kip” Burland, policeman left for dead by the Skull before being trained by a hermit to fight crime; despite being retired with a new Black Hood as successor, he was murdered by the Eraser). First appearance: Top-Noth Comics #9 October 1940. Death: Mighty Crusaders #11 March 1985.

3.      Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell, Kree spy who “went native” while acting as a crime fighter on Earth; later given cosmic awareness by Eon; sealing radioactive canisters damaged by Nitro gave him canister that he later died from; while he returned and died again during the Chaos War, he would have still returned to the grave at the end of the Chaos War even if he had not died again, so I’m still counting him). First appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes #12 December 1967. Death: Marvel Graphic Novel #1 1982.

4.      Enforcer (Charles Delazny Jr., costumed killer who battled Ghost Rider and other heroes; he was the first victim of the super-villain killer Scourge of the Underworld, who shot him in the chest with an explosive bullet). First appearance: Ghost Rider #22 February 1977. Death: Iron Man #194 May 1985.

5.      Mark Hazzard (heroic mercenary in the New Universe; shot by his ex-wife’s new husband Gordon, then strangled Gordon before collapsing; in a coma and with no chance of revival, his son told doctors to take him off life support).  First appearance:  Mark Hazard: Merc #1 November 1986. Death: Mark Hazard: Merc Annual #1 1987.

6.      Nighthawk (Kyle Richmond of Earth-712; billionaire crime fighter who worked with the Squadron Supreme until they began their Utopia program, then formed the Redeemers to stop them; despite having been brainwashed by the Squadron, Foxfire induced a heart attack in Nighthawk in order to prove her love to Dr. Spectrum; she was then killed herself by Nighthawk’s former foe/would-be lover Mink). First appearance: Avengers #85 February 1971. Death: Squadron Supreme #12 August 1986.

7.      Red Skull (Albert Malik; Communist criminal later confirmed to not be the original Nazi villain; battled the 1950s Captain America; shot out of a helicopter by a rogue Scourge of the Underworld working for the original Red Skull). First confirmed appearance:  Young Men #24 December 1953 (earlier imposters may prove to be Mailk but this is his earliest confirmed appearance). Death: Captain America #347 November 1988.

8.      711 (Daniel Dyce, a DA framed for a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison; digs his way out of prison and fights crime while still based in prison; killed by mobster Oscar Jones). First appearance: Police Comics #1 August 1941. Death: Police Comics #15 January 1943.

9.      Shrike (Vanessa Kinsbury, a woman with psychiatric issues given powers by the Overmaster to fight the Justice League along with the Cadre; becoming a born again Christian, she joined the Suicide Squad and on her first mission with them was gunned down by Ogaden soldiers).  First appearance: Justice League of America #235 February 1985. Death: Suicide Squad #25 March 1989.

10.   Whizzer (Robert Frank; somehow gained superspeed after being bit a cobra and then getting a transfusion of mongoose blood; suffered a heart attack battling his old foe Isbisa). First appearance: USA Comics #1 August 1941. Death: Vision and the Scarlet Witch #2 December 1982.