By the end of the month, one of the most popular characters in Marvel Comics history, Wolverine, will be killed off as part of The Death of Wolverine event. While killing off a major comic book character is not an unusual thing to do these days, I thought I would look through the medium’s history and rank the 10 most important deaths. These are the deaths that have defined stories and characters for decades. Did I leave anybody off the list?
Mark Ginocchio is a professional writer and editor living in Brooklyn, NY. He's been collecting Amazing Spider-Man comic books since the late-1980s and launched Chasing Amazing in 2011 as a way to tell his story about Spider-Man, comics, collecting and everything else in-between. You also find Mark's writing at Comics Should Be Good at Comic Book Resources, WhatCulture.com and Longbox Graveyard. Follow him on Twitter for comic book chat @ChasingASMBlog.
Good list, but I don’t agree with your final 2.I take your point that their deaths have been well catalogued across the media. But the death of uncle Ben is the central motif that sets up everything that makes Spider-man the hero that he is and this is established from the get go. Bruce Wayne’s parents aren’t even introduced until issue 33 of detective comics. And still the death of Bruce’s parents only serve to function as the tried and catalyst of outside influence drives hero’s actions, when you compare this to Peter’s self inflicted origin and how perfectly that sets up everything you need for the character I don’t see how this can’t be the most important death in comics. Or at least the most perfectly crafted. Then again maybe I’m just biased.