Okay, here's my two cents' worth on the whole Phoenix thing. While I think the original story is one of the best I've read in the medium, I strongly dislike what has been done with it (and her) since then. Not only has Jean made (apparently) numerous trips to and from the realm beyond, but the original story was retrofitted so that it wasn't really Jean who died at all. And in the interim, a clone of Jean managed to get Scott to marry her, then dump him and seduce Alex (Remember Madeline Pryor? I thought so.) Meanwhile, we as readers had to wade through Jean's whole "I can't believe he married someone else just because he thought I was dead" phase. What tripe. I did like the 'Rachel Summers as Phoenix' storyline, though - at least up to the point when Wolverine tried to kill her. But I digress.
I guess what really bothers me about the on-again off-again Phoenix thing is how it spread to comicdom in general. I dislike how casually the writers (and bean counters, I suspect) have come to treat death.
Now we all know the First Rule of Comic Books: "If you don't see a body, he's not dead. He's in Acapulco, and he'll be back in six months." That's a comic book staple.a
This was not the same situation, though. Phoenix died, and it was not a trick, not a gimmick, not a dream sequence, not an alternate universe version, and not a 'she's only mostly dead' scenario. She really died - bravely, heroically, and for a reason. We all saw it. We watched her weigh the options and make the decision to give up her own life. She knew what she had to do to save the universe, and she made the sacrifice willingly. She chose the journey to 'the undiscovered country', knowing that she, like any other traveler, would never return. That's what makes the story so powerful.
Now, however, it seems that practically anyone in the superheroic (and supervillainous) world can get into and out of the Plutonian realm at pretty much any time they please. Hades, it seems, has called off Cerberus and installed a revolving door.
Granted, people die in the comics, always have. Normals die all the time, especially 'trained normals' (also known as agents, minions, mooks, popcorn, or redshirts). Important supporting characters (i.e., Gwen Stacy) sometimes die, too, though not nearly as often as the mooks. When a villain dies, it's usually a pretty dramatic moment, mostly because the hero has to deal with the repercussions, and that can lead to a lot of great character development.
But when a hero dies, it should be a big deal. The loss of a hero should cause other heroes to stop and examine their own lives, face their own mortality, rededicate themselves to the cause, whatever. It should mean something. Something more than an means of generating revenue, anyway.
But even when I was reading comics regularly - in the late 80's and early 90's, the dawn of the Iron Age - I could see the trend developing. There were many meaningless deaths: Doug Ramsey (Cypher), Guardian, Marrina (and they didn't even have the decency to kill her off in her own book!), the entire Morlock nation, ad nauseam. And that's a lot of why I stopped reading.
Death in the comics is no longer dramatic; it no longer really means anything. And it's sad to think that it all started with the otherwise noble and memorable death of Jean Grey.
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a It works pretty well for soap operas, too. Don't ask how I know that.
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