Comic Book Characters That Should Have Stayed Dead

With some of these characters, you can kind of see how they'd battle back from beyond the grave. Superman, for example - was there ever any doubt that he'd return from the dead? Dude can survive in the sun. But Green Arrow's just a rich dude with a bow, so when he took the fall in the 90s by sacrificing his life to destroy a bomb, it seemed like the time was up for Oliver Queen.

But fate hadn't considered the existence of Kevin Smith! The portly filmmaker was given Green Arrow to write in 2000, and he brought back Queen in the dumbest way possible. When Ollie's body was "atomized" by the bomb, tiny particles of him were stuck to Superman's cape. The supernatural entity known as the Spectre took that goop and reformed Green Arrow's body from it. How humiliating.

Back to the world of the X-Men for another death and resurrection that strained credulity. The Russian mutant Colossus had the ability to transform his body into pure organic steel, which you'd think would make him difficult to kill. But when the deadly Legacy Virus threatened to murder every mutant on Earth, Colossus stepped up to the plate and allowed his body to be used as the vector for the antidote.

Of course, nothing is permanent in comic book land, and it turned out that an alien race from the Breakworld had snatched his body and somehow brought it back to life. This all tied into some ridiculous prophecy that actually turned out to be an insane scheme and... ugh. Just too many plot twists to recap at once.

Spider-Man's Aunt May is one resilient old lady - she's been targeted by some of Peter Parker's most fearsome foes and held her own. When the writers decided to kill her off, it marked an important transition in Peter Parker's life, as he moved on to adulthood and a marriage with Mary Jane Watson. There was only so much drama to be milked out of the woman, after all.

Apparently that well wasn't dry after all, as just a few years after her death it was revealed that the May Parker who died in the hospital was actually a "genetically altered actress" who replaced the real May while she was being held captive by villains. Why? Because people are dumb. May being brought back to life enabled Peter to make the deal with the devil that would eradicate his marriage from continuity, so that's just the cherry atop the poop sundae.

The death of James MacDonald Hudson, the Canadian superhero known as Guardian, was one of the most shocking moments of the first Alpha Flight series. As the team was battling with the evil group known as Omega Flight, Guardian - the leader of Alpha Flight - is destroyed when his battlesuit explodes, leaving his widow to lead the team. It was an exceptionally well-written death that made Alpha Flight one of the must-read books of the late 80s.

Of course, since this is comics, Hudson didn't really die (even though we saw his charred corpse). He was really teleported to one of Jupiter's moons, where an alien race gave him a power upgrade. He returned to Earth to rejoin his former team before dying again - but not really dying, just teleporting somewhere else - and then really dying.