That makes the “Reign Of Supermen” atrocity almost bearable, because the death was so terribly, irrevocably awful, you just knew (and were relieved when) he would be back.

Either Dan DiDio or Geoff Johns confirmed this in an interview after the release of DC Universe #0. And I have to agree with you on all the reasons you cited that bringing him back isn’t the greatest of ideas.

-r-

As someone suggested earlier, I’m not convinced that the Mockingbird in Secret Invasion #2 is really Mockingbird. I believe that she is in fact a Skrull, and the Mockingbird of years past who married Hawkeye and later died, was real and is still dead. A big theme of this event is that you can’t trust anyone, and anybody around you can be a Skrull. So with that in mind, why simply take at face value that this new Mockingbird is who she says she is? Because she said so? And with these Skrulls able to imitate the abilities and powers of our heroes, it wouldn’t have taken much for a mental search of Hawkeye’s psyche to learn that bit of info that nobody else knew.

Just my two cents, since everybody seems keen on saying that Bendis is ignoring his own rules and all.

None of this has any relevance to Brian’s original post, however, which I agree with. I just don’t think that the new Mockingbird is the real Mockingbird (though she may be, who knows at this point?), and that it’s way to early to start bashing the writer for a plot point that has yet to be resolved.

-r-

I actually liked that concept – Hal trying to find personal redemption, rather than the larger-scale redemption from Final Night – but it just never took for me, either. Taking him in that direction was just asking for a return.

I shot this to Brian in an e-mail, but the funniest one to me is how all the characters are commenting on how it might be the real Cap coming out of the ship. Um, didn’t we just have a dozen issues revolving around Cap’s corpse? I think someone would have noticed if it had turned into a Skrull. Unless Bendis is ignoring the rules he supposedly took so much care to put into place, which wouldn’t be surprising.

(On the other hand, Brubaker’s Cap often seems to be taking place in a different, much more sane, MU.)

All that aside, I am old enough to remember the whole dial in to kill Robin ordeal to let the fans decide if a character lives or dies. Death (whether embodied as Thanos’ girlfriend or as a Goth girl a la Vertigo) has become a flexible concept in comics – efforts at continuity notwithstanding.
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Mockingbird I never cared much for; it has been established that she was no true hero (having allowed the Night Rider to die because he hypnotized her) but more of a secret agent pretending to be a hero for Hawkeye’s sake. She could’ve stayed dead.

On the other hand, Spoiler was a popular character (and important to the Robin series) who was killed for no good reason and as mentioned above, ruined Leslie Thompson as a character in the process. It was a situation that CRIED OUT to be fixed, and I’m glad it was, even if the answer was kinda lame (Batman couldn’t find that out on his own? Some master detective.)

Besides, with the coming Black Lanterns/Dead Coming Back storyline, odds are plenty of dead DC characters will return soon anyway (though likely most will just be killed right back. Even the dead aren’t safe from DC’s killfest!)

However, I do wonder where the Skrull empress who restored their shapeshifting abilities fits into this.

However, we now know that Elektra was the first replacement and that this started after the Skrull homeworld (1982) was destroyed. That pretty much means that the “70′s” heroes are Skrulls since any replacements prior to Elektra would have been detectable.

I don’t mind character resurrections these days. Let’s be honest, comic book deaths have lost any meaning or emotion in my eyes, you know the person will be brought back sooner or later. I’m mixed on whether or not I like these returns. Yeah, many deaths these days are meaningless shock value deaths, and if the resurrection is done right, it can be good…but other times I wish writers would stick with past stories, bite the bullet, and let be dead.

And nobody complains about that resurrection because Ice is a fun character and has a natural set of stories to work with (through the whole Guy/Ice/Fire love triangle thing and the more general JLI connection.)

…and by “like”, I mean “hate”.

I actually thought this column was going to address the inverse situation recently, with Barry Allen having a lame resurrection in the face of his highly-worshipped COIE departure, and how poorly the situation has been received.

And yes, possibly controversial, but ‘Emerald Twilight’ was a classic example of 90s excess, a mistake even for people who liked Kyle Rayner and his tenure as Green Lantern, and so the morass of fanwank known as ‘Green Lantern: Rebirth’ got a free pass because it did what had to be done and brought Hal back.

I think this is something different. Because while Hal’s fall from grace wasn’t handled greatly, his death in “Final Night” was, IMO at least, pretty good. He gave his life for a great purpose, in a selfless manner, and in a noteworthy and memorable way.

For that reason, I was irked when they resurrected Hal as the Spectre. He had a good death, so I thought his return as the Spectre was disappointing.

Every story subject to revision? No story is worth paying attention to because it can magically be wiped out retroactively with poor explanations? And for these reasons no one will pay attention to any of the stories?

By your logic, DC comics would have closed it’s doors decades ago. The state of affairs you describe has been DC’s status quo for as long as I can remember.

So utterly predictable as always T.

Mockingbird always just seemed like a pale imitation of Black Canary, but any retcons that undo West Coast Avengers storylines are OK by me. (Let’s start with Master Pandemonium ever existing.)