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The end of Waid's Red Skull story dropped in May 1999 and Johns brought him back in December 2002 so there's not that big a gap between those stories, but there was also a few (or I guess kind of one messy/revamped) Red Skull story in between: 7a. Literally the month after the issue you mentioned, there is a DAWN OF M-TECH crossover in the X-Books, where SHIELD is experimenting on upgrading robot/cyborg soldiers using X-51 and Deathlok and Douglock as inspirations. It's revealed via flashback that at the end of the Captain America story he wishes himself away to Muir Island where he uses a bit of Cosmic Cube magic to control Douglock and use his Phalanx tech to commandeer a SHIELD helicarrier and carry out the transhuman experiments secretly. The X-Men and Nick Fury manage to free Warlock/X-51/Deathlok from the Red Skull, but Skull gets away with the helicarrier and hundreds of loyal androids/cyborgs. This was meant to be continued in those three character's M-TECH series but that whole thing did not last very long and I don't think Red Skull's Stolen Helicarrier full of Robotech every played a role in any of those three books' very short runs. 7b. He does show up a few months later in Claremont's Fantastic Four run in a cameo, seemingly recruiting the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android into whatever scheme he is working on, but that is never followed up on in FF either. 7c. Finally in 2001, Dan Jurgens picks the storyline back up in Captain America. All of the robot stuff is seemingly dropped, and I guess Red Skull still has Cosmic Cube powers (and some telepathic machinery on the helicarrier) and used it to bring back the disembodied soul of Adolf Hitler (which I think also got sucked into Cosmic Cubes at various points) to create a new Hate Monger and install him as "Adam Hauser", a union leader who stoked resentment among union members about illegal immigrants to power up the hate rays or whatever were on the helicarrier. But Cap gave a speech so inspiring that all of the hate-filled people on the Helicarrier stopped hating and send Adolf Hitler's soul back into space or something, and that also sucked the Cosmic Cube power out of Red Skull and Cap KO'ed him with a patriotic punch. Then he's pretty much gone outside of flashbacks for another year or so and returns AS DELL RUSK.
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Oct 6, 2025 04:32
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"Dell Rusk"... incredible
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Oct 6, 2025 06:17
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That is some Alucard-level poo poo and no mistake
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Oct 6, 2025 07:24
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20 years later, I'm still embarrassed at not picking up on that.
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Oct 6, 2025 13:19
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I remember the Skull stealing the helicarrier was in the middle of a whole pack of SHIELD helicarriers getting stolen and/or crashed every other month to show how serious the threat is. The SHIELD budget must have been absurd...
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Oct 6, 2025 16:55
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The second I saw the helicarrier in the Avengers movie, I thought, "That fucker is crashing."
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Oct 7, 2025 12:40
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After Red Skull stole and self implanted Xavier's brain (man, I love comics sometimes) to do the whole everyone is Hydra event, how did Xavier get his brain back (before Krakoa). Was it all hand-waved away via cosmic cube?
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Oct 7, 2025 16:36
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Vincent posted:After Red Skull stole and self implanted Xavier's brain (man, I love comics sometimes) to do the whole everyone is Hydra event, how did Xavier get his brain back (before Krakoa). Was it all hand-waved away via cosmic cube? Didn't they like put his brain in Fantomax's body or something?
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Oct 7, 2025 16:42
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Vincent posted:After Red Skull stole and self implanted Xavier's brain (man, I love comics sometimes) to do the whole everyone is Hydra event, how did Xavier get his brain back (before Krakoa). Was it all hand-waved away via cosmic cube? Xavier came back to life in the body of Fantomex IIRC, while the brain part in Red Skull was eventually removed and destroyed.
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Oct 7, 2025 16:43
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How many X-Men have never been dead at one point or another? I know you can say that about any superheroes, but for some reason I feel like X-Men die way more often.
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Oct 7, 2025 18:11
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Splint Chesthair posted:How many X-Men have never been dead at one point or another? In the Marvel universe the answer is "none" because the entire universe has been obliterated and brought back multiple times. There's at least one book where everyone but Iceman dies and Iceman himself has certainly died more than once.
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Oct 7, 2025 18:18
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I've heard that Storm has never died canonically.* *obviously, in the main universe, not in any alternate realities.
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Oct 7, 2025 18:33
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Uthor posted:I've heard that Storm has never died canonically.* She died in the Fall of the Mutants but everyone came back to life super quickly there. I'm pretty sure she didn't survive the Infinity Gauntlet but, again, comes back to life quickly.
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Oct 7, 2025 18:37
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Splint Chesthair posted:How many X-Men have never been dead at one point or another? Does this include things like Jean Grey where they clearly die but then another writer contrives to have had them actually be alive the whole time?
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Oct 7, 2025 18:37
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I AM GRANDO posted:Does this include things like Jean Grey where they clearly die but then another writer contrives to have had them actually be alive the whole time?
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Oct 7, 2025 20:52
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I AM GRANDO posted:Does this include things like Jean Grey where they clearly die but then another writer contrives to have had them actually be alive the whole time? I would count that as Jean being dead, yeah. Same with everyone who was dead and brought back in Infinity Gauntlet. How they were brought back doesn’t matter, just that they were considered dead at one point. Edit: To make things more confusing, I don’t consider incursions or Battleworld or things where the entire Marvel universe is erased and reborn as “death” for a single character. They have to be dead while other characters are still alive. Splint Chesthair fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Oct 7, 2025 |
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Oct 7, 2025 22:27
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CapnAndy posted:Jean and Scarlet Witch are tricky, because they both treat death as just a state change where things are different for a bit and they know the whole time they'll come back eventually because they literally have to. My very first issue of X-Men was Uncanny X-Men 281. I was so pumped that I got an issue where a main character died, figured it would be worth a ton. Jean "died" and then transferred her consciousness to Emma Frost, which of course went back to status quo pretty quick
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Oct 7, 2025 23:05
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Splint Chesthair posted:How many X-Men have never been dead at one point or another? I think every X-Man has died, especially after they introduced resurrection on Krakoa. I think maybe you might find one character that is newer and semi-popular enough to get used some, but not enough to be in a major story showing their death. So I'm thinking that your best choice from that group might be Armor?
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Oct 7, 2025 23:19
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Codependent Poster posted:I think every X-Man has died, especially after they introduced resurrection on Krakoa. I think maybe you might find one character that is newer and semi-popular enough to get used some, but not enough to be in a major story showing their death. Krakoa makes things so much more difficult certainly. I was scrolling through the list of X-Men for a bit and thought Kitty might be a safe pick for never having died (she was always still alive inside the bullet) but then of course she has a big storyline about it in Marauders. I think Jubilee might have never died, depending on how dead you consider being a vampire to be. She's the highest profile character I can see.
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Oct 8, 2025 00:01
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Pretty much all of them were dead for DoFP.
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Oct 8, 2025 01:15
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Alternate timelines shouldn’t count
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Oct 8, 2025 01:20
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Edge & Christian posted:YEP THERE WAS MORE Of course. I know any type of character consistency is pure accident in the world of comics (how many villains have had multiple 'THIS IS WHAT MY EXISTENCE WAS LEADING UP TO ALL ALONG' plans across their fictional history? Or another good example is in Thor, Ragnarok happened...and then it got undone...and then it happened again...and then it got undone again...and finally some writer said there was a 'Ragnarok cycle' that fed evil superer gods called Those Who Sit Above In Shadow fed on but Thor broke it so now there will either never again be a Ragnarok or the next Ragnarok will actually be the final, true, it's all over one. Until some writer does it and another one wants to write their Thor stories, anyway. My point being, it did seem a little odd to go from "I was almost a god and could work my evils on all reality drat IT THWARTED AT THE LAST SECOND" to "Well this whole setup of power I could claim which is several magnitudes lower than my last thwarted plan is fine too." Having stuff happen and 'more failed plans' in between makes it flow better, in some ways.
