Who's the most famous superhero who has never died?

okey doke! I still think that's "magic" though

maybe I'm conflating with the Paul Johnson issue re ppl ruminating in a chamber

it is magic, I don't see why that matters. I mean, Thor is magic.

it's magic that takes them there, but they are literally *there* and they interact with various entities that can see them.

The lure of alliteration overpowered my brane.

― Hootie and the Banshees (Old Lunch), Tuesday, January 8, 2019 4:22 PM

That's the ghost of Stan Lee trying to possess you.

Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Super Sentai team, Bananaman, Darna, One Punch Man, Kick Ass & Hit Girl, The Mask, Witchblade, The Incredibles? All guesses.

The Spirit started by faking his death? Didn't The Phantom or The Shadow do something similar? The Crow and Spawn died in their origin and I bet they probably died more times.

I presume Hellboy died at some point?

Storylines discussed above sound incredibly stupid, even by DC and Marvel standards. I guess some characters are just killed off so we can get sentimental about them and then show them looking ICONIC *retch* when they come back.

Hellboy's death is one of those 'death is not the end' stories, as quite a few of the last Hellboy comics are after he is dead and Mignola came to the end (for now). The current series are working in the 50s etc filling in stories earlier in the cycle.

Was Swift from The Authority ever killed?

Didn't she die in a really disgusting way? I've never read it, but I remember that.

https://www.cbr.com/comic-characters-went-heaven-hell/

https://www.cbr.com/major-superheroes-avoided-dying

Bryan Cronin recently addressed this question over at CBR, and it seems to correct answers are Nightwing, Daredevil, and Batgirl. He doesn't seemt to count DD's recent "death", though.

He also doesn't count Nightwang's recent death, but weirdly does count Deadpool's.

The Stephanie Brown Batgirl died also, so his last option is ruled out. (Yes I know he makes the Babs Gordon distinction but there are something like 20 years in age between the 2 versions currently in continuity - yes, I do mean Babs only versions - so all bets are off. See also Wally West, of which there are two different continuity versions at the moment and I'm willing to bet the dead one won't be dead by the end of Heroes In Crisis.)

Doesn't stand up to the academic scrutiny we applied above I'm afraid.

Wally West, of which there are two different continuity versions at the moment

christ i fuckin hate dc

By different, I mean the two versions of Babs are arguably the same one excepting their age - both shot by the Joker, both cured, both had a relationship with the Wang when he was Robin - but one experienced all that while at high school and the other one as an adult.

The two versions of Wally though are the ginger 90s title one (who might be currently dead) and the black Johnsiverse one.

i refer you to my earlier comment

See, Marvel does this stuff too but they're often able to make it coherent and fun. DC just seems like they're completely unaware of the narrative conventions which might render their bad ideas at least readable.

pro-tip for dc: rebooting your entire line every few years makes it really fuckin hard to care about what's happening month-to-month, especially when the detritus of those reboots leaves you with multiple versions of the same character which i'd venture to suggest shows your reboots aren't actually doing anything good or useful anyway

It's pretty sad that my Marvel/DC pull list went from maybe 75/25 pre-Flashpoint to a fairly consistent 98/2 ever since (and almost none of that 2% has been in-continuity material).