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 in the real world and is rarely permanent or meaningful other than for story or thematic purposes. Commenting on the impact and role of comic book character deaths, writer Geoff Johns said:
Death in superhero comics is cyclical in its nature, and that's for a lot of reasons, whether they are story reasons, copyright reasons, or fan reasons.
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.
A common expression regarding comic book death was once "The only people who stay dead in comics are Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben," 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.
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, but rather 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. Despite this, the story was retconned a few years later to facilitate Jean's return.
In 2007, the death of Captain America made real-world headlines when he met his apparent end, but Steve Rogers returned in Captain America: Reborn in late 2009.
Because death in comics is so often temporary, readers rarely take the death of a character seriously—when a character 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 in 1964), Batman's second Robin (dead in 1988), and Spider-Man's uncle (dead since 1962), respectively. This long-held tenet was broken in 2005, when Jason Todd returned to life and Bucky 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, only to be revived by Nick Fury's Infinity Formula.
Comic book characters themselves have often made comments about the frequency of resurrections. Professor X has commented "in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors." 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. His father is later restored to life but is recruited by the Apocalypse Twins as part of their new Horsemen of Apocalypse. The obituary writer of the in-universe newspaper the Daily Bugle once bemoaned to reporter Ben Urich about how many retractions he has had to write after each resurrection of a superhero or supervillain.