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In the comic book fan community, the apparent death and subsequent return of a long-running character is often called a comic-book death. While death is a serious subject, a comic-book death is generally not taken seriously and is rarely permanent or meaningful. Commenting on the impact and role of comic book character deaths, writer Geoff Johns said:〔IGN Geoff Johns: Inside Blackest Night〕 The phenomenon of comic-book death is particularly common for superhero characters. Writer Danny Fingeroth suggests that the nature of superheroes requires that they be both ageless and immortal.〔James R. Fleming, (Review of ''Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us about Ourselves and Our Society'' ), ''ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies'', vol. 2, no. 2, Winter 2006.〕 A common expression regarding comic book death was once "The only people who stay dead in comics are Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben,"〔(Captain America, RIP ), para. 5, ''Wall Street Journal'', March 13, 2007〕 referring to the seminal importance of those characters' deaths to Captain America, Batman, and Spider-Man respectively. However, after the former two were brought back in 2005, the phrase was changed to only recognize Uncle Ben. Some comic book writers have killed off characters to gather publicity or to create dramatic tension. In other instances, a writer kills off a character for whom he/she did not particularly care, but upon their leaving the title, another writer who liked this character brings them back. More often, however, the publishing house intends to permanently kill off a long-running character, but fan pressure or creative decisions push the company to resurrect the character. Still other characters remain permanently dead, but are replaced by characters who assume their personas (such as Wally West taking over for Barry Allen as The Flash), so the death does not cause a genuine break in character continuity. At other times, a character dies and stays dead simply because his or her story is over. The term "comic book death" is usually not applied to characters such as DC's Solomon Grundy and Resurrection Man or Marvel's Mr. Immortal, who have the ability to come back to life as an established character trait or power; rather it is usually applied when one would normally expect death to be permanent but the character is later resurrected through a plot device not previously established. The majority of comic-book deaths are due to premature deaths such as being killed in action. The so-called floating timeline of the major comic book universes generally precludes the death of most characters from age-related causes. This holds true even for supporting non-superhero characters such as Aunt May who is consistently depicted at being of an advanced age and has had at least two comic book "deaths" in the course of the Spider-Man comics run. ==Notable examples== Although several comic-book deaths are well-known, the two best-known are the 1980 "death" of Jean Grey in Marvel's ''Dark Phoenix Saga'' and that of Superman in DC's highly publicized 1993 ''Death of Superman'' storyline. There is one major distinction between the two, however—whereas it was never intended that Superman's death be permanent, and that he would return to life at the conclusion of the story, Jean's passing was intended to be permanent, as the editor Jim Shooter felt that would be the only satisfactory outcome given that she had committed mass murder.〔"The Dark Phoenix Tapes", ''Phoenix: The Untold Story'' #1 (April 1984)〕 Despite this, the story was retconned a few years later to facilitate Jean's return. In more recent history, the death of Captain America made real-world headlines in early 2007〔 when he met his apparent end, but Steve Rogers returned in ''Captain America: Reborn'' in late 2009. Also, the death of the Flash (Barry Allen) shocked readers, as he is considered the start of the Silver Age, but he would remain dead from 1985 until 2008. The deaths of the Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Ultimate Spider-Man have also shocked audiences, as have several others. In DC Comics' Batman: RIP storyline, Batman was apparently killed. It was revealed that he had survived, only for him to disappear into the timestream in the Final Crisis storyline. 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". Because death in comics is so often temporary, readers rarely take the death of a character seriously—when someone dies, the reader feels very little sense of loss, and simply left wondering how long it will be before they return to life. This, in turn, has led to a common piece of comic shop wisdom: "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben"〔 referring to Captain America's sidekick (retconned dead since 1964), Batman's second Robin (dead since 1988), and Spider-Man's uncle (dead since 1962), respectively. This long-held tenet was finally broken in 2005, when Jason Todd returned to life and Bucky Barnes was reported to have survived the accident that seemingly killed him, remaining in the shadows for decades. Ironically, Barnes apparently died again in 2011 after a short tenure as Captain America,〔''Fear Itself'' #3〕 only to be revived by Nick Fury's Infinity Formula.〔''Fear Itself'' #7.1〕 Comic book characters themselves have often made comments about the frequency of resurrections, notably Charles Xavier who commented "in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors.".〔X-Factor #70〕 Also, when Siryn was made aware of her father's death, she refused to mourn him, giddily claiming that since her father has died as an X-Man, he was likely going to be soon resurrected, shocking her friends.〔''X-Factor'' #7〕 His father is later restored to life but is recruited by the Apocalypse Twins as part of their new Horsemen of Death.〔''Uncanny Avengers'' #9 (June 2013)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Comic book death」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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