Death and its revolving doors

[marhawkman]

The irony is that they outsmarted themselves by changing resurrection tech to work more like recent sci-fi like a Caprica, Westworld, and Replicas.

Resurrection tech has been around forever in Marvel, but it was mostly villains using what amounts to ghostbuster tech to transfer their consciousness into new bodies.

Once they decided to change it to work like more recent fiction, most likely in the name of realism, they opened up a can of worms, since without ghostbuster tech, you should really just be making copies.

Heh, you mean like when Doc Ock died the FIRST time? He had a villainous protege show up, steal his tentacles, use them the thrash Spidey, while on a quest to resurrect Ock.

[ETMike1988]

From one of the Jean Foster comics: https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/...e_first_place/

[jebsib]

Natasha's mind was transferred at the moment of death into the body of a clone. Apparently the Red Room had been doing that to all their agents.

Is this actually canon in an actual issue?

[bat22]

Is this actually canon in an actual issue?

Depends on whether Natasha's mind was actually "transferred" or just copied. Sounds more like the latter going by the fandom website...

Taking advantage of the original Black Widow's death, the Black Widow Ops Program created a clone of her. Unbeknownst to her handlers, she retained all the memories of her former self thanks to Ursa Major having bribed Epsilon Red, the Red Room operative in charge of granting Red Room clones selected memories from their original selves.

[MichaelC]

Simple solution: they discover that it's just cloning and set up a soul transfer device. They gather up all the cloned souls and fuse them with the originals. Now everyone is back to being the original.

Yup. What they need is basically ghostbuster tech. Maybe have Tony Stark invent some ghostbuster technology to do so. He's suffered enough deaths in his life that that sort of technology should be a priority.

[Doom'nGloom]

Steering a little off topic here but are there different depictions of death in Marvel or is it just Death? If I'm not mistaken in DC there are Nekron (death as a part of the emotional spectrum), Black Flash (death for those tied to the speed force), Black Racer (death for new gods) and Death of the Endless which is basically death itself.

[ixfd64]

On the subject of Natasha, there's something I've been wondering for a while. It is my understanding that sacrifices made to obtain the Soul Stone in the MCU are irreversible; this is seen in Avengers: Endgame when the Hulk tries to use the Infinity Gauntlet to revive Natasha and fails. However, I'm kind of curious: does the Soul Stone simply refuse to resurrect the person, or does it also prevent their resurrection via other means?

Let's say Clint beat Gorr to Eternity and wishes for Natasha to be revived. Would that bring her back to life, or would the Soul Stone block the resurrection?

[bat22]

On the subject of Natasha, there's something I've been wondering for a while. It is my understanding that sacrifices made to obtain the Soul Stone in the MCU are irreversible; this is seen in Avengers: Endgame when the Hulk tries to use the Infinity Gauntlet to revive Natasha and fails. However, I'm kind of curious: does the Soul Stone simply refuse to resurrect the person, or does it also prevent their resurrection via other means?

Let's say Clint beat Gorr to Eternity and wishes for Natasha to be revived. Would that bring her back to life, or would the Soul Stone block the resurrection?

With how fast and loose Endgame treated the concept, manipulation, and consequence of time travel, I think it's still up in the air as to why Natasha didn't reappear. Maybe she did revive, just not on Earth. Maybe time-traveling Cap returned the soul stone and negated her sacrifice. Maybe she's been back on Earth but living under the radar like elderly Cap. Regardless, I don't think this is a question worth fretting too much over.

[Zelena]

A clone for me is the same person as he/she was before. if the clone has the same memorys and the same look, and behaves like before, it doesn't make a difference.

But they don’t behave like before. Even when they are not cloned, almost each time you change the writer, you have a different character. So with the cloning, it’s a way to explain the changes: the copy of the copy of the copy… has lost its original self.

[bat22]

But they don’t behave like before. Even when they are not cloned, almost each time you change the writer, you have a different character. So with the cloning, it’s a way to explain the changes: the copy of the copy of the copy… has lost its original self.

That may explain developments from writers who don't care much for consistent characterization, but it also doesn't endear fans to stick around if the character they're following is disposed of. There's a separation between the original Natasha Romanoff and this post-Secret Empire clone, just as there is between Peter Parker and Ben Reilly, and even between clones like Ben and Kane.

[Zero Hunter]

A clone for me is the same person as he/she was before. if the clone has the same memorys and the same look, and behaves like before, it doesn't make a difference.

The problem with that is in the Marvel U it is cannon that people have souls. They have shown the after life many times in many different ways, but it always stresses the point that people go somewhere after they die. A clone is not the same person unless that soul is in the new body. All a clone really is is a copy. Since it is a living being maybe it has its own soul who knows, but they are not the same person they were before.

[MichaelC]

The thing is, during the era that characters were established as having souls, resurrection tech was pretty straightforward, and used almost exclusively by villains. It was implicitly ghostbuster style tech that transfered the soul into a new body. The reason for it being almost exclusively villain tech was twofold. One is that villains are the ones who die the most in comics.

The other is that such tech is basically necromancy. Techno-necromancy, but necromancy nonetheless. In fiction, heroes don't use necromancy. Heroes accept death, and move on to their eternal reward. So generally writers avoided making the heroes use necromancy by simply not killing heroes off in the first place. If a hero was brought back from the dead, it was via some retcon that established them as not having died in the first place, like Jean Grey.

Recently, though, several things changed. One is that fiction outside of comics has flirted with various versions of ressurection-lites that assume that souls don't exist. Westworld, Replicas, Battlestar Galactica, Altered Carbon. The idea that a perfect copy of your mind is still you has become a common trope.

Comics have partially abandoned the judeo-christian influenced perspective that eschews necromancy. The idea that a heroic character would just accept death and move on to enjoying the afterlife doesn't have nearly as strong a hold on writers thinking. If you can save lives via techo-necromancy, use friggin techno-necromancy. Why the hell not? Screw the natural order. What has the natural order ever done for anyone?

The two in combination have caused comics to kind of unravel, haven't they? If copying is the same as resurrection, and the natural order isn't sacred, and techno-necromancy isn't just for villains, then why not resurrect yourself and everyone you love?

[ShatteredReality]

Wait until they try to get rid of all the clones by having them degenerate like the Jackal made them or something...

[Zelena]

Comics have partially abandoned the judeo-christian influenced perspective that eschews necromancy. The idea that a heroic character would just accept death and move on to enjoying the afterlife doesn't have nearly as strong a hold on writers thinking. If you can save lives via techo-necromancy, use friggin techno-necromancy. Why the hell not? Screw the natural order. What has the natural order ever done for anyone?

Comics have abandoned somehow the ethics that were the backbone of the stories. Sometimes I wonder what they talk about, what is the purpose of the story? Just showing people fighting for their survival, thriving, dominating the others? Often old comics were forcefully moral, lacked subtility but they had undoubtfully good intentions…
Maybe I don’t like current authors’ moral…

[ShatteredReality]

I think abandoning Christian values is a good thing in this case. It's not like most superheroes are explicitly Christian like Daredevil, so why are those values popping up in their stories?