Marvels of MarvelHow well do you know your favorite characters from Marvel Comics? Here's everything you need to know about the heroes and villains from the pages of every group from the Avengers to the X-Men.
Vote up the Marvel characters with the most confusing comic resurrections.
The longer the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues, the more it strays from its comic book origins. Changes in character arcs for the films are often due to contracts, how long a certain actor wants to play a certain character, and other real life intrusions that don't get in the way when your characters are drawn by artists as opposed to played by people.
As a result, Marvel comics and the MCU have a different landscape of who's alive and who's dead. In the comics, some of the biggest MCU characters have actually been dead for a while. On the flip side, big MCU players who died in the films are alive and well in the comics.
One interesting difference in the comics is also the ways that characters come back to life. The MCU seems to try to stay relatively grounded, rarely straying into the strangest corners of the Marvel Universe, with the exception of the Guardians movies. The stories of many Marvel comics characters' resurrections are far weirder than one might expect to see on the big screen.
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Jane Foster Came Back Thanks To The God Tempest Trapped Inside Mjolnir After She Finally Succumbed To Cancer
How She Died: Shortly before gaining Thor's abilities, Jane Foster is diagnosed with breast cancer. Though the period of time where she acts as the Mighty Thor extends her lifespan, as a side effect, it makes her cancer worse when she returns to being a human. She learns that Mjolnir had purged her of toxins, including the chemotherapy, but left the cancer because it saw it as part of her body. By the time Jane understands this, it's too late to change it as the cancer has progressed too far, and she passes away.
How She Came Back: Immediately after Jane's death, Thor brings her body to the Moon where the rest of the Asgardians are gathered. Thor uses the power of the God Tempest, that had been previously sealed in Mjolnir, to attempt to bring Jane back to life. Having finally accepted Jane as an Asgdardian, Odin joins in, and together they are able to resurrect her.
How He Died: During the event Avengers Disassembled, a massive Kree invasion threatens Earth. As a last ditch effort to take down their battleship, Hawkeye straps on a Kree jetpack and flies into the ship and blowing it up, sacrificing himself to turn the tides.
How He Came Back: When Scarlet Witch rewrites reality during the House of M event, she brings Hawkeye back from the dead. However, Hawkeye hasn't forgiven her for causing his initial death, since her powers had orchestrated the Kree invasion. After he angrily confronts Scarlet Witch, she once again erases him from existence. However, at the conclusion of House of M, when the Marvel Universe returns to normal, Hawkeye comes back with it.
How He Died: To return Asgard to its original place in the Nine Realms, Loki enlists the Dark Avengers and H.A.M.M.E.R. to help him attack the city. Loki's plan blows up in his face when the Sentry, now fully embracing his dark side the Void, decides to destroy all of Asgard. Realizing his mistake, Loki switches sides to help the Avengers, sacrificing himself in a fight against the Void.
How He Came Back: Before the events of his death, Loki had tricked Hela into removing his name from her Book of Hel. In doing so, he ensured that if he ever died he would simply be reborn, since he could not go to the afterlife. Loki returns to life as a younger version of himself with no memories of who he was.
How He Died: During the event Other: Evolve or Die, Spider-Man is hunted down by a villain named Morlun who is obsessed with killing Spider-Totems (people like Peter Parker who have been granted spider powers). Morlun savagely beats Spider-Man, even plucking out one of his eyes and eating it, but he is chased off before finishing the job. While Peter's in the hospital, Morlun returns and finishes him off.
How He Came Back: Other: Evolve or Die reveals that Spider-Man has actually been granted powers by a strange entity known as the Great Weaver. After his death, Peter experiences visions where the Great Weaver tells him that in order to survive, he must reconcile the human and spider parts of him. When he agrees to embrace his arachnid “other," he is brought back to life with enhanced spider powers, making him a greater hero than before.
How He Died: Bucky Barnes never dies in the original run of Captain America comics. Instead, he's killed off in a retcon when Captain America came back in the 1960s. The new comics explain that Bucky had died in an explosion caused by Baron Zemo while he and Cap had been working together in World War II.
How He Came Back: While modern comic fans are well-versed in the story of Bucky Barnes, at the time of his return it was a big deal. In fact, for a long time comic fans joked that Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben are the only characters who stay dead in the Marvel Comics. Bucky broke away from that group with the reveal that he was never dead but rather kidnapped and brainwashed into becoming the deadly assassin known as the Winter Soldier. For context, Bucky's return came in a comic released in 2005, after only appearing in occasional flashback stories since 1950.
How He Died: It became clear that Marvel was building up to Stephen Strange's death when they ran an event called Death of Doctor Strange. In the book, Strange's longtime enemy Kaecilius breaks into his Sanctum and kills him, also removing his hands for good measure. Though Strange is briefly revived by a younger alternate version of himself, Death arrives and tells Strange his time has come to leave the land of the living.
How He Came Back: After Strange dies, his wife Clea takes up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. During her time in the role, she fights a group of villains called the Blasphemy Cartel who resurrect dead characters. This resurrection angers Death who sends her own hero, the Harvestman, after them. The Harvestman turns out to be Stephen Strange himself, and when he and Clea share a kiss, their bodies and souls merge into one being with enough power to defeat the Cartel. As thanks for stopping the villains, Death grants Stephen his life back, separating him and Clea back into their original bodies.
