The Most Shocking Moments In Comic Book History
By
2short2care,
Posted on: 2010-11-07 07:56 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
nothing could be less shocking than the 'death' of Superman- it was relentlessly promoted for months by a gigantic media conglomerate. Pretty much anyone in North America who owned a television, read a newspaper or had even a spark of interest in pop culture knew what was coming well before it happened.
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Still, the fact that they did it was shocking.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
nothing could be less shocking than the 'death' of Superman- it was relentlessly promoted for months by a gigantic media conglomerate. Pretty much anyone in North America who owned a television, read a newspaper or had even a spark of interest in pop culture knew what was coming well before it happened.
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We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
I did not know anything about superheroes or villians until I met the man who is now my husband way back in August of 1998. Up until then I didn't know who Marvel was or DC but now that I know I am glad I met him. I read the book and the comics Death of Superman about the time I met him and several years later we went out to eat with my dad and my stepbrother, this was about 10 years ago and we got into a conversation and I told them how superman died and they didn't believe me, they were in shock.
I told them yep he died, but just like in all comics he does come back to life, told them when they got home to look it up (don't think google was out yet) on the internet when they did they called me back and it totally blew their minds.
Cancel the kitchen scraps for widows and lepers, no more merciful beheadings and call off christmas!
Really what I found shocking about Superman's death was that it was caused by a relative nobody at the time. Sure, everyone knows about Doomsday now, but until then, the only comparison was the Shaggy Man, and I am not familiar enough with the character to say if it had enough power to actually harm Superman at all.
I am surprised OMD is not in there.
How about Sue Dibny's death?
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But oh wait, he came back!!11|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
Still, the fact that they did it was shocking.
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If he'd stayed dead, THAT would've been a huge shock.
As it stands it's just another in a long line of comic book Soap Opera deaths, as genuine and lasting as any other promotional 'event' in a character's never-ending career.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Hinds sight is always 20-20. |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
But oh wait, he came back!!11
If he'd stayed dead, THAT would've been a huge shock. As it stands it's just another in a long line of comic book Soap Opera deaths, as genuine and lasting as any other promotional 'event' in a character's never-ending career. |
I was pretty young back when they killed Superman, and I didn't have a lot of comic book knowledge under my hat... but... I'm pretty sure they never even considered killing off such a high profile hero before Supermans death. So even *if* you were informed enough to realize that comic book characters almost never stay dead... you'd have to be some kind of future-seeing prophet to actually think they'd *do it*. If anything... that was the surprise. The fact they went through with it (if only for a little while) and didn't make it another 'close call'.
I think what was most shocking about Superman's death was that it drew so much non-comic reader attention. We didn't have a single comic in the house, and I had no exposure to them at all, but when *I* heard that Superman died, I was shocked. Very, "How could they?!" I was young, and even though I obviously knew he wasn't real, I still remember thinking, "The world is a darker place now..." It was on the news, in the papers, whispered about at school, etc.
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Zero hindsight required, only a basic understanding of the rules of comics.|
Originally Posted by Rock_Crag
Hinds sight is always 20-20.
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Oh Noez, Captain Hero iz dead....NOT! is one of the hoariest cliches in the annals of superhero comics.
All my pals at the comic shop were laughing at the rubes lined up outside the day that issue went on sale, debating how PO'ed they'd be when Supes popped back up good as new in a few weeks or months.
Corporate economics also dictated his return. Supes the brand generates more $$$ for the Time Warner bottom line than any other character in their stable, there's no way they'd cash him out.
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| I was pretty young back when they killed Superman, and I didn't have a lot of comic book knowledge under my hat... |
But on the wider stage of pop culture it was about as shocking as Kanye West putting his foot in his mouth at an awards show.
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My City Was Gone
For you the death of Superman was a shocking event. For me it was Tuesday.
