Who's return from Death is your least favorite?

[BatmanJones]

Barry Allen, hands down. Because it cheapens his sacrifice at Crisis on the Infinite Earths (One of the few "comic book deaths" still standing, and one of the most memorable and noble) and because it caused chaos in a franchise than had gone forward and developed really well from his death.

Johns undid decades of Flash history and ruined good characters in order to get a personal favorite back. That was cheap. Very cheap.

I don't disagree necessarily but it was also cheap to kill off the classic Silver/Bronze Age (in other words the best known) versions of The Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Supergirl and others. I think at one point more than half of the classic JLA has "died." I wouldn't have been opposed to leaving Barry dead and untouchable because it was a special and meaningful death. But there was way too much killing of heroes between the original sin/Crisis and the 90's.

[BohemiaDrinker]

It was Ethan Van Sciver's idea and he was the main man behind it.

All Van Sciver said was that he was the guy pushing the idea to Didio. Doesn't mean he was "the man behind it", it doesn't even mean he actually "convinced" Didio (by Didio's own account, this was an end-goal from early on when he got to DC).

The creative process behind Rebirth is described in a word-baloon podcast by Van Sciver in which he describes the many phone calls between him and Johns, and most of the ideas were Johns. Johns also signed the pitch.

Van Sciver wanted to do it, yes; but there's nothing to put him as the "main man behind it.

[Bruce Wayne]

According to EVS there Didio disagreed with it at first till he wore him down.

That would contradict Didio's own statements.

http://speedforce.org/2011/07/didios-designs/

If anything the main backer for these ideas was probably Didio. He was just very subtle about it imo (like how he was subtle about disliking and eventually undermining 52).

[BohemiaDrinker]

But I think we wore him down after some time, and he began to think it was a good idea. And indeed it was.

[Somebody yells from the con floor, “No, it wasn’t!”]

Laughed hard at the bolded!

[MadFacedKid]

Sea King I got excited when I saw him on the JL Dark cover just to figure out it wasn't technically him..

The Black Lanterns who didn't get to come back sacked for me as well.

[ultradav]

Barry Allen, hands down. Because it cheapens his sacrifice at Crisis on the Infinite Earths (One of the few "comic book deaths" still standing, and one of the most memorable and noble) and because it caused chaos in a franchise than had gone forward and developed really well from his death.

Johns undid decades of Flash history and ruined good characters in order to get a personal favorite back. That was cheap. Very cheap.

I agree, it was pointless. If they were concerned about restoring the "iconic" versions, it' not like Wally's costume was drastically different, the casual reader didn't see a difference.

[godisawesome]

Yeah, Barry's return is the one I'm least satisfied with, in part because I think he'd had a strong run with a great end, his legacy was secured thanks to Wally's success in the role, and because they already had a vehicle they'd used numerous times for more Barry stories: time travel from right before he goes and dies.

Heck, I'd argue that just making it clear that Barry had squeezed in a few more years of adventures before his date with death would have been perfect for an expanded Flash family, and even better for the contrast with Thawne's Zoom. They'd be a pair of feuding time travelers whose fates were already settled; Thawne would only be able to hurt those Bary cares about, and Barrh could continue to make Thawne a secondary character in his own life story.

The current status quo really does feel like a regression; we're not going forward, and we really are just repeating some stories at were told better once before. It's the same reason why I'm not really interested in Superman's books right now, or in Batgirl, though at least the latter is trying to tread different territory for the character. Supes and Barry are stuck with authors who are likewise stuck either trying to echo the past (classic courtship stories of Lois and Iris) or deliberately invert it (try and avoid those relationships as much as possible, maybe even wreck them) and anger the crowd.

[Lightning Rider]

Supes and Barry are stuck with authors who are likewise stuck either trying to echo the past (classic courtship stories of Lois and Iris) or deliberately invert it (try and avoid those relationships as much as possible, maybe even wreck them) and anger the crowd.

Yeah, this is kind of why the reboot didn't make much sense to me from a story-telling perspective. You're either going to retread well established ground, or divert from it and make it pointless to use that character in the first place.

[hypkin]

These were two completely different concepts and characters. Zauriel as Morrison and Millar created him was their Abrahamic version of Thor. Hawkman is either some guy who is the reincarnation of a Egyptian prince or an alien space cop depending on what day it is. These were not mutually exclusive concepts.

well, morrison wanted to name zauriel hawkman sooo.... he even hoped that everyone would just call him hawkman so that editorial would then say "ok lets call him that officially"

[Outside_85]

Barry Allen's... not just because it was the end of Wally, because it more or less was since he practically vanished afterwards, but because the story just seemed to take a dump on all the other speedsters with an underlying message of: 'Barry is better than you!'

