Favorite and least-favorite death of a DC character

[caj]

By favorite, I don't necessarily mean you hated the character and wanted them to die. But maybe you feel that the story and everything that surrounded the death made it almost perfect.

Least favorite death could be because you loved the character or you just feel it was pointless and senseless to kill of the character. (Roy Harper comes to mind)

[Ascended]

Interesting question.

I don't know that I've ever given this any thought, but I was a big fan of Max Lord's death. I thought that entire little mini-crossover (Sacrifice, I believe it was called) was handled pretty well, and Rucka wrote the fight between Clark and Diana really damn well. Much better than Azzarello did shortly before in For Tomorrow (Diana got such a poor showing there!). I really enjoyed the whole damn thing about Max's death (until it was used as a cheap reason to help split the Trinity).

And you all can throw rotting fruit at me if you want, but Ted Kord's death was a fantastic story too.

Worst death? Lian Harper.

[titanfan]

Good: General Glory

Bad: Lilith and Donna Troy in Graduation Day (Also one of the worst stories ever written)

[DrNewGod]

Best: Karate Kid in LoSH. The LoSV arc gets overshadowed by The Great Darkness Saga - to an extent, deservedly so - but it's great in its own right.

Worst: Pantha. That felt utterly gratuitous. But then, so was the entire Infinite Crisis nonsense.

[astro@work]

Best: Hippolyta in Worlds at War. I hated that she died, but thought it was well told and heroic.

Worst: Lillith and Donna in Graduation Day, ESPECIALLY Lillith. Seriously, a telepath couldn't tell she was dealing with a robot?
Ugh. Both deaths reeked of editorial mandate.

[achilles]

Well, two favorites come to mind immediately, Supergirl and Barry Allen in COIE, which both served to really show the stakes while giving them both heroic deaths. The Death of Superman also has to count in that sense since it was the entire point of the story.

Least favorite, anything Geoff Johns did. Mostly, he loves sudden, super violent deaths for mostly minor heroes for shock value, that serve little to no purpose to the story. Also, anyone the Amazons murdered in that horrid Amazon's Attack thing.

[Güicho]

- Favorite epic great story, creative world and character building Deaths:
Jor-El, Lara and Krypton
Wayne Parents
Jim Corrigan
prince Khufu & Shiera
Abin Sur

- OK:
Barry Allen (but opened the door to DC cheap event driven deaths,
Superman killed by Doomsday (we all knew it was temporary, but hey the speculators needed something to buy millions of copies of) )
Rorschach (great as intended in a finite tail, as of now they've relegated it to just ok)


-Cheap sensational garbage:
Jason Todd killed by Joker (by way of a phone in).
Green Arrow blows himself up
Katma Tui slain by Star Sapphire to give Jordan and Stewart pathos.
Alexandra DeWitt dismembered and stuffed in fridge to give Kyle Rayner angst.
Parallax ridiculous out of character driven murders and suicide.
Jade killed so she can pass her innate powers to Kyle Rayner who supposedly gave them to her so he is just taking back what was his all along.
Blue Beetle head shot by Max Lord
Sue Dibny raped, so fanboys can tell themselves look we deal with and grapple with mature content here, then just as quickly killed ...burnt alive! , so none of the sensitive immature manchildren writing/editing and reading it, actually have to deal with or think about for a second any actual ramifications of surviving rape.

- Meta-parody sensational stunt, by a writer at least aware that "growing" umpteen derivative parasite-appendage characters, ultimately weighs on a franchise and later creators, so he personally took him out, to end his run, ....made even worse cause they just decided to ignore him, and brought him back anyway!
LOL!

[Clark_Kent]

For me, the Death of Superman will always be the greatest comics death (the epic brawl, the sad funeral, and intro of now-classic characters in Reign). But, perhaps the one that actually made me sad due to its dialogue, was New 52 Superman's death. Cradling Diana's face, "what a lucky man I was..." That one stuck with me, not sure why.

Worst comic death might have to go to the off-panel death of Steel (Commander? Sargeant? Whatever) in Heroes in Crisis. I don't have an affinity for the character, but his death was so poorly written that it actually angered me (and comics is something that never upset me like that). We're told he's invulnerable, but he has chattering teeth shoved down his throat so that may be a cause. We then find out Wally "accidentally" killed everyone, and in the process of "framing Harley & Booster to give him time to think", he decides to shove teeth down someone's throat? That's not staging a crime scene to throw off the scent, that's desecrating a body. I don't care how much we're supposed to feel sorry for Wally, or how much they try to redeem him, he is forever irredeemable for me...because he shoved chattering teeth down a dead man's throat.

Steel's death is the worst for me because of what it means for a character (Wally) that I used to like.

[Zero Hunter]

Best - Live Wire sacrificing himself to kill the insane godlike Element Lad in Legion Lost. How Garth quite the team before he did because Legionnaries don't kill, and he did not want to tarnish the name of teh gorup he helped create.

Worst - Karate Kid dying of some mystery sickness in Countdown. They go to all the trouble to bring him back and create this big thing around it then to just kill him off so lamely.

[married guy]

Sarah Gordon's death hit me like a kick to the balls.

Lian Harper's death was a disgrace, as was Sue Dibny. Both storylines left a shitty taste in my mouth.

[jb681131]

** Post deleted **

[Jim Kelly]

The best death that comes to mind is the death of Tara (Terra) Markov. Wolfman and Perez conceived her whole arc with the death in mind. So that was a death that was set up and paid off by the very creators of the character. It's up there with the death of Meatball in the Little Wise Guys as one of the best character deaths in a comic book.

Most deaths are cheap ploys to hype the story--rarely ever the idea of the original creator--and often it's because the writer or editor doesn't like the character and wants them out of the way.

There's an overwhelming number of deaths at DC that I've hated. Starting with I Ching, Lyle Norg, Arthur Curry, Jr., Iris West Allen and Kathy Kane. Add to that the later deaths of Barry Allen, Val Amorr, Katma Tui, Jason Todd, Queen Hippolyta (in Our War On Women), Solivar, Sue Dibny, Ted Kord and the list goes on.

Of course, some of these deaths were reversed--which just shows how worthless character deaths are as a story-telling device.

[Jackalope89]

Most deaths are just awful and in ill-taste. Like Jason "Hey, lets kill a kid and blame his death on him too!" Todd (even though his time after coming back, New52 on, is pretty good), everything from Heroes in Crisis, Lian Harper (and all other such things involving kids), most Crises actually, etc.

The bare few exceptions would be things like Barry Allen and OG Supergirl in CoIE, where they went out as heroes. Fighting against an indomitable foe in the Anti-Monitor.

But killing just for shock value? To make things dramatic or angsty? Hard pass. Hate that stuff. Even if it gets undone shortly after, I'd rather it not be done for such cheap drama.

[j9ac9k]

First two that popped into my head:
BEST: Supergirl in "Crisis". Very touching - gets me choked up every time I read it. Hard to imagine a more heroic death. (other than maybe Barry Allen...)
WORST: Ryan Choi - they really gave up on the new generations at one point and this was one of those that really said, "okay we give up."

EDIT - how could I forget?? WORST of the worst -- Sue Dibney. I know the rape was a flashback, but it's all part of how she was killed so it gets folded into an already terrible death to make it exponentially worse.

[Micael]

Best: Karate Kid in LoSH. The LoSV arc gets overshadowed by The Great Darkness Saga - to an extent, deservedly so - but it's great in its own right.

Worst: Pantha. That felt utterly gratuitous. But then, so was the entire Final Crisis nonsense.

She didn't die in Final Crisis did she? I think you're mistaking it with Infinite Crisis.