Remember the times when different members of the Justice League had deaths and rebirths in the DC Universe
For the 30th anniversary of The Death of Superman, DC is celebrating in the best way imaginable: by killing every member of the Justice League.
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Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Black Canary and Zatanna head into their final battle against the Dark Army, a collective of the greatest villains they’ve ever faced working alongside each other. them for the first time.
Superman
Death: Superman #75 (November, 1992)
Renaissance: Superman: The Man of Steel #25 (July, 1993)
Time he was dead: 238 days (7 months, 26 days)
Though his was the most infamous death of all, Superman’s Death is the shortest on record among the Justice League’s current roster.
Falling into a battle to the death with Doomsday, it was eventually revealed that Superman’s body had been retrieved by his Superman robots in the Fortress of Solitude and placed in a “Regeneration Matrix” designed to resurrect the newly dead.
(It was hinted that a good old-fashioned prayer by Jonathan Kent also helped bring Superman’s spirit back.)
In his absence, four claimants to the Man of Steel mantle arose, including a Kryptonian artifact known as “The Eradicator”, which had been siphoning off Superman’s own power in the Fortress while he was recovering.
wonder-woman
Death: Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 (June, 2020)
Renaissance: Wonder Woman #780 (October 2021)
Time she was dead: 483 days (1 year, 3 months, 26 days)
Diana’s trip to the other side wasn’t her first long-term death in the comics; that distinction goes to Neron, who banished Wonder Woman to Hell for three months in 1997’s Wonder Woman #124-127.
But Diana’s recent victory in Dark Nights: Death Metal granted her the opportunity to repair all of the disparate forms of the multiverse into a single cohesive continuity… at the cost of her life.
Faced with the choice of saving all versions of everyone who has ever lived or just herself, Diana made the hero’s choice. But while a coup d’état was taking place in Diana’s future life on Mount Olympus, Wonder Woman found herself on a journey through the Sphere of the Gods to correct an imbalance on a polytheistic scale.
After just over twice the duration of Superman’s most well-known death, Diana returned as champion of multiple deific pantheons to the land of the living.
Batman
Death: Final Crisis #6 (January, 2009)
Renaissance: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne (November, 2010)
time he was dead: 665 days (1 year, 9 months, 27 days)
Some say that Batman never really died in his climactic battle with Darkseid in Final Crisis #6, as he was shown to be alive but went back in time.
We have two answers to that. First, as we would soon learn, Batman was definitely dying repeatedly, only to find himself reincarnated in later eras of human history. Second, as far as the DC Universe itself was aware, Batman was dead for the entire period of his absence from time travel.
As revealed in Batman: Bruce Wayne Returns, the purpose of Darkseid’s Omega Sanction was not simply to kill Batman, but to turn him into a human reality bomb by building “Omega Energy” through each of his reincarnations until it detonates upon reaching the modern era.
The intervention of Batman’s allies in the Justice League prevented this from happening, leaving us with a living Batman in the 21st century once again.
Martian Manhunter
Death: Final Crisis #1 (May, 2008)
Renaissance: Blackest Night #8 (March, 2010)
Time he was dead: 671 Days (1 Year, 10 Months, 2 Days)
Darkseid’s most ambitious designs on Earth to date in Final Crisis began with the vanguard of his agent Libra and his own assembled Secret Society of Super-Villains, whose opening salvo against Earth’s heroes was the assassination of the League’s heart. Justice: J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter.
Years after a moving funeral, at the end of Nekron’s assault on life itself in Blackest Night, J’onn was selected by the Cosmic White Entity of life as one of twelve deceased individuals to be brought back to life as part of an intricate larger plan, to rebalance the balance between life and death. Two others appear on this list.
Aquaman
Death: Sword of Atlantis #40, (March, 2006)
Renaissance: Blackest Night #8 (March, 2010)
Time he was dead: 1491 days (4 years, 30 days)
The aftermath of Infinite Crisis brought us the mystery of “One Year Later”, a time jump that introduced a multitude of mysteries in the DC Universe that would only be revealed in due time.
In Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #40, we learn that for the past year, Arthur Curry has been missing and presumed dead. A new Aquaman, Arthur Joseph Curry, takes the place of his predecessor, who eventually offered his own life to the ancient gods of the sea to save some of the endangered lives of Sub Diego’s underwater community.
Over the next several years, a series of red herrings and forgeries would falsely herald the return of the original Aquaman, though in reality he himself had been reincarnated as a monstrous Elder God: the Dweller of the Deep. However, at the end of Blackest Night, Arthur returned as another of the twelve chosen for resurrection by the White Entity.
