Worst "Got Better"

[Randy Jackson]

We're all quite familiar with the killing off of beloved characters, only to have them revived sometime later. It's something I don't think will ever go away, and quite frankly I don't totally mind it, as most characters that do die do so for short-sighted or poor reasons. I think all of us accept this particular trope as part of superhero comics whether we like it or not.

However, what I want to hear is what is the most implausible, ridiculous manner of revival that you can think of?  What explanation for a character's sudden return really mad you think, "Shyeah, right. Go pull the other one." What's the explanation that made you think "wow, the creative team must have been hitting the sauce really hard when they came up with this one."

I would say that Elseworlds, What If's and Imaginary Stories should not count.

I'm going to nominate the revival of Alfred Pennyworth aka the Outsider, for the very simple reason that his body was crushed by a very large boulder. Even if that didn't kill him, it should have left him crippled for life rather than giving him strange super powers and an evil bent. Not to mention that I sincerely doubt that Batman and Robin could have made such a mistake and believed him dead when he must have had some sort of pulse.

Let's hear your choices for the worst "Got Better".

[Ronald Morgan]

I've seen Superman meet a Morgan Edge looking guy a few times back in the 70s. I remembered thinking that was weird since the Fantastic Four were meeting Nixon and Carter around the same time.

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

It's like living with an immortal, sooner or later you notice that she isn't aging but you are.  Overall though I wonder about the characters in comics who don't come back from the dead.  Has there ever been a story where someone comes up to Jean or Kurt or Jen or any of the others who've come back and demanded to know why they are able to come back to life while others aren't?  Or has the social circles in comics become so shrunk that superheroes only mix with other superheroes and coming back from the dead is just considered part of the lifestyle now?

[Ronald Morgan]

Probably the writer was thinking about how everyone says the eye of a storm is very calm and thought most readers wouldn't know the difference between a hurricane and a bomb.
 
Commander Benson said:

This one's a no-brainer for me.  I discussed last year in my three-part Deck Log Entry on "The Short Death of Red Ryan".

In Challengers of the Unknown # 55 (Apr.-May, 1967), editor Murray Boltinoff killed off Red Ryan, one of the Challengers.  Then, after getting cold feet about it, revived him a mere five issues later.  The problem was, in order to save half-a-country of innocent people, Red had been forced to detonate an explosive by hand.  Thus, he blowed up real good, into what should have been many, many pieces-parts.

The explanation for Red's survival of the blast didn't come until Challs # 61 (Apr.-May, 1968), and the excuse writer Arnold Drake provided was as absurd as it comes.  Here's what I wrote about it (boldface mine):

Still unanswered was how Red avoided being blown to bits in Turkey and how he came upon the secret of liquid light.

The next pair of issues carried a two-part back-up tale, explaining how Red stumbled across the liquid-light formula and wound up as a native stone idol.  However, the biggest question---how did he survive blowing himself up?---was given the shortest shrift one could imagine.  The explanation was reduced to one ridiculous line of dialogue:  “Maybe it was because I was at the very eye of the explosion that I wasn’t destroyed---just blown sky-high!”

 

Speaking as someone who's had an uncomfortable acquaintance with things that go boom . . . .

 

B***s***!

 

People caught at ground zero don’t survive.  They vapourise.  It was such an insult to logic that it gutted any seriousness from rest of the story.  Arnold Drake might as well have written that mischievous elves turned Red Ryan into the stone god Seekeenakee.

 

[Commander Benson]

Ronald Morgan said:

. . . most readers wouldn't know the difference between a hurricane and a bomb. 
 

If that's true, then our public-school systems are clearly inadequate and producing inadequately trained students.  Because even the most casual thought on the natures of hurricanes and explosives would inform a person that there is no similarity between the two.

My critique of America's public-school systems reminds me of something that rankled me when I was  a cop.  In our district was a street named Versailles Drive.  When a call-for-service was generated from an address on that street, the dispatcher and/or the responding officers would pronounce Versailles as "ver-SAY-lees".

Finally, at roll call one evening, when most of the offenders were present, I finally had to remark on the constant mispronunciation.  "Look, everybody," I said, "It's not pronounced 'ver-SAY-lees'."

"Then how do you say it?" they asked.

"It's pronounced 'ver-SIGH'---after the city in France."  I shook my head and remarked, "Don't they teach anything in high school, anymore?"

"I didn't take French in high school," claimed some of the other officers.

"Did you take United States history?" I asked them.

"Of course," they all said.  "We had to.  It was mandatory."

"Did your U.S. history include World War One?"

"Sure."

"Then what was the name of the treaty that ended World War One?"

Blank stares.

"Gentlemen," I said, "I rest my case."

 

[Ronald Morgan]

Schools have gotten worse. A college student asked one of his professors why he was spending almost two years learning things that weren't helping him get his degree. The professor said "Because high schools were supposed to teach students these things, and they didn't." I've heard lots of complaints that they're spending too much time teaching things like entitlement.

Schools have also banned things like dodgeball and "Duck, Duck, Goose." Someone could get dizzy running around in circles and fall and hurt themselves.

I heard it as "ver-SALLS" in some old movie.

[Commander Benson]

Ronald Morgan said:

Schools have gotten worse. A college student asked one of his professors why he was spending almost two years learning things that weren't helping him get his degree. The professor said "Because high schools were supposed to teach students these things, and they didn't." I've heard lots of complaints that they're spending too much time teaching things like entitlement.

I could add plenty of evidentiary fuel to that fire, but I don't want to detour this thread any more than I have already. Suffice it to say, on the average, individuals who matriculated from high school in the past generation or two haven't learnt the basic core knowledge that was required in my day.

[Captain Comics]

In fairness, in my neck of the woods, we have quite a few towns and cities that aren't pronounced like their Old World counterparts. Cairo, Illinois, is pronounced KAY-ro; Helena, Arkansas, is pronounced HELL-in-a; and Milan,Tennessee, is pronounced MY-lan. Give me a minute, and I'll think of five or six more. Throw in the Native American names, and it's a free-for-all.

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

  Until I heard them spoken I had trouble pronouncing a lot of the names from Lord of the Rings.  

[Mr. Satanism]

Hmmm, does Alpha Flight's Guardian blowing up, only for it to be revealed that he actually teleported to a moon of Saturn (or something) at the last second, where he befriended intelligent alien fish and hung out with them for several months before finding his way home count? The whole thing turned out to be a ruse (the revived Guardian wasn't really Guardian), but the fact that his friends and allies just shrugged their shoulders at the time and said "Meh, sounds plausible" really irked me at the time. And still.

Or did I just dream that whole scenario?

[Mr. Satanism]

Which is why I've always sympathized with Thor villain the Crusader.

PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod said:

It would be hard to be a Christian in a comic-book world.

[Luke Blanchard]

Mr. Satanism said:

Or did I just dream that whole scenario?

Supermegamonkey tells me Marvel later brought him back for real in Alpha Flight #87-#89, and used the same explanation. I think it's always reminded me of the origin of Doc Scary from 1st Issue Special #10, but I didn't realise why it sounded familiar when I first read Byrne's version.

[Mr. Satanism]

Egad.

Luke Blanchard said:

Supermegamonkey tells me Marvel later brought him back for real in Alpha Flight #87-#89, and used the same explanation.