Lorendiac
04-10-2006, 10:20 PM
Table of Contents
1. Introductory Comments and Ground Rules
2. The X-Men Fatality Timeline (3rd Draft)
3. Grand Totals for the Top-Scoring X-Men
1. Introductory Comments and Ground Rules
People occasionally complain that death in the X-Men titles has become a bad joke. By “occasionally,” I mean such complaints can only be heard about 99.9% of the time. After all, every once in awhile the people who love to complain about this all have to stop for breath at the same time! http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
I finally decided it was time to measure the exact size of the problem, by putting together a comprehensive list of X-Men Deaths (and Returns). As far as I know, no one else has ever tried to list them all at once, in the same document, complete with specific issue numbers.
How to Qualify for My List
1. You have to be an X-Man for your “death” or later “return from the dead” to qualify for this Timeline. Just being a friend, family member, lover, longtime enemy, or clone of one or more of the X-Men doesn’t get you in the door.
In preparation for this Third Draft, I finally took the plunge and bought a copy of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: X-Men 2005. (Hereafter referred to as OHOTMU: X-Men 2005 for short.) At the back, it has a Roster of everyone who’s ever been an X-Man. The main roster runs to 52 characters; as well as smaller listings of names of participants in seven groupings which it terms “Ad Hoc X-Men Rosters.”
At the moment, I am inclined to believe that all 52 of the names on the main Roster are or have been X-Men, and probably most of the “Ad Hoc” groups as well.
One place where I definitely disagree with OHOTMU: X-Men 2005 is the validity of what it calls “The Muir Isle X-Men.” I recently looked through UXM #254 and UXM #255 again to double-check my memory. And it still seems to me that when Amanda Sefton, Alysande Stuart, and various other characters were putting on gold-and-black X-Men suits to wear while fighting the Reavers, they never expressed any belief that they were thereby becoming any sort of “X-Men” themselves; not even on a “temporary” or “honorary” basis.
The principal reason for dressing up that way appeared to be that several of the newest version of the suits were already right there on the island, and were conveniently bulletproof. If I were about to face an invasion of killer cyborgs, I’d hastily don any bulletproof body armor that happened to be readily available, too! I wouldn’t care if it looked like an X-Men “uniform” or not; I’d only care about my chances of personal survival http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
2. If you died before you ever became an X-Man, I don’t care about that. For instance, Emma Frost was supposed to have died during the Dark Phoenix Saga. At that time, she was not and never had been an X-Man. Therefore, this Timeline does not include a listing for her first reported death.
3. The death must have occurred “in continuity,” regarding someone who had actually been an X-Man “in the regular continuity” prior to the time of death.
For instance, deaths that happen in the ongoing Exiles series generally won’t count, because most of the characters who appear in that series are natives of alternate timelines, even if they strongly resemble their counterparts from 616. Likewise, deaths that occurred in the miniseries Marvel: The End (written by Jim Starlin) won’t count, because I have confirmed that Tom Brevoort of Marvel has repeatedly said that this miniseries is not “in canon,” i.e. not part of what I would call the “regular continuity.”
NOTE: After feedback from various readers of the First Draft, I am provisionally counting X-Men Annual #10 as the time when a bunch of the New Mutants "graduated," more or less, up to "X-Men" status. (Although they continued working separately and calling themselves "New Mutants" after that time.) This means that any member of the group, as it existed in that Annual, who later died, qualifies for this Timeline. (Until such time as someone persuades me otherwise, anyway.)
Definition of “Death”
I’m taking a fairly liberal definition of “death.”
1. If the character was definitely, undeniably dead, with a recognizable corpse, then I count that.
2. If the character certainly seemed to have just died, but the corpse was in such lousy shape it couldn’t be identified (or disintegrated, or something) then I’ll count that.
3. If other X-Men sincerely believed the person was dead, and this belief lasted significantly longer than, say, five minutes, then I’ll count that even if the alert reader knew, or had reason to suspect, that they were wrong.
Someone reminded me of the time in the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga when one issue ended with other X-Men looking at Cyclops, who had just collapsed on the floor after a mental duel with Mastermind, and Nightcrawler said in horror, “Cyclops – is dead!” On the first page of the following issue, Nightcrawler changed his tune and said, “Storm! Colossus! Look! Cyclops is alive!”
To me, this is a perfect example of the sort of thing I don’t need to count on my Timeline. From the viewpoint of a fan buying the title as each issue first came out, that cliffhanger dragged out for a month between installments. But from the point of view of the X-Men, Nightcrawler simply leaped to the wrong conclusion (in order to create a cliffhanger) and, just a minute later, realized he’d been dead wrong.
(However, if Nightcrawler had actually checked for a pulse and failed to find one, that would strengthen the idea that he had good reason to think Scott was “really” dead, at least for a moment, and I would count it after all even if a little CPR had quickly brought Scott back to the land of the living. But just looking at a guy who fell down on the floor, and pronouncing him dead on the spur of the moment without even touching him, strikes me as too flimsy to be taken seriously.)
4. I’m trying to report each case “straight” – if readers were meant to think a character was dead at the time, and other X-Men shared that impression, then in the listing for that event, I generally just describe it as “that person died.” If there were later retcons, I usually deal with those separately, in listings for the issues in which we started to find out what had “really” happened – such as an impostor dying instead of the character we had thought died at the time
5. At this time: If a person’s “mind,” “spirit,” “soul,” or whatever ended up separated from its proper body for more than a couple of seconds, I’m willing to count that as a death. Even if the mind simply got “switched” into someone else’s body instead of becoming an intangible ghost.