I remember the long line of people at my local comic shop who were there specifically to buy the death of Superman issue. I had to roll my eyes when I heard one guy going on about how he also had the book where they killed Robin and how valuable he figured they were both going to be. Almost couldn't resist asking him if he knew that the dead Robin wasn't the original, had been killed off because he had been an unpopular character, that there was already another Robin to take his place, and that as soon as DC figured they'd milked all the money they could from Superman's death they'd bring the character back to life.
My favorite bit about the death of Superman though was the bagged collector's edition with the armband, etc. that hadn't been deacidified so if you opened the bag you killed any special value it had but if you didn't open the bag it would decay faster than normal, also killing the value.
Really, a lot of these "shocking" moments really weren't that shocking.
"Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good and let me be judged accordingly. The rest is silence." -- Dinobot
What about 'The Death of Captain America' or the true identities of Red Hood and Winter Soldier?!
And how come nobody has mentioned 'A World Without Amerikatt'?! Hmmm?! She's been missing for SIX MONTHS!!!! I guess people are still in denial and are hoping that she'll come back!
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Supes being killed was a shock and wasn't, for all the reasons stated already.
People unused to the comic book world were shocked, they killed Superman! OMG!! Comic book fans like us all knew he'd be back. What impressed me was that they did it and left it for a fair while before bringing him back. A lot of people were all like "They'll never do it, it's a fake out" and then they killed him, even after all the press about it. I really enjoyed it all 
More of a shock to me was the Crisis stuff, killing the Flash and Supergirl! Flash caught me well off guard, but then I was only 13 at the time
Shame we can't add gaming shocks to this list, Aeris caugh me completely flatfooted! 
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
The Masters of Evil getting their own series? That was shocking.
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I'll just hold a boombox over my head and play the Stones' "Satisfaction" and she'll be back.
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Originally Posted by Amerikatt
What about 'The Death of Captain America' or the true identities of Red Hood and Winter Soldier?!
And how come nobody has mentioned 'A World Without Amerikatt'?! Hmmm?! She's been missing for SIX MONTHS!!!! I guess people are still in denial and are hoping that she'll come back! |
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My shop got the books as usual on Wednesday. And believe me, the number of phone calls from people who'd never set foot in a comic store was NON STOP. "No, we don't have them yet. I know CNN just aired something about it. On the east coast, they get their books ahead of us out here. No, I cannot reserve them. No, you cannot buy more than one."|
Originally Posted by Wayfarer
For you the death of Superman was a shocking event. For me it was Tuesday.
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Then the day of... jeeez. The line out our store was 3 people thick and stretched a block, and was, yes, composed of mostly people we'd never see again. We only allowed one per person, and no "but my baby in a stroller outside wants one!". Forget that crap. You want the comic, buy it.
"That'll be two-sixty-nine please." I will never, ever forget it.
Plus, the book was junk. The whole set up was, in theory, quite fun. The 6 books leading up to the death ( all of which sold out far more quickly because we only got our 'normal' numbers, and have remained very scarce ever since) each had fewer and fewer panels per page. Finally the death issue, and it's "splash pages" for the entire book. Sad thing is, you cannot tell a proper story - at least, not the people writing that book - with no panel breakdowns. There's no action, no flow. Just a series of snapshots. They weren't very good either, unfortunately.
Now, truth be told the story right BEFORE they decided to plug their universe out to the general public, that story WAS 'shocking'. I was really enjoying it. Supes and Lois were listening in on a neighbor who was abusing his wife. I wished they'd have just kept on handling THAT situation, instead of running roughshod over the DCU.
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Repurposed
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A better comparison to Doomsday would be the Incredible Hulk. DC created Doomsday to be able to kill Superman, his origins would be explored after Superman's return. |
Originally Posted by BlackArachnia
Really what I found shocking about Superman's death was that it was caused by a relative nobody at the time. Sure, everyone knows about Doomsday now, but until then, the only comparison was the Shaggy Man, and I am not familiar enough with the character to say if it had enough power to actually harm Superman at all.
I am surprised OMD is not in there. |
As I recall, Doomsday is an ancient Kryptonian experiment to create the ultimate survivor/killing machine, but of course it couldn't be controlled.
However an old DC tradition: to truly hurt or kill Superman you need something from Krypton. Either Kryptonite, or a super power Kryptonian Hulk known as Doomsday.
It was a shock that they did kill him, but no surprise that he was coming back. There was no way any of the four "Supermen" were going to take his place.
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I hope that it'll be as simple as that!|
Originally Posted by Ironik
I'll just hold a boombox over my head and play the Stones' "Satisfaction" and she'll be back.
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((I haven't been able to play this game for 6 months. I'm way past going through withdrawal. I need my fix!))
AMERIKATT: Star of Stage, Screen, and Saturday morning cartoons! (Art by Psygon and ChristopherRobin)
"(Katt-Girl) obviously reads a lot of encyclopedias" -- Kiken
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More important than all of that...did a 12 year old write this article?
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You know what's more shocking than Magneto ripping out the Adamantium from Wolverine? That his powers work on non-ferrous metals!
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Power creep...he'd been slowly getting ramped up to way beyond just "master of magnetism" for years by that point....most applicable, these sections from the wiki :1) "He can also affect non-metallic and non-magnetic objects to a lesser extent and frequently levitates himself and others." and 2) "Although Magneto has been shown capable of manipulating matter on a subatomic level (insofar as the electromagnetic force is responsible for bonding electrons to protons within an atom), the use of his powers in this way seems to be difficult for him, and he has not been frequently depicted as doing so."|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You know what's more shocking than Magneto ripping out the Adamantium from Wolverine? That his powers work on non-ferrous metals!
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At that point, he's pretty much "master of stuff". Ferrous, non ferrous, plastic, flubber..it's all the same
ok...just actually read that whole powers section...he can survive nukes if he has his shield up, create wormholes oh, and he might be a bit of a telepath, too? sheesh. No wonder it takes the entire roster of the X-Men to beat him most times.
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"So come and get me! I'll be waiting for ye, with a whiff of the old brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!" Demoman, TF2
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No, not really shocking. You can attract or repel practically anything with a strong enough electromagnetic field. There are videos of frogs and mice being levitated in electromagnetic fields, in fact. If it has electrons, protons and/or neutrons, or their antimatter equivalents, it's affected by electromagnetism. So unless adamantium is made of something impossible, even in comic book universes, such as neutrinos, it's fair game for magnetic manipulation.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You know what's more shocking than Magneto ripping out the Adamantium from Wolverine? That his powers work on non-ferrous metals!
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Of course, that also means that Wolverine's skin, muscle, fat, bones and other tissues should have been equally affected, leaving him a rather nasty mess of discrete human body components separated and spread all over the place, if not outright disintegrated. But Magneto presumably has incredibly precise control over electromagnetism, capable of fine tuning the field to affect specific substances while not affecting others.
On a lower scale, even non-ferrous metals can be temporarily made magnetic by inducing an electrical eddy current running through them with... a rapidly shifting magnetic field.
This is how some trash recycling places separate metals from other debris.
-k
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If anyone stood the best chance (and did the best job at it), it was John Henry Irons. But some people unfairly called him a rip-off of Iron Man, despite the only thing they have in common is a suit of armor.
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Originally Posted by Nericus
There was no way any of the four "Supermen" were going to take his place.
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Given everything else going on in comics in the 90's and the general vibe of the 90's, the Cyborg Superman wasn't THAT hard to consider plausible.|
Originally Posted by Nightphall
If anyone stood the best chance (and did the best job at it), it was John Henry Irons. But some people unfairly called him a rip-off of Iron Man, despite the only thing they have in common is a suit of armor.
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Also, the author of this list completely misses the point of Ozy's alien squid...
Sorry if this has been posted but I thought some people here would find it interesting.
The Most Shocking Moments In Comic Book History
Also I forgot about Lone Wolf and Cub, I used to read those all the time.