Good DC Deaths that "Stuck"

[Chcknman69]

Golden Age Batman (Bruce Wayne)
The Original Mr.Terrific (Terry Sloane)
The Atom (Al Pratt)
Golden Age Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
Golden Age Doctor-Midnite (Charles McNider)
Golden Age Starman (Ted Knight)
The Original Black Canary (Dinah Drake)
Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton, Jr. )

As you can Tell I'm partial to the Deceased and Stuck Deceased Original JSA!

[Jim Kelly]

I don't need for the original Justice Society to be alive in the present day. In fact, if they're dead now, that makes it more likely they can exist in the past rather than being retconned away. However, the way some of the originals were killed off was not my ideal--they deserved a better send-off.

[married guy]

Terry Long.

Did ANYBODY like poor Terry??

[Jim Kelly]

Did Terry Long die? I must have checked out by then. Because I think I would have celebrated if he got knocked off. That would be a good death--but only in that he was such a bad character, killing him off would have put us out of our misery.

There's really two parts to this topic. One is a good death. And the other is what stuck. It seems that satisfying both those requirements is not easy.

I never thought the death of Arthur, Jr., was a good death. It was just done to increase Black Manta's standing as a really evil person. And to split up Arthur and Mera. But it wasn't a good death. I'd argue that killing little kids is not a good idea most of the time in fiction. Because the death of children is such a great tragedy that it draws all attention to itself. If you're going to do it, you better make that the centre-piece of your story. The death in LITTLE WOMEN impacts every character and drives the narrative. The death of Little Arthur was used as a plot device yet I was so concerned for what happened to the kid (was he alive, we never saw the body, surely Aquaman would save his son), the story didn't work for me. It just made me angry at the people who published the story.

[RobinGA]

I suppose it depends what we consider a "good death."

I can't imagine there is anyone who liked the Terry Long character.
But I'm sure someone will raise their hand to admit the unthinkable.

The problem with COIE is that it just became a ridiculous slaughterhouse after a while.
I remember at the time being shocked when Supergirl was killed. But that
was one that just couldn't last. You could say that about a lot of their deaths,
which were slowly reversed.

[BatmanJones]

Terry Long.

Good death or good that he died?

[BatmanJones]

We should have a thread on the bad deaths of COIE.

I'm still mad about what Wolfman did to the Earth 2 Huntress and Robin.

You and me both. That chip on my shoulder accounts for a lot of my hate for COIE.

[ducklord]

You and me both. That chip on my shoulder accounts for a lot of my hate for COIE.

Yeah, that last issue had to do wayyyy too much deck-clearing (i.e. with the merged Earths, the Earth-2 doppelgangers really couldn't be around at the end of the day), and a lot of it was very clumsy.

- The Golden Age Superman (and Lois) got to go to comic book heaven, and Kal-L even got to deliver the final blow to the Anti-Monitor. That's a good-ish death.
- The original Wonder Woman got to go to Olympus with Steve Trevor. Okay, kind of an afterthought, but fine.
- We forgot to get rid of the Earth-2 Robin and the Huntress? Fine, we'll just have them killed by a Shadow Demon while Helena's pinned under a rock. No heroic deaths here. Oh, and make them share panel time with the Ten-Eyed Man to add insult to injury.
- What do you mean, there's an Earth-2 Green Arrow? We have to kill him too? Gagh, this is getting tedious. No, I'm not going to kill the Earth-2 Speedy, let the readers fill in that blank for themselves.

[ducklord]

Golden Age Batman (Bruce Wayne)
The Original Mr.Terrific (Terry Sloane)
The Atom (Al Pratt)
Golden Age Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
Golden Age Doctor-Midnite (Charles McNider)
Golden Age Starman (Ted Knight)
The Original Black Canary (Dinah Drake)
Star-Spangled Kid (Sylvester Pemberton, Jr. )

As you can Tell I'm partial to the Deceased and Stuck Deceased Original JSA!

While most of these guys died good/cool/interesting/dramatically appropriate deaths (even poor Sylvester), I gotta say that Al Pratt and Charles McNider, IMHO, did not have good deaths. Getting insta-aged-to-death by Extant (a villain might not even exist if Armageddon 2001 had ended properly) in some timeless void 'cause Mike Carlin doesn't like the JSA is pretty much a working definition of "lame" in my book.

Heck, I don't even LIKE those characters that much - but they deserved better deaths.

[RobinGA]

Issue 12! God, what a disaster that was.

But the thing is that the Great Slaughter didn't last.
They were slowly reversed, although many who made it back aren't
prime players in the DC universe.

That is what often happens with the deaths, that seem permanent with
the latest crisis series that is changing everything. But then well someone else
reverses it.

There is an irony in dramatically reducing the multiverse, to today where the
multiverse is driving so many of these major events.

[SJNeal]

Did Terry Long die? I must have checked out by then. Because I think I would have celebrated if he got knocked off. That would be a good death--but only in that he was such a bad character, killing him off would have put us out of our misery.

Yep. Off-panel car accident if I remember correctly...?

[RobinGA]

Yep. I don't miss him.