And now, let’s move on the main event!
NOTE: I generally abbreviate "Uncanny X-Men" as "UXM."
2. THE X-MEN FATALITY TIMELINE (THIRD DRAFT)
1968. X-Men #42. Written by Roy Thomas.
Professor X dies fighting Grotesk. He is critically injured when Grotesk’s equipment explodes, and, going for the extra point, gasps out to his loyal X-Men that he had already known he was dying from an incurable disease, anyway!
The text on the cover includes this stirring promise: “Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale! This is for real!”
(It somehow fails to offer us a nice price on the Brooklyn Bridge.)
1970. X-Men #65. Written by Denny O’Neil.
Professor X returns. Which isn’t too difficult, from his point of view, since he was never dead and buried to begin with! Someone else was in the coffin at the funeral! As a retcon, we are now told that it was actually Changeling (formerly a villain) who died. For some reason, Professor X had given Changeling telepathic powers and then told him to take Xavier’s shape and fill his shoes with the X-Men, without bothering to bring the X-Men (except for Jean Grey?) up to speed on this “clever plan.” The Professor was going to be occupied with getting ready for a big showdown with an alien invasion when it showed up (as it did in this issue).
1973. The Incredible Hulk #161. Written by Steve Englehart.
Calvin Rankin, Mimic, dies after absorbing a great deal of radiation from the Hulk’s body. He did this deliberately, in the end, because his power to suck energy out of other people was increasing in range and he might eventually end up killing people without even trying. (Reminiscent of Superman’s enemy The Parasite.)
1974. Marvel Two-In-One #7. Written by Steve Gerber.
Most of the Marvel Universe is wiped out when someone blows into a magic harmonica. We are told that the sole survivors, for the moment, are a mere five characters (none of them X-Men).
Implicitly, this includes everyone who is or ever has been an X-Man up through this moment in Marvel continuity. I believe that would include the following (in alphabetical order): Angel, Beast, Changeling, Cyclops, Havok, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Mimic, Polaris, Professor X.
Later in this issue: Everything gets restored when someone else blows into the magic harmonica! Naturally, this blanket restoration includes all the X-Men I listed in the previous paragraph.
1975. UXM #95. Written by Chris Claremont.
Thunderbird I (John Proudstar) dies.
1975. Doctor Strange #12. Written by Steve Englehart.
On the final page, the world is destroyed. “Planet Earth is rent by one, then a series, of monumental blasts! It -- and all its children -- are cinders and dust in less than eight minutes!
Make no mistake! This . . . was . . . the real Earth!”
Although we never specifically see any of them in this storyline, this would implicitly include anyone who, as of the very end of 1975, when this was published, was or ever had been an X-Man. So long, folks, it was nice knowing you! At this moment in time, the casualty list would logically include Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast, Marvel Girl, Mimic, Changeling (except he was already dead and still is), Polaris, Havok, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Banshee, Storm, Sunfire, Colossus, and Thunderbird I (except he was probably already dead by this time as well, if I have the scheduling straight).
1976. Doctor Strange #13. Written by Steve Englehart.
On the next-to-last page of the story, Eternity recreates the Earth from scratch, good as new, and watches everything evolve and change “with the speed of thought” until it ends up exactly the way it was right before it got devastated an issue earlier!
Implicitly, all those X-Men who died last issue are now fit and fine with no knowledge that they were ever gone! (Or newly created exact replicas of the originals are fit and fine, anyway. Or something like that.) I won’t type out the full list again; just glance back at the entry immediately above! http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
NOTE: I believe dialogue in a later issue of Doctor Strange either stated or implied that all of the above had been smoke and mirrors and probably never really happened, but I could be wrong and I was not able to find the story I’m thinking of in my collection just now. If I do find it, I’ll be sure to include more details in a subsequent Draft of this Timeline.
1978. UXM #113. Written by Chris Claremont.
When the X-Men break out of Magneto's underground lair in Antarctica, they are separated. As a result, for a long time after this story (twelve issues), the larger group thinks Phoenix (Jean Grey) and Beast must have died. Jean and Beast assume the same thing is true regarding the members of the other group: Banshee, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Storm.
The reader knows that both groups survived, however.
NOTE: In a later issue, Jean and Hank make it back to the X-Mansion and tell Professor X that the rest of the X-Men are absolutely, positively dead. As a result, he leaves Earth for awhile, now that so many of his students have gotten themselves killed and there's no longer an X-Men team that might need his continued guidance.
1979. UXM #125. Written by Chris Claremont.
When the Beast enters the X-Mansion and meets the larger group that got separated from Jean and himself 12 issues earlier, everybody realizes everybody else has been alive all this time. (Actually, Jean and Havok on Muir Island apparently don't get the word until the next issue, but I won't bother giving that a separate entry.)
1980. UXM #137. Written by Chris Claremont.
Jean Grey, AKA Marvel Girl, AKA Phoenix, AKA The Black Queen, AKA Dark Phoenix, dies in the concluding chapter of what later became known as the Dark Phoenix Saga. It looks as if she telekinetically triggered an alien energy weapon to blast herself before she could relapse into the insanity of the Dark Phoenix. Her funeral occurs in the following issue.
