Graphic Content
By Wally Flores Jr.

While the idea that death is not permanent in the world of comics is something that is common, once in a while it just gets extremely old. After a time I expect Ultron to return and fight the Avengers, I expect Dr. Fate to find a new host and I expect the Mandarin to annoy Iron Man. I could keep going if I wanted, but I'm sure you get the point. However, there are three characters in comics that I wish would stay dead as they never seemed to propel the stories forward, and their returns are not as "rare" as the characters I mentioned before. Each seems to show up before anyone misses them, and it's almost like they're actually there to provide a target to damage or an extra body to attach a word balloon to. These characters of annoyance are: Cassandra Nova Now, please keep in mind that I'm not longer an "X-reader." Other than Astonishing X-Men I avoid all things X when I can. With that being said, I can also say that I am familiar with Cassandra Nova due to me reading a number of friend's issues of New X-Men. As I was less than impressed with Grant Morrison's work on the title I was only able to stomach a few issues. I read a bit of the Cassandra arc, had my friend try to fill in the blanks and immediately stopped him before my dislike of Morrison's run on New X-Men flowed beyond that title and started to carry over into a general dislike of Morrison's writing. I was lucky enough to avoid dealing with Cassandra Nova until Joss Whedon decided to bring her into Astonishing X-Men (much to my dislike). I was hoping it would be something of significance. Something that could make me find interest in the character. However, it turned out to be everything I had read and heard about Cassanda, which is "I want a body." Oh, yay, here we go again. Yes, Cassandra needs a body because it is SO getting in the way of her producing more trouble for the X-Men. No, she seems to do that just fine. So what is the point? In my eyes, none. Not a freaking one. I must say that it's a good thing that I probably won't be reading anything X again after Whedon is done because I'm sure they'll be pulling Cassandra right back into the fold. Henry Bendix While I originally tried to get more into the whole Stormwatch thing back when it first started, that was a time when my finances were really stretched and I had to keep my titles down to a mere handful, so new stuff like that were not an option. Now, while I'm not made out of money today (or any time recently) I did happen to get exposed to The Authority through a friend of mine (the same who exposed me to Morrison's New X-Men run) and really enjoyed the concept and characters of the team through all the various writers, artists (OK, I can't stand Frank Quitely's art), and series. The most recent series for The Authority was The Authority: Prime. Unfortunately the focus of this series was the return of Henry Bendix. This character just can't seem to stay dead. When you think you've killed him you've killed an alternate version of him, when you think you've got the real one, a new body is finishing being grown for him, when you think you've got that he jumps to a new body. For the love of all that is holy, please shelve the character for a while, a good, long while. You see, the character of Henry Bendix is supposed to be a man who has pretty much planned for any and all variables. The problem is that he doesn't plan well, so he actually keeps dying, but yet somehow he did plan for that, so he doesn't stay dead, but people find out about his return because his plans weren't perfect, so he gets slapped around and killed again, but he can figure out how to . . . Do you see where this gets annoying? I have to say that while I started out enjoying The Authority: Prime, I wasn't all that excited when it ended and I'm actually cautious as far as reading the next series The Authority in due to the likely encounter with Henry Bendix. Cyborg Superman/Hank Henshaw This character is the KING of all annoying-default-won't-stay-dead characters of ALL of my years as a comic reader. It wouldn't be as annoying if he had stayed confined to the pages of the various Superman titles, but he just had to jump into the Green Lantern series. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that he also showed up in the Green Lantern/Silver Surfer crossover. This character has been beaten, blasted and hit with nearly everything available as method of destruction (in the DC universe). Yet, he keeps coming back. There is a particle left, he downloads himself, he gets AAA to jump start him (OK, it was the Manhunters). The man is the Energizer Bunny on crack and with a much worse attitude. To make matters more obvious in regards to the character not staying dead, he himself wants to stay dead. Yes, if you actually read The Sinestro Corps War storyline in the various Green Lantern titles you can see that even this character has become tired of his own existence. Please DC, if you won't listen to my pleas then listen to the pleas of the character himself. Let . . . him . . . die! That's it for me for this month. Maybe someday in the future I'll root through all my old comics and look for characters that it would be good to bring back for at least a short run (with the obvious exception of Steve Rogers). Of course seeing as how the recent return of Mar-Vell has been handled maybe I don't want to give anyone ideas. Perhaps it is best sometimes that certain characters drop dead and stay dead.

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