Other returns I am not terribly fond of:
Bart and Conner by Geoff Johns in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds... because both of them kinda painted the Legions as near-useless against Prime, but also because it just seemed rather anti-climactic and drawn out way to get it done; Like they got Bart by simply phoneing the Speedforce, and Superboy was miraculously just finished baking by the time all of this went down... though it didn't explain why a dead yet mostly-intact Superboy needed 1000 years to cook while a dead mostly-intact Superman only needed a number of weeks for the same.

Brightest Day: I didn't like this series as a whole, granted, but I generally didn't like the idea that all of these people came back and then had to go through a Saw-plot in order to remain alive. Add to this; was it ever explained why these people specifically were brought back? Like I could get it regarding the Martian Manhunter earning it for his long vigil and tireless service to mankind, but why Hawk? and Max Lords? What was the point of them coming back?
And just to be clear; I seriously didn't like how Hawkman and (another) Hawkgirl were brought back only for Hawkgirl to die at the end of it for no good reason. Another part I didn't like was D'Kay, not just because of the stupid name, but how random it seemed to be there was another Green Martian around that J'onn had conveniently forgotten existed... only she was Arkham levels of insane.

Raven: this is more disliked because of the reprecussions it's had for her rather than the execusion. It's fine she returned by the hands of her fathers worshippers, and her rising out of a pool of blood was very cool. But I generally dislike it because she was deaged so she'd conveniently not tower above the punk Brother Blood Johns invented for the occassion and fit in just right with the YJ generation and seemingly made everyone at DC forget that she would still mentally be the same age as Dick, Roy, Vic and the others. The other issue I've had with it is that it essentially just meant she would go through another team of Teen Titans rather than move on with her life, branch out, join other teams, meet new people. Heck I am still waiting to read about her simply teaming up with other magicans and mystics... but that seems to be impossible as long as she's stuck on Teen Titans for some reason.

Hal: It's the setup and changes it made. I may be one of the few who was and is ok with people like Hal loosing their marbles due to the insanity and consequences of leading their kind of life in that kind of world. So it's not hard to imagine I wasn't so very pleased with the invention of the Parallax-parasite and the automatic and near instant redeeming of Hal for all his actions as a crackpot, also it just seems so weird no one save the Guardians knew of Parallax's existence or any of the other entities before Rebirth... not even the Spectre bothered mentioning it, not even to Hal, despite having been with Hal for a considerable amount of time.

So perhaps I could just conclude I don't like it when Geoff Johns brings people back from the dead?

[BohemiaDrinker]

well, morrison wanted to name zauriel hawkman sooo.... "

Where did you read that? What I've read - several times, actually - was that Morrison created Zauriel because editorial didn't let him use Hawkman.

That said, Hawkman never usurped anything. He was barely in the League since Morrison left (and it's been a while), and that's also true for Zauriel.

[Agent Z]

Hippolyta due to the character derailment she suffered in Amazons Attack.

[Aahz]

Bruce Wayne I don't like Morrisons stuff and "Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne" was much wired for a Batman story.

And Damians resurrection in "Robin Rises" was also to over the Top for my taste. Wan't tha connection to Ras and Lazarus pit enough to bring him back, did they really had to bring Darkside into it?

[Doctor Bifrost]

Jason Todd. I never liked the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Jason in the first place. That whole juvenile-delinquent wow-he-has-the-stones-to-steal-the-hubcaps-off-the-Batmobile I'll-make-him-my-partner business made Batman look like an idiot, or somebody's boring uncle trying to be "hip," in my opinion.

I thought the "vote on whether he lives or dies" stunt was utterly tasteless. But if you're really going to pull a stunt like that, the least you can do is abide by the results.

And then bringing him back with a Superboy-Prime Reality Punch? Really, how much deus ex machina do we need?

I realize a lot has been done with him since then, and The New 52 Jason Todd is different. But all of this soured me even more on the character, and I've never been able to bring myself to follow his later adventures. I did pick up the first few issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws - but there they added to Jason depictions of both Roy Harper and Starfire that I quite disliked, so I dropped it. Maybe they managed to fix that all later, but they already lost me.

But that's just me.

[Aahz]

Jason Todd. I never liked the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Jason in the first place. That whole juvenile-delinquent wow-he-has-the-stones-to-steal-the-hubcaps-off-the-Batmobile I'll-make-him-my-partner business made Batman look like an idiot, or somebody's boring uncle trying to be "hip," in my opinion.

I thought the "vote on whether he lives or dies" stunt was utterly tasteless. But if you're really going to pull a stunt like that, the least you can do is abide by the results.

And then bringing him back with a Superboy-Prime Reality Punch? Really, how much deus ex machina do we need?

I realize a lot has been done with him since then, and The New 52 Jason Todd is different. But all of this soured me even more on the character, and I've never been able to bring myself to follow his later adventures. I did pick up the first few issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws - but there they added to Jason depictions of both Roy Harper and Starfire that I quite disliked, so I dropped it. Maybe they managed to fix that all later, but they already lost me.

But that's just me.

I'm also not a fan of the "Superboy-Prime Reality Punch" explanation, but Under the Hood was despite this a great story.