1980. Uncanny X-Men Annual #4. Written by Chris Claremont.
During a surprise birthday party for Nightcrawler (he's 21 today), the other X-Men are horrified as he opens a mysterious gift which contains a crystal figure (of himself) which then shatters and emits a dark cloud into his face -- with the result that poor Kurt keels over. His friends rush him to the mansion's medical lab. No heartbeat, no respiration. Xavier and Storm examine him with whatever hi-tech doodads they have handy . . . and still come up with no signs of life. Xavier also checks telepathically and finds no trace of Kurt's mind lingering in his body. That boy is dead, dead, dead. Although none of the X-Men can figure out why.
Then Dr. Strange comes knocking on the door and it turns out things aren't so hopeless after all. He quickly determines that the actual problem is that Kurt's soul has been stolen. If they can get the soul back, everything will be fine. It had been stolen by Margali Szardos, Kurt's foster mother. By the end of the story, the problem has been fixed.
1983. UXM #167. Written by Chris Claremont.
Professor X’s body has been previously infected with a Brood egg, and his body now is transformed into a Brood Queen. So as far as his original body is concerned, the Professor has essentially “died.”
Fortunately, Shi’ar technology is equal to the challenge of transferring his mind to a clone-body which does not suffer from the crippling injuries experienced by the original body many years earlier.
1984. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11. Written by Jim Shooter.
Doctor Doom, possessed of the power of the Beyonder, blasts at the assembled heroes on the war world of the Secret Wars. From comments made in #12, we gather that this should have involved killing all members of the X-Men who participated in that miniseries. In alphabetical order: Colossus, Cyclops, Lockheed, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine.
1985. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12. Written by Jim Shooter.
They’re back! Colossus, Cyclops, Lockheed, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine! Good as new!
Thank Doctor Doom’s mood swings, the Beyonder’s manipulations, an alien healer girl named Zsaji who died, and the wonders of superduper futuristic technology.
1985. Fantastic Four #286. Written by John Byrne (or I think that’s what the credits said – I’ve also seen an assertion that Chris Claremont was brought in to “revise” some of the dialogue at the last minute, uncredited, for some reason).
Jean Grey, long presumed dead until this issue, emerges from a “survival pod” which had just recently been found over in Avengers #263. It turns out she is not the same “Jean Grey” who went nuts and wiped out a star, complete with billions of sentient residents of one of its planets, during the Dark Phoenix Saga. That Phoenix/Dark Phoenix character was actually a psychotic alien entity, a physical manifestation of the Phoenix Force which (for its own reasons) had tucked Jean away in suspended animation way back around UXM #101 and turned itself into a perfect duplicate of her, so that even Professor Xavier couldn't tell the difference.
1986. Uncanny X-Men #207. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rachel Summers (Phoenix) is about to kill Selene, the current Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Wolverine tells her to back off. She doesn’t. Wolverine shoves his claws through her heart and lungs, apparently working on the theory that it’s better for him to kill a friend than it is for his friend to hunt down and kill an evil enemy after capturing her. (In the following issue, other X-Men seem very unhappy with Wolverine’s decision, but they don’t actually do anything about it. Such as threatening to expel him from the group for instance.)
We also will learn in the following issue that Rachel is still alive – just barely – thanks to the heavy use of telekinesis to hold things together so she doesn’t bleed to death. However, if I have the timing right, she has not yet healed from her wounds the next time the X-Men see her, so a death in the near future remains a very strong possibility if anything goes wrong. Then she vanishes from their ken and ends up on Mojoworld for awhile. As far as they know, she could have quietly bled to death in a dark alley somewhere. I’m counting this one as a “death,” in large part because of some dialogue in Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn. (Which will have its own listing below.)
1987. X-Men Annual #11. Written by Chris Claremont.
Wolverine gets his heart ripped out, which would normally mean that a character was dead, even when that character is Logan. However, one drop of his blood falls on an alien god-gem thingie, which conveniently goes into third gear and restores Wolverine, alive and well, from that single drop of blood.
1987. X-Factor #15. Written by Louise Simonson.
Angel, unhappy after the amputation of his wings, gets in a plane and takes off. The plane explodes, leaving his friends to assume he committed suicide rather than live without his wings.
1988. Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn. (Graphic novel.) Written by Chris Claremont.
Rachel Summers (Phoenix) is back, from the perspective of other X-Men who had apparently long since lost hope of ever seeing her again.
Nightcrawler, apparently speaking for both himself and Kitty Pryde (who is standing right beside him at this moment), and probably for a bunch of other X-Men who aren’t present, says to Rachel, “We believed you dead.” As the three of them go into a group hug, Rachel says (inevitably, I felt): “You forget, fuzzy-elf . . . I’m Phoenix. If I die, it’s only to be reborn . . . hopefully better and brighter than before.”
Kurt’s comment is my primary reason for listing Wolverine’s stabbing of Rachel, and the aftermath, as a “death” inasmuch as the X-Men apparently ended up feeling strongly that Rachel would have reestablished contact with them had she still been alive and able to do so.
1988. X-Factor #24. Written by Louise Simonson.
Angel is back as "Death" of the "Four Horsemen of Apocalypse," actually brainwashed to serve the villain Apocalypse. Naturally, we will later see him recover his free will, etc., and take on the new alias of Archangel.
1988. New Mutants 60. Written by Louise Simonson.
Cypher (Doug Ramsey) dies after being shot by the Ani-Mator. He deliberately took the bullet when he saw the Ani-Mator was aiming at Wolfsbane.
1988. UXM #227. Written by Chris Claremont.
The concluding chapter of the Uncanny X-Men’s share of the “Fall of the Mutants” event. Claremont apparently decided to go for the all-time record and kill off at least eight X-Men, and one woman who was arguably affiliated with them despite the lack (we thought at the time!) of mutant powers, in a Nine-For-The-Price-Of-One Death Scene!