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Oct 8, 2025 01:31
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ImpAtom posted:She died in the Fall of the Mutants but everyone came back to life super quickly there. I'm pretty sure she didn't survive the Infinity Gauntlet but, again, comes back to life quickly. The main X-Men that ended up in Australia after Fall of the Mutants didn't die in that arc, a magic spell was cast to make it appear like they died and then they were also immune to like CCTV cameras registering them IIRC. So most everyone thought they were dead, but they weren't actually dead. But also, there's an early Dr Strange story that predates that where Eternity gets so fed up with Dr Strange's bullshit (it was some serious bullshit, like an 8 issue arc of "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" I don't actually blame Eternity) and they blow up Earth and Strange convinces them to recreate it but I think that predates Giant Size X-Men #1, so I wouldn't count it for characters that didn't exist before then. And then anyone not on the raft in Hickman's Secret Wars was eliminated and I think Scott was the only mutant on there and he actually dies in that storyline later. In Dawn of X, before we knew about the resurrection protocols they show the X-Men going on a suicide mission to blow up a space station, I don't remember if Storm was on that mission though. And then when she became Queen of Mars or whatever in X-Men: Red she removed herself from the resurrection protocols, so depending on how strict you want to be about what counts as death. Most other X-Man I can think of there's a period of time where at least several issues went by where we thought they were dead. I don't think Jubilee died unless you count when she was undead, not Rockslide himself, but I think some of the kids from that generation never died on panel. There was a good twitter thread that was just panels of X-Men talking about how often they die and come back.
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Oct 8, 2025 01:41
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Air Skwirl posted:In Dawn of X, before we knew about the resurrection protocols they show the X-Men going on a suicide mission to blow up a space station, I don't remember if Storm was on that mission though. And then when she became Queen of Mars or whatever in X-Men: Red she removed herself from the resurrection protocols, so depending on how strict you want to be about what counts as death. No, she specifically never died in Dawn of X. And never on Mars. She did go into the afterlife, but by choice to get Magneto and came back just fine.
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Oct 8, 2025 01:55
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Air Skwirl posted:The main X-Men that ended up in Australia after Fall of the Mutants didn't die in that arc, a magic spell was cast to make it appear like they died and then they were also immune to like CCTV cameras registering them IIRC. So most everyone thought they were dead, but they weren't actually dead. No, Forge explicitly sacrifices them to power the spell that hurdles the Adversary away. They are dead dead. And then one page later Roma who's effectively a god shows up and resurrects them, but they were still dead in the meantime.
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Oct 8, 2025 02:13
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The big plot point in Hickman's series of Giant Size one shots was that Storm had never died before, was dying, and was going to fight to survive despite everyone telling her that she should just die so they can bring her right back on Krakoa. It's a good story, and you get a great issue where Hickman and Dauterman are doing a callback to Morrison and Quitely's psychic rescue issue.
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Oct 8, 2025 02:34
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CapnAndy posted:Alternate timelines shouldn’t count
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Oct 8, 2025 06:48
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CapnAndy posted:Jean and Scarlet Witch are tricky, because they both treat death as just a state change where things are different for a bit and they know the whole time they'll come back eventually because they literally have to. I think they mean the original time she died, which was definitely meant to be Actually Dead. IIRC there was even an edict from editorial that she couldn't be brought back on account of the whole "devoured an entire inhabited star system" thing. Of course, later writers then got around that by retconning in the Phoenix Force and explaining that, no, Jean Grey was having a nap on the seafloor when that all went down, it was actually done by an amoral cosmic power wearing her face.
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Oct 8, 2025 16:34
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Rochallor posted:Krakoa makes things so much more difficult certainly. I was scrolling through the list of X-Men for a bit and thought Kitty might be a safe pick for never having died (she was always still alive inside the bullet) but then of course she has a big storyline about it in Marauders. How is Jubilee a vampire? Does she still do the sparkly bolts form her hands?
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Oct 8, 2025 17:19
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bessantj posted:How is Jubilee a vampire? Does she still do the sparkly bolts form her hands? Jubilee lost her powers when Scarlet Witch went No More Mutants -> She became a vampire -> For a good long time she was just a vampire with a magic medallion that let her walk in sunlight -> Quentin Quire saved her from burning up in the sunlight by sacrificing the piece of the Phoenix Force he had, which brought her back to life and also gave her her powers back,
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Oct 8, 2025 17:23
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ImpAtom posted:Jubilee lost her powers when Scarlet Witch went No More Mutants -> She became a vampire -> For a good long time she was just a vampire with a magic medallion that let her walk in sunlight -> Quentin Quire saved her from burning up in the sunlight by sacrificing the piece of the Phoenix Force he had, which brought her back to life and also gave her her powers back, Thank you. That seems a pretty reasonable path for that whole thing to take when it comes to comics. But ImpAtom posted:the piece of the Phoenix Force How can you have a piece of the Phoenix Force? Isn't the Phoenix some galactic entity? Or is there something else called Phoenix Force? I'm only on the early 90s of my Marvel read through at the moment.
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Oct 8, 2025 17:28
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bessantj posted:Thank you. That seems a pretty reasonable path for that whole thing to take when it comes to comics. But The Phoenix basically let him take a small portion of its powers as a result of a load of poo poo I can't fully remember right now.
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Oct 8, 2025 17:30
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ImpAtom posted:The Phoenix basically let him take a small portion of its powers as a result of a load of poo poo I can't fully remember right now. Probably for the best you don't remember. Thanks.
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Oct 8, 2025 17:55
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bessantj posted:Thank you. That seems a pretty reasonable path for that whole thing to take when it comes to comics. But It very much depends on the writer. Like technically the original Rachel Summers became the galactic entity, Phoenix Force, because it noped out of being sentient anymore…but like less than 5 years later the force left her in the future. Even though she is just the Phoenix force. And might be the biological child of the Phoenix force since in her timeline it would not have been Jean Grey who gave birth to her (there is a What If that plays with this). Except that it was stated there is only one Phoenix force anywhere in the multiverse at the same time and it only existed in 616 again according to Excalibur. This is all early to mid 90s, they basically change the Phoenix every 5 years and even Claremont contradicts himself.
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Oct 8, 2025 18:44
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I think currently the Phoenix is tied to the White Hot Room which like, exists everywhere but also outside of time and space. So that explains how there can only be one source of the Phoenix and its powers.
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Oct 9, 2025 05:16
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The phoenix force is definitely one of those "don't think about it" things in comics. It's a confluence of "important enough that everyone wants to do something with it" and "vague enough that people do whatever they want". Also being tied up with X-Men is a huge multiplier for continuity problems.
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Oct 9, 2025 13:24
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Rick posted:It very much depends on the writer. I didn't know that Rachel was so tied to it in that way. Codependent Poster posted:I think currently the Phoenix is tied to the White Hot Room which like, exists everywhere but also outside of time and space. So that explains how there can only be one source of the Phoenix and its powers. The White Hot Room? Random Stranger posted:The phoenix force is definitely one of those "don't think about it" things in comics. It's a confluence of "important enough that everyone wants to do something with it" and "vague enough that people do whatever they want". Also being tied up with X-Men is a huge multiplier for continuity problems. I'm beginning to see that now.
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Oct 9, 2025 18:58
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bessantj posted:I didn't know that Rachel was so tied to it in that way. The WHR is where The Phoenix Force goes to recoup/chill between showings. It's also where its former/current/future avatars chill out.
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Oct 9, 2025 20:37
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To me that is always one of the biggest bummers in comics is Alan Davis powered her up at the end of his Excalibur run and it looked like we were about to get a whirlwind of shenanigans with an Excalibur team that had like 20 people on it…and next issue Davis had left the book, and nearly everyone left the team off screen but like 3 people and then a few issues later Rachel was sucked into the future and replaced with Britanic, the grimdark Captain Britain. That is how I learned your favorite comic can start to suck.
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Oct 9, 2025 23:07
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