MULTIVERSE MADNESS Do Superheroes Ever Die?
Alfred Molina’s recent comments about the new Spider-Man film had me thinking about a classic comic book trope.
Last week, British actor Alfred Molina gave an interview where he seemingly confirmed he’s reprising his role as Doctor Octopus from the Sam Raimi trilogy in the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home. I say “seemingly” because, given Marvel’s habit of protecting secrets at all costs (back in the Infinity War days, Michael Rooker was photographed on set in full Yondu makeup to hide the fact he was going to die at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), the whole interview could be a major piece of misdirection.
Nevertheless, when discussing his apparent return, Molina addressed the elephant in the room: his character died in Spider-Man 2, so how can he be back? Per the actor, director Jon Watts said to him “No one really dies in this universe.” In a way, he is correct, but also very much not. And that connects to a storytelling trope commonly known as “comic book death”.
It's mainly featured in superhero comics, and it boils down to this: if a major character dies in one of these stories, it’s very unlikely to be permanent. The classic exceptions are the heroes’ parents, mentors and love interests (the latter having earned the moniker “fridging” because of a Green Lantern story where Kyle Rayner found his girlfriend’s corpse inside the fridge).
But the heroes themselves, and – in the comics more than in the movies – the villains, are usually immune to a long-lasting demise. In fact, there used to be an informal rule that all resurrections were fair game except for Bucky Barnes, Jason Todd (the second Robin in the Batman universe) and Uncle Ben. Since 2005, only Ben remains on such a list (barring occasional “what if?” scenarios).
Of course, these days a comic book death is largely a publicity stunt, with a predetermined shelf life: Dan Slott, who used to write the flagship Spider-Man monthly, revealed that the controversial Superior Spider-Man storyline, where Peter Parker’s body was inhabited by the soul of Doctor Octopus, was timed precisely to last as long as the gap between the two Amazing Spider-Man movies.
Similarly, the famous Death of Superman event was plotted with a twelve-month duration, due to external circumstances (Clark Kent and Lois Lane were originally supposed to get married, but that story had to be postponed so it would line up with the corresponding episode of the Lois & Clark TV series).
It's such a cliché, the comics themselves have made fun of it repeatedly: when Grant Morrison ended his X-Men run by killing off Jean Grey, his successor Joss Whedon acknowledged the trope (and Jean’s status as one of its prime examples) with one character saying “She’s dead” and another replying “For now.”
Coincidentally, Whedon also contributed to the first X-Men film, where the villainous Toad, having seemingly defeated Storm, is confronted by her again and exclaims “Don’t you people ever die?”. An inside joke that has taken on a whole new meaning over the years, given the franchise’s evolution: in the case of Charles Xavier, his first death was undone in the very movie where it occurred, courtesy of a post-credits scene.
For the most part, other franchises followed suit: Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy avoided resurrections and fake-outs (Norman Osborn, whose powers include a healing factor in the comics, was instead featured as a ghost/hallucination), but the Marc Webb version was openly embracing it, at least on paper – an alternate ending for The Amazing Spider-Man 2shows Peter Parker being contacted by his presumed dead father, and Chris Cooper’s version of Norman was supposedly meant to be revived in the unproduced third movie.
On the DC side, Superman died in 2006 and 2016, his revival occurring either at the end of the same movie or in the follow-up. Christopher Nolan lampshaded the trope in The Dark Knight Rises, by bringing back Ra’s al Ghul as a hallucination and referencing the character’s immortality in the source material (additionally, Batman and James Gordon faked their deaths on separate occasions).
And this doesn’t just apply to superhero stories: Star Trek famously resurrected Spock in 1984 and had Jean-Luc Picard cheat death in his latest appearance (amusingly, with a trick not dissimilar from the one 20th Century Fox used with Xavier, also played by Patrick Stewart). Doctor Who is arguably a decades-long comic book death as far as the main character is concerned, and his archnemesis the Master is basically one episode away from carrying a sign that says “Yes, I’m back, big deal, moving on”.
Which brings us to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which was regularly criticized, during its first two Phases anyway, for indulging in the “fake death” trope (although, in fairness, it was mostly characters like Loki and Nick Fury, who pretend to have died on a regular basis). Unsurprisingly, when Tony Stark actually died at the end of Avengers: Endgame, fans signed a petition to bring him back, because of course it would make sense to do so.
And yet, as shown in Endgame (and subsequent releases), Marvel has found a way to have its cake and eat it too. Specifically, resurrections in the conventional sense are not possible in the MCU: the Ancient One spells it out in just as many words in a deleted scene, and Rocket points out that, unlike the people Thanos snapped out of existence, Thor’s mother Frigga is “really gone”, and therefore beyond salvation in the main timeline. Similarly, Loki, Gamora and Heimdall – who were all killed by Thanos in Infinity War, pre-snap – remain dead.
Yes, Loki has his own show coming to Disney+ in June, and Gamora will most likely show up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but those aren’t the same characters. They’re time variants: alternate versions pulled from different points in the timestream (he created a new branched reality by stealing the Tesseract, she was stranded in our present after traveling from 2014). Oh, and Groot did die at the end of the first Guardians movie – per James Gunn, the new one is his offspring.
But what about Phil Coulson, some of you might say. Well, two things: the canonicity of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. within the MCU has always been up for debate, given Kevin Feige’s lack of involvement with the TV side prior to Phase Four (the sole exception is Agent Carter, which he executive produced); and his resurrection came with an expiration date, since the alien concoction that brought him back to life was drained from his body in season 5, causing him to die permanently. His memories currently survive in the form of a Life Model Decoy – kind of like the most recent turn of events with the Vision.
So yes, Jon Watts was simultaneously right and wrong: people do die in the MCU, and they stay dead when that happens. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be some fun to be had with the concept, especially now that the Multiverse is a factor. Although whether it will actually come to play inNo Way Home remains to be seen. For my part, I’ll believe it when I’m seeing the finished film.