In alphabetical order, the following characters voluntarily sacrifice their lives in order to power up a special magic spell cast by Forge: Colossus, Dazzler, Havok, Longshot, Madelyne Pryor, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine. For my purposes, I count this as the moment when Madelyne Pryor effectively became a member of the X-Men team.
Later in the same issue: The nine characters I just mentioned are miraculously raised from the dead by the great sorceress, Roma. The only faster X-Men resurrection that I can think of, offhand, was that stunt with a drop of Wolverine’s blood falling on that god-gem.
1988. X-Factor #38. Written by Louise Simonson. Part of the "Inferno" crossover.
Madelyne Pryor, wife of Cyclops, now calling herself the Goblyn Queen, also now revealed as a clone of Jean Grey, created by Mister Sinister way back when, kills herself after ranting about her entire Secret Origin, etc., to tie up some loose ends.
1989. X-Men Annual #13. Written by Terry Austin.
As the story starts, Diamondback (not an X-Man) and Dazzler have already been mind-swapped, each personality ending up in the other woman’s body. We see how this happened in flashback. By the end of the story, they’re both back to normal.
I’m currently working on the theory that if the character’s mind gets separated from its proper body for a significant length of time, this pretty much qualifies as a “death” even if the mind takes up residence in a different body instead of becoming a ghost, and even if the body still has a pulse. Hence this story qualifies.
1989. UXM #247. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rogue and Master Mold get knocked through the Siege Perilous and vanish from mortal ken (the Siege Perilous was previously provided to the X-Men by Roma after she resurrected a bunch of them). As near as I can recall, the other X-Men subsequently react as if Rogue has “died.” In the sense that her body probably no longer existed anywhere in Timeline 616 until such time as the Siege Perilous gave her a second chance on her life, I suppose they had a point. The copy of Carol Danvers's personality that was sharing space with Rogue inside her skull also gets knocked through the Siege Perilous as part of a package deal. This may count as an additional "death," depending upon how you feel about carbon copies of someone else's personality as "living entities" in their own right?
1989. UXM #248. Written by Chris Claremont.
Storm dies. There is a perfectly identifiable corpse left behind in the wreckage of villain Nanny’s airship after a dazed and confused Havok blasts it out of the sky. What more proof could you want?
1989. UXM #251. Written by Chris Claremont.
In a “Fever Dream” flashback possibly connected with Gateway’s access to dreamtime (or not?), a captive Wolverine “watches” something that apparently “really happened” at their Australian base some days earlier, well before he had returned to base from personal business elsewhere – and promptly got ambushed by the Reavers. In the “vision” that he sees: Psylocke uses her telepathy to “encourage” Havok, Dazzler, and Colossus to go through the Siege Perilous, and then follows them herself. Her apparent motive was that otherwise all four of them would get skragged by the Reavers, who were fast approaching – according to a possibly “prophetic” vision which Psylocke, in turn, had experienced in the previous issue. (Was all that clear as mud?)
[Score card: At this point, Storm is dead (everybody thinks), and five other X-Men – Rogue, Psylocke, Havok, Colossus, and Dazzler – have all passed through the Siege Perilous recently, which is supposed to be very nearly the same thing as dying in anticipation of possible rebirth. Thoroughly confusing the issue: At this time, and for quite some time thereafter, most of the other people in the Marvel Universe (including some former X-Men and many other friends and relatives of the missing ones) still firmly believed that a group of eight X-Men had “really died” in Dallas back in UXM #227, being totally unaware of a) the resurrection and b) the Siege Perilous thing.]
1989. UXM #253. Written by Chris Claremont.
Storm is back! Albeit in the body of a young girl, and apparently with her memory also regressed back to her days as a child thief in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, with no recollection of the X-Men at all. For some reason, she has ended up in Cairo, Illinois.
(About a year later, it will finally be explained to us that Storm never actually “died” in the first place. A S.H.I.E.L.D. LMD (Life Model Decoy) “died” in her stead. Nanny just loves playing her little mind games.)
1989. UXM #255 Written by Chris Claremont.
Psylocke is back, totally amnesiac (we are told).
Roma, or whoever passes judgment on the souls that wander through the Siege Perilous, apparently thought it would be a very uplifting and appropriate experience for her to lose her conscious memories and fall into the clutches of the ninja outfit known as The Hand (the same outfit that trained Elektra, back in the day) so that they could change her to look rather Asian (but keeping the purple hair) and brainwash her to be a loyal telepathic ninja assassin who just happened to be loyal first and foremost to Iron Man’s old sparring partner, The Mandarin. (No, I don’t quite follow the Siege Perilous’s “logic” on this point, either!)
1989. UXM #259. Written by Chris Claremont.
Colossus is back, totally amnesiac, except for having a vague idea that his name is “Peter Nicholas.” (Actually the Anglicized version of part of his name.) He is considerably luckier than Psylocke in the resurrection sweepstakes, however. He ends up in the SoHo apartment of a couple of friends from a previous adventure, although he doesn’t recognize them and they don’t recognize him (since they previously only met him when he was in his giant organic steel form). He also gets shot in the arm by their enemies, but he’ll pull through.
