Theno

And remember rule #5! I was particularly irked when Devin Grayson gratuitously killed off a bunch of Dixon’s characters in *Nightwing*, for no good reason. Especially Torque, who’s such a delightfully *weird* villain who I definitely wanted to see more of. The death was pointless in the first place, apparently just an “I wanna clear the decks” sort of thing, but to top it all off, the death was so unambiguous that there’s no conceivable way to bring the character back short of magic. And it’s not like his shtick is one another character would inherit or emulate (cf. Captain Boomerang, Toyman, etc.) “Guy with his head on backwards” isn’t a state you *seek out*, obviously.

The trouble about killing characters is that their deaths take more than they give to a series: I still deslike that DD characters like Karen Page or Glorianna O’Breen were killed… I mean, I don’t feel -though Echo or Milla fans might disagree with me about it- That no Murdock love interest introduced after Karen’s death has been as solid as Karen was.

Of course, Karen had been around for a long time, which obviously gives her more room for development than Echo or Milla have had so far.

But my point is: Was Karen’s death an improvement in the series? I think it wasn’t. Matt and her could have just split, if the writers wanted a new Murdock girl: This way karen would still be available for whatever fiture character willing to write her (and not only in a flashback).

Characters deaths sell a couple of issues. Good LIVING characters sell for a whole run.

2) A character so powerful like Jean Grey on Phoenix levels can’t be on the X-men, that’s why she was going to lose her powers at the end of Dark Phoenix Saga, after Byrne realized she made things too easy. If Xavier had to be sidelined often for make stories work, imagine her, who would need the same thing for any enemy which is not on Galactus levels.

Plus, I don’t know if he took that into consideration, but by having her being the Phoenix all along that means she was the one that killed 5 billion people, and you add another reason for her to die, the same one Shooter gave when he ordered it on DPS.

Did they ever actually state that “Phoenix” being a separate entity from Jean has been retconned again?(REretconned?)
I thought it was simply that after Inferno Jean got the MEMORIES of the Phoenix’s time posing as her and was now able to channel the Phoenix force. She was POTENTIALLY the most powerful being in the universe, but she wasn’t a goddess until the very end.

I think Morrison wanted to elevate her to Godesshood WITHOUT destroying any planets. Jean kept reassuring people, throughout the run, she wasn’t about to go crazy and destroy the Universe and she didn’t.

I think the only thing that has been invalidated about New X-Men is the whole Xorn was Magneto thing (which was one of the best twists in a superhero comic EVER and editorial was very stupid to mess with it). We still have: Labrat Cat-headed Beast, Scott and Emma, Cassandra Nova, Xaiver and Lilandra split, the school an actual school (although between No More Mutants and New New X-Men they’re losing students by the truckload) and Jeans still dead.

He never expected Magneto to stay dead (we never actually see a corpse just a rolling helmet)as much as he might like it otherwise he left it open for someone to bring him back.

Oh, and I’ve said it before, but Xavier and Magneto are best when they are dead. (Or when Xavier is a dick and Magneto is a good guy.)

I like them best as a bickering old married couple but that’s just me

Yeah, that was one of the reasons. There were at least other two:

1) Her dying would take her to the next level, transcending flesh and the human world and becoming a Goddess for good, which was the natural progression of everything Morrison was doing to her.

2) A character so powerful like Jean Grey on Phoenix levels can’t be on the X-men, that’s why she was going to lose her powers at the end of Dark Phoenix Saga, after Byrne realized she made things too easy. If Xavier had to be sidelined often for make stories work, imagine her, who would need the same thing for any enemy which is not on Galactus levels.

Plus, I don’t know if he took that into consideration, but by having her being the Phoenix all along that means she was the one that killed 5 billion people, and you add another reason for her to die, the same one Shooter gave when he ordered it on DPS.

Morrison not only could have killed her, but he couldn’t have not killed her, since it was the natural progression of the story (like I said on 1) and her surviving would leave an absurd mess for other writers to clean up. Imagine how AXM would be if Whedon had to begin by explaining why was Jean so powerful, the whole situation with her, Scott and Emma, why are the X-men allowing someone that killed 5 billion people on the team, etc.

I’ll add “It’s OK to kill them if they should have stayed dead in the first place.” Mainly to validate Morrison’s killing of Jean, and whoever kills off Jason Todd again eventually.

That’s my feeling on the Jean Grey death. Add in the fact that no one had written her in an interesting way for a long time until Morrison’s arc, and how many diehard Jean Grey fans complained about his characterization, and I find it hard to believe that anybody who actually wanted to write Jean Grey would have done anything good with her.

Of course, we all know she’ll be back at some point. That’s her whole M.O.

“I understand totally where you’re coming from, but unfortunately, your comment illustrates exactly why I read very, very few superhero titles from the big two publishers. I know that they’re in the business of making money off of their pre-existing characters, but it’s a real shame that there’s no room for change or growth in most of their titles.”

And that’s OK. It used to be that comics publishers expected their readership to outgrow them, and they’d attract new, younger readers who were of an age to appreciate these comics. I read ‘Archie’ as a kid. I don’t read it anymore, but I’m glad it’s still there for my niece to read. (Well, right now she mostly looks at the pictures, but…)

Part of the problem that comics have right now is that they’re trying to keep aging along with their fanbase, instead of going after a younger audience. (And no, this does not mean I agree with ‘One More Day’. That’s a “brand identity” issue. Marvel has sold Spider-Man for decades now as “the story of Peter and Mary Jane”, everywhere from the movies to the TV series to the newspaper strip to their other titles, like ‘Spider-Girl’ and ‘Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane’. It’s way too late now to decide, “Hey, you know what Spider-Man needs? A different love interest!”)

The reason Bendis said Xorn was something else, something eternal, was because Magneto showed up in Excalibur with no explanation or logic behind it. The writer there was Claremont.

(at least thats how I recall things)

My impression is that Morrison intended to really kill off Magneto at the end of his run. At the very least, I believe that the way that Magneto was later brought back did not reflect his original plans.

Did Morrison have an alternative plan for bringing back Magneto?

Morrison’s original plan was that Xorn was always Magneto, which was scotched by the convoluted way in which Chuck Austen decided to make Xorn “real” and has since been worsened by Bendis’s half-assed effort to retcon it yet again in House of M.

However, Morrison doesn’t seem to have thought Magneto would stay dead after his run, based on interviews, and “Planet X” itself has Magneto making a tongue-in-cheek reference to this when he jokingly claims that “I always come back. Maybe that’s my secondary mutation, Charles.”

So was there any point to killing off Happy Hogan?

I think the Banshee example is perfect, one might disagree with Brubaker about the need to kill anyone, but if felt he had to, amon those that fit his options (the ones that went to Krakoa), Banshee is obvious the right choice.