Green Arrow
Death: Green Arrow #101 (August, 1995)
Renaissance: Green Arrow #1 (February, 2001)
Time he was dead: 2036 days (5 years, 6 months, 25 days)
After joining an eco-terrorist group called the Eden Corps, Oliver Queen finds himself trapped on a plane with a bomb destined to destroy Metropolis.
However, at the last minute, Superman arrives to present Oliver with a difficult decision: he can go down with the plane, or he could possibly live another day, but he would lose the bow arm that had been caught up in the ruckus. An archer through and through, Oliver made the typical stubborn decision to go down with the ship.
In his absence, Oliver Queen was succeeded by his son, Connor Hawke. But Oliver was eventually brought back to life by his former best friend Hal Jordan as one of the perks of taking on a new role as the Specter after his own death.
hawkgirl
Death: Blackest Night #1 (July, 2009)
Renaissance: Dark Days: The Forge #1 (June 2017)
Time she was dead: 2891 days (7 years, 10 months, 30 days)
Hawkgirl is the only heroine who was never strictly brought back to life, at least, not as we knew her. Prophesied to die when she confessed her love to Hawkman, this complex life in Hawkwoman’s chain of reincarnation did exactly that when she was killed moments later by the undead Sue Dibny, the wife of the also undead Elongated Man. .
At the end of Blackest Night, Hawkman and Hawkgirl were among the twelve resurrected by the White Entity. But as Hawkman would eventually find out, this resurrected Hawkgirl wasn’t Kendra at all, but the previous incarnation of her, Shiera.
Kendra Saunders would remain deceased for the entirety of the pre-Flashpoint DC Universe, staying out of the New 52 era as an alternate inhabitant of Earth-2.
A couple of cosmic shakeups later, Kendra Saunders returned once more in the lead up to Dark Nights: Metal, from where she would take on a central role in the Justice League to this day.
Who have evaded death in the DC Universe?
That leaves only three members of the current Justice League who have managed to remain in the realm of the living: Black Canary, John Stewart, and Zatanna Zatara.
Black Canary
Black Canary is a curious case, in which the growing pains between eras of continuity have compounded and separated Dinah Drake and Dinah Lance, often mother and daughter, sometimes the same person.
The current Black Canary, as we understand her best, never died for any significant period of time, but her mother spent years mystically merging with her daughter or passing away before the young Canary could begin her career.
In any case, the current Black Canary as we know her has never really been dead, roughly Justice League of America #219-220 in 1983, where she was simply believed to be dead after an attack by the Wizard.
John Stewart
Unlike many of his fellow corps members, John Stewart has not yet experienced death. His predecessor, however, is another story. Hal Jordan went from September 25, 1996 to February 16, 2005 in his post-mortem run as the Spectre, between The Final Night #4 and Green Lantern: Rebirth #4 — a death that lasted 3,066 days, or 8 years, 4 months and 22 days, eclipsing even Hawkgirl’s rebirth rate.
Barry Allen was dead even longer, from Crisis on Infinite Earths to Final Crisis, but neither is currently in the League, so Barry and Hal are left out of our test group.
Zatanna
Our last Justice League member to consider is Zatanna, who has never died either. However, the same cannot be said for his father, Zatara, who died in Swamp Thing #50 on April 17, 1986 and has never returned to the mortal realm since.
We would consider this a statistical outlier, except for one thing. The same entity that killed Zatara is now facing the entire Justice League and the DC Universe as a whole: The Great Dark One.
Now back for the first time since the Swamp Thing temporarily avoided it 36 years ago, it is unknown if anyone who crosses it could suffer the same permanent fate as Zatara himself. We’ll just have to put our faith in the heroes of the Land of Darkness to come… whoever survives, that is.
(Don’t forget that The Death of the Justice League and the Dark Crisis event will soon arrive at SMASH and DC Comics Mexico. Do not detach yourself from our site and social networks where we will inform you when that event will arrive)
You can also read: The Justice League meets its death in Justice League #75
Source: DC Comics
Justice League: Darkseid’s War has arrived at SMASH and DC Comics Mexico
To prevent Earth from being collateral damage in the war of gods, the Justice League must uncover the secrets of the New Gods and reveal the truth behind the Anti-Monitor’s identity and his history with Darkseid.
SMASH and DC Comics Mexico have for you DC Essential Edition Justice League: Darkseid’s War, an unmissable volume that you must have in your collection
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