Meanwhile, in a separate subplot that has zero contact with the “Colossus in SoHo” one that starts in this same issue, Dazzler is back. Totally amnesiac – unlike Colossus, she doesn’t even remember any part of her name. On the other hand, she also lands among friends – the Siege Perilous apparently dumped her on a nice quiet stretch of beach near the Malibu residence of singer Lila Cheney, and she is conveniently found by Guido, an employee of Lila’s who quickly recognizes her as a former member of Lila's band and makes sure she gets good care. (This is the same Guido who later became known as Strong Guy of X-Factor.)
1989. Avengers #314. Written by John Byrne.
Nebula destroys the universe five times in a row. Each time she activates an experimental device, the universe temporarily blinks out of existence. By that logic, each character who is or ever has been an X-Man prior to this date is “dying” and “being resurrected” each time the device is switched on and then off. Not that any of them got specifically mentioned in this story – as far as I can recall – but the thought was there.
1990. Avengers #315. Written by John Byrne.
They’re back! The universe is restored (for the fifth time in this story arc) as the surviving Avengers disable Nebula’s equipment, and that naturally includes all those X-Men who were still “erased” as of the final page of the previous issue.
1990. X-Men Annual #14. Second story in the Annual. Written by Chris Claremont.
The concluding installment of the “Days of Future Present” arc that ran through four annuals in 1990.
In a backup story set before the conclusion of the lead story in the Annual, a high-powered adult Franklin Richards (from the future of an alternate timeline first shown to us in “Days of Future Past”) meets Wolverine in Madripoor and is annoyed by the presence of Jubilee and Psylocke, total strangers who never had any part in the X-Men history of his timeline. So he makes them vanish into thin air. In context, it appears that he didn’t just “teleport” them somewhere else -– he “erased” them entirely!
Wolverine, of course, manages to persuade him to bring them back by the end of the story.
The way I figure it -– and I could be wrong -– during the panels between when Franklin made Jubilee and Psylocke disappear, and when he brought them back, they did not physically exist anywhere. I figure that qualifies as being “dead” even if they made complete recoveries with no particular trauma suffered from the experience.
1990. Marvel Comics Presents #54. The relevant story is the first installment of an 8-part serial, written by Michael Higgins.
Mimic is back! We don't know that right away; he is currently a Wolverine impersonator, but by the end of the serial we will get it all explained to us in loving detail.
1990. UXM #269. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rogue is back. Oddly enough, not the least bit amnesiac! (Maybe the Siege Perilous is biased in her favor? On the other hand, it dumps her back at the old base in Australia, which had long since been reclaimed by the Reavers, so maybe the Siege wasn't really doing her any huge favors after all.)
It also turns out that the carbon copy of the personality of Carol Danvers is back -– but in a decaying body. For some reason, the Siege Perilous set it up in such a way that there doesn't seem to be enough lifeforce to go around. Possibly because they only had one living, breathing body between the two of them when they first entered the Siege. One or the other of these two women will now die. (Magneto intervenes and makes sure it's the Carol-Copy who dies, never to be heard from again to the best of my knowledge. I believe that ever since the Carol-Copy persona ended up in Rogue's skull, it had basically been a totally separate and different "person" from the Carol Danvers in her own body who has been known by such names as Ms. Marvel, Binary, and Warbird.)
1990. UXM #270. Written by Chris Claremont.
Havok is back. He has suffered a fate similar to Psylocke’s; evidently he landed some time earlier, amnesiac, in Genosha, and was somehow conditioned to be a loyal servant of the oppressive, bigoted (against mutants!) government. He doesn’t remember that he used to be an X-Man, or that Scott is his brother with a partial immunity to his power (and vice versa), or much of anything. (Why the Siege Perilous wished this upon him is far from clear. Had he and Psylocke in particular accumulated an awful lot of bad karma that they had to pay for?)
1990. New Mutants #95. Written by Louise Simonson.
Part of the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover event.
Warlock is drained of lifeforce by Cameron Hodge.
(Later, some crystals that the other New Mutants consider to be his mortal remains are carefully placed on top of the grave of his "selfriend," Doug Ramsey, AKA Cypher.)
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #1. Written by Jim Starlin.
Thanos uses the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half the universe. Stay tuned for further details.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #2. Written by Jim Starlin.
In the opening pages of this issue, we get more detail on the consequences of Thanos’s actions in the previous issue. Among other things, we are told that Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Iceman, Archangel, and Beast are no longer among the living.
I’m listing both #1 and #2 in this miniseries because you can argue that they died at the moment Thanos exerted himself in #1, even though we didn’t know for sure that they had died until #2.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #4. Written by Jim Starlin.
Thanos kills Cyclops.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #5. Written by Jim Starlin.
Nebula, granddaughter of Thanos, manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat and manipulate time enough to undo his recent slaughter of Scott, Jean, Bobby, Warren, and Hank (along with zillions of other sentient beings).
1991. UXM #281. Scripted by John Byrne from a plot by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio.
Jean Grey is blasted by Sentinels. At the end of the issue, her body is stated to be dead.
1991. UXM #281. Scripted by John Byrne from a plot by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio.
Jean Grey's mind wakes up inside the body of Emma Frost, thanks to a telepathic download she arranged just before the Sentinels got the drop on her in the previous issue. (Jean will later be restored to her own body, which apparently wasn't too badly damaged by those nasty Sentinels, after all.)
1991. X-Force #7. Written by Fabian Nicieza from a plot by Rob Liefeld.
Cannonball is killed by Sauron. (No, not the master villain from the Lord of the Rings – a different villain who apparently liked the name and swiped it.)
1991. X-Men #3. (second series). Written by Chris Claremont. Co-plotted by Claremont and Jim Lee.
As the story ends, Magneto is still on Asteroid M, and everyone and his brother (apparently including Magneto) believes the Asteroid is about to be destroyed and Magneto with it. For quite some time after this issue, Magneto is regarded as dead by the X-Men, the Acolytes, and apparently just about anybody else who actually cares. (However, no one actually got a good look at a corpse when all was said and done.)
1992. X-Force #9. Written by Fabian Nicieza from a plot by Rob Liefeld.
Cannonball spontaneously wakes up, alive and well! He doesn’t know how or why. In fact, he has a hard time believing other people’s claims that he was absolutely, positively dead for awhile there. (But he really had been!)
[NOTE: In a later issue, Cable solemnly explains that Cannonball is an External. A special type of immortal mutant who can die from time to time . . . without really being hurt in the long run. If coming back from the dead is the principal distinguishing characteristic of an External, then I believe we could make a good argument that throughout the team’s history, most of the X-Men have been Externals – by that definition! Whether or not anyone ever bothered to diagnose them as such! Somehow, though, I don’t think that was exactly what Cable meant.]
1993. X-Men #20. Written by Fabian Nicieza.
Psylocke’s original body is back!
Bear with me; this one will take some explaining . . .
Years earlier, in UXM #256 it appeared that Psylocke, having just recently been restored to the world by the Siege Perilous, was heavily brainwashed by the combined efforts of The Hand and The Mandarin in order to make her a loyal assassin. At the same time, someone apparently had a bright idea of changing her body in various ways to make her look more Asian. Darker complexion, slanted eyes, and hair that (I’ve been told) was now naturally black instead of naturally blonde, as Englishwoman Betsy Braddock’s hair had previously been. (Although the natural color hardly matters, because both before and after she got that involuntary makeover, Betsy has demonstrated a strong habit of dyeing it purple.)
That’s what everybody thought had happened for the next few years (and Psylocke appeared to have overcome the attempted brainwashing fairly quickly at the time).
This story cast doubt on all that, and the exact understanding of the relationship between Betsy’s original soul, Betsy’s original body, Kwannon’s original soul, and Kwannon’s original body fluctuated back and forth for awhile. What we were eventually told was that most of Kwannon’s soul had ended up in Betsy’s body, with a few bits and pieces of Betsy’s essence mixed in, and most of Betsy’s soul had ended up in Kwannon’s body, with a few bits and pieces of Kwannon’s essence mixed in, but eventually they swapped those “bits and pieces” back so that each “complete” persona was now inside what had originally been the other woman’s body.
If that’s the way it was, then it means that “between the scenes” in UXM #256 Betsy had now “retroactively died” in the sense that her mind was removed from her natural body and shoehorned into Kwannon’s. (I really don’t think that was what Claremont had in mind at the time, though.)
I think all of the above is a reasonably accurate summary of what was gradually “revealed” in subsequent stories. But all that may have been retconned further when I wasn’t looking.
(Incidentally, Kwannon – to call the person inside Betsy’s original body by that name for the time being – defiantly presented herself in this issue as being the one and only real Psylocke, but in dialogue spoken in the next issue she was already meekly accepting the alias of “Revanche” instead of Psylocke, for reasons that were never explained.)
1993. Mys-Tech Wars #3. Written by Dan Abnett.
There is great carnage in this miniseries as many doughty Marvel heroes fall in battle. I only need to list the X-Men casualties: Cyclops, Havok, Jubilee, and Jean Grey.
1993. Mys-Tech Wars #4. Written by Dan Abnett.
Cyclops, Havok, Jubilee, and Jean Grey are back! I believe time travel was used so that their deaths hadn’t really happened after all, but I could be wrong on the details.
1. Introductory Comments and Ground Rules
2. The X-Men Fatality Timeline (3rd Draft)
3. Grand Totals for the Top-Scoring X-Men
1. Introductory Comments and Ground Rules
People occasionally complain that death in the X-Men titles has become a bad joke. By “occasionally,” I mean such complaints can only be heard about 99.9% of the time. After all, every once in awhile the people who love to complain about this all have to stop for breath at the same time! http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
I finally decided it was time to measure the exact size of the problem, by putting together a comprehensive list of X-Men Deaths (and Returns). As far as I know, no one else has ever tried to list them all at once, in the same document, complete with specific issue numbers.
How to Qualify for My List
1. You have to be an X-Man for your “death” or later “return from the dead” to qualify for this Timeline. Just being a friend, family member, lover, longtime enemy, or clone of one or more of the X-Men doesn’t get you in the door.
In preparation for this Third Draft, I finally took the plunge and bought a copy of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: X-Men 2005. (Hereafter referred to as OHOTMU: X-Men 2005 for short.) At the back, it has a Roster of everyone who’s ever been an X-Man. The main roster runs to 52 characters; as well as smaller listings of names of participants in seven groupings which it terms “Ad Hoc X-Men Rosters.”
At the moment, I am inclined to believe that all 52 of the names on the main Roster are or have been X-Men, and probably most of the “Ad Hoc” groups as well.
One place where I definitely disagree with OHOTMU: X-Men 2005 is the validity of what it calls “The Muir Isle X-Men.” I recently looked through UXM #254 and UXM #255 again to double-check my memory. And it still seems to me that when Amanda Sefton, Alysande Stuart, and various other characters were putting on gold-and-black X-Men suits to wear while fighting the Reavers, they never expressed any belief that they were thereby becoming any sort of “X-Men” themselves; not even on a “temporary” or “honorary” basis.
The principal reason for dressing up that way appeared to be that several of the newest version of the suits were already right there on the island, and were conveniently bulletproof. If I were about to face an invasion of killer cyborgs, I’d hastily don any bulletproof body armor that happened to be readily available, too! I wouldn’t care if it looked like an X-Men “uniform” or not; I’d only care about my chances of personal survival http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
2. If you died before you ever became an X-Man, I don’t care about that. For instance, Emma Frost was supposed to have died during the Dark Phoenix Saga. At that time, she was not and never had been an X-Man. Therefore, this Timeline does not include a listing for her first reported death.
3. The death must have occurred “in continuity,” regarding someone who had actually been an X-Man “in the regular continuity” prior to the time of death.
For instance, deaths that happen in the ongoing Exiles series generally won’t count, because most of the characters who appear in that series are natives of alternate timelines, even if they strongly resemble their counterparts from 616. Likewise, deaths that occurred in the miniseries Marvel: The End (written by Jim Starlin) won’t count, because I have confirmed that Tom Brevoort of Marvel has repeatedly said that this miniseries is not “in canon,” i.e. not part of what I would call the “regular continuity.”
NOTE: After feedback from various readers of the First Draft, I am provisionally counting X-Men Annual #10 as the time when a bunch of the New Mutants "graduated," more or less, up to "X-Men" status. (Although they continued working separately and calling themselves "New Mutants" after that time.) This means that any member of the group, as it existed in that Annual, who later died, qualifies for this Timeline. (Until such time as someone persuades me otherwise, anyway.)
Definition of “Death”
I’m taking a fairly liberal definition of “death.”
1. If the character was definitely, undeniably dead, with a recognizable corpse, then I count that.
2. If the character certainly seemed to have just died, but the corpse was in such lousy shape it couldn’t be identified (or disintegrated, or something) then I’ll count that.
3. If other X-Men sincerely believed the person was dead, and this belief lasted significantly longer than, say, five minutes, then I’ll count that even if the alert reader knew, or had reason to suspect, that they were wrong.
Someone reminded me of the time in the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga when one issue ended with other X-Men looking at Cyclops, who had just collapsed on the floor after a mental duel with Mastermind, and Nightcrawler said in horror, “Cyclops – is dead!” On the first page of the following issue, Nightcrawler changed his tune and said, “Storm! Colossus! Look! Cyclops is alive!”
To me, this is a perfect example of the sort of thing I don’t need to count on my Timeline. From the viewpoint of a fan buying the title as each issue first came out, that cliffhanger dragged out for a month between installments. But from the point of view of the X-Men, Nightcrawler simply leaped to the wrong conclusion (in order to create a cliffhanger) and, just a minute later, realized he’d been dead wrong.
(However, if Nightcrawler had actually checked for a pulse and failed to find one, that would strengthen the idea that he had good reason to think Scott was “really” dead, at least for a moment, and I would count it after all even if a little CPR had quickly brought Scott back to the land of the living. But just looking at a guy who fell down on the floor, and pronouncing him dead on the spur of the moment without even touching him, strikes me as too flimsy to be taken seriously.)
4. I’m trying to report each case “straight” – if readers were meant to think a character was dead at the time, and other X-Men shared that impression, then in the listing for that event, I generally just describe it as “that person died.” If there were later retcons, I usually deal with those separately, in listings for the issues in which we started to find out what had “really” happened – such as an impostor dying instead of the character we had thought died at the time
5. At this time: If a person’s “mind,” “spirit,” “soul,” or whatever ended up separated from its proper body for more than a couple of seconds, I’m willing to count that as a death. Even if the mind simply got “switched” into someone else’s body instead of becoming an intangible ghost.
And now, let’s move on the main event!
NOTE: I generally abbreviate "Uncanny X-Men" as "UXM."
2. THE X-MEN FATALITY TIMELINE (THIRD DRAFT)
1968. X-Men #42. Written by Roy Thomas.
Professor X dies fighting Grotesk. He is critically injured when Grotesk’s equipment explodes, and, going for the extra point, gasps out to his loyal X-Men that he had already known he was dying from an incurable disease, anyway!
The text on the cover includes this stirring promise: “Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale! This is for real!”
(It somehow fails to offer us a nice price on the Brooklyn Bridge.)
1970. X-Men #65. Written by Denny O’Neil.
Professor X returns. Which isn’t too difficult, from his point of view, since he was never dead and buried to begin with! Someone else was in the coffin at the funeral! As a retcon, we are now told that it was actually Changeling (formerly a villain) who died. For some reason, Professor X had given Changeling telepathic powers and then told him to take Xavier’s shape and fill his shoes with the X-Men, without bothering to bring the X-Men (except for Jean Grey?) up to speed on this “clever plan.” The Professor was going to be occupied with getting ready for a big showdown with an alien invasion when it showed up (as it did in this issue).
1973. The Incredible Hulk #161. Written by Steve Englehart.
Calvin Rankin, Mimic, dies after absorbing a great deal of radiation from the Hulk’s body. He did this deliberately, in the end, because his power to suck energy out of other people was increasing in range and he might eventually end up killing people without even trying. (Reminiscent of Superman’s enemy The Parasite.)
1974. Marvel Two-In-One #7. Written by Steve Gerber.
Most of the Marvel Universe is wiped out when someone blows into a magic harmonica. We are told that the sole survivors, for the moment, are a mere five characters (none of them X-Men).
Implicitly, this includes everyone who is or ever has been an X-Man up through this moment in Marvel continuity. I believe that would include the following (in alphabetical order): Angel, Beast, Changeling, Cyclops, Havok, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Mimic, Polaris, Professor X.
Later in this issue: Everything gets restored when someone else blows into the magic harmonica! Naturally, this blanket restoration includes all the X-Men I listed in the previous paragraph.
1975. UXM #95. Written by Chris Claremont.
Thunderbird I (John Proudstar) dies.
1975. Doctor Strange #12. Written by Steve Englehart.
On the final page, the world is destroyed. “Planet Earth is rent by one, then a series, of monumental blasts! It -- and all its children -- are cinders and dust in less than eight minutes!
Make no mistake! This . . . was . . . the real Earth!”
Although we never specifically see any of them in this storyline, this would implicitly include anyone who, as of the very end of 1975, when this was published, was or ever had been an X-Man. So long, folks, it was nice knowing you! At this moment in time, the casualty list would logically include Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast, Marvel Girl, Mimic, Changeling (except he was already dead and still is), Polaris, Havok, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Banshee, Storm, Sunfire, Colossus, and Thunderbird I (except he was probably already dead by this time as well, if I have the scheduling straight).
1976. Doctor Strange #13. Written by Steve Englehart.
On the next-to-last page of the story, Eternity recreates the Earth from scratch, good as new, and watches everything evolve and change “with the speed of thought” until it ends up exactly the way it was right before it got devastated an issue earlier!
Implicitly, all those X-Men who died last issue are now fit and fine with no knowledge that they were ever gone! (Or newly created exact replicas of the originals are fit and fine, anyway. Or something like that.) I won’t type out the full list again; just glance back at the entry immediately above! http://www.comicboards.com/pics/emoticons/smile.gif
NOTE: I believe dialogue in a later issue of Doctor Strange either stated or implied that all of the above had been smoke and mirrors and probably never really happened, but I could be wrong and I was not able to find the story I’m thinking of in my collection just now. If I do find it, I’ll be sure to include more details in a subsequent Draft of this Timeline.
1978. UXM #113. Written by Chris Claremont.
When the X-Men break out of Magneto's underground lair in Antarctica, they are separated. As a result, for a long time after this story (twelve issues), the larger group thinks Phoenix (Jean Grey) and Beast must have died. Jean and Beast assume the same thing is true regarding the members of the other group: Banshee, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Storm.
The reader knows that both groups survived, however.
NOTE: In a later issue, Jean and Hank make it back to the X-Mansion and tell Professor X that the rest of the X-Men are absolutely, positively dead. As a result, he leaves Earth for awhile, now that so many of his students have gotten themselves killed and there's no longer an X-Men team that might need his continued guidance.
1979. UXM #125. Written by Chris Claremont.
When the Beast enters the X-Mansion and meets the larger group that got separated from Jean and himself 12 issues earlier, everybody realizes everybody else has been alive all this time. (Actually, Jean and Havok on Muir Island apparently don't get the word until the next issue, but I won't bother giving that a separate entry.)
1980. UXM #137. Written by Chris Claremont.
Jean Grey, AKA Marvel Girl, AKA Phoenix, AKA The Black Queen, AKA Dark Phoenix, dies in the concluding chapter of what later became known as the Dark Phoenix Saga. It looks as if she telekinetically triggered an alien energy weapon to blast herself before she could relapse into the insanity of the Dark Phoenix. Her funeral occurs in the following issue.
1980. Uncanny X-Men Annual #4. Written by Chris Claremont.
During a surprise birthday party for Nightcrawler (he's 21 today), the other X-Men are horrified as he opens a mysterious gift which contains a crystal figure (of himself) which then shatters and emits a dark cloud into his face -- with the result that poor Kurt keels over. His friends rush him to the mansion's medical lab. No heartbeat, no respiration. Xavier and Storm examine him with whatever hi-tech doodads they have handy . . . and still come up with no signs of life. Xavier also checks telepathically and finds no trace of Kurt's mind lingering in his body. That boy is dead, dead, dead. Although none of the X-Men can figure out why.
Then Dr. Strange comes knocking on the door and it turns out things aren't so hopeless after all. He quickly determines that the actual problem is that Kurt's soul has been stolen. If they can get the soul back, everything will be fine. It had been stolen by Margali Szardos, Kurt's foster mother. By the end of the story, the problem has been fixed.
1983. UXM #167. Written by Chris Claremont.
Professor X’s body has been previously infected with a Brood egg, and his body now is transformed into a Brood Queen. So as far as his original body is concerned, the Professor has essentially “died.”
Fortunately, Shi’ar technology is equal to the challenge of transferring his mind to a clone-body which does not suffer from the crippling injuries experienced by the original body many years earlier.
1984. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11. Written by Jim Shooter.
Doctor Doom, possessed of the power of the Beyonder, blasts at the assembled heroes on the war world of the Secret Wars. From comments made in #12, we gather that this should have involved killing all members of the X-Men who participated in that miniseries. In alphabetical order: Colossus, Cyclops, Lockheed, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine.
1985. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12. Written by Jim Shooter.
They’re back! Colossus, Cyclops, Lockheed, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine! Good as new!
Thank Doctor Doom’s mood swings, the Beyonder’s manipulations, an alien healer girl named Zsaji who died, and the wonders of superduper futuristic technology.
1985. Fantastic Four #286. Written by John Byrne (or I think that’s what the credits said – I’ve also seen an assertion that Chris Claremont was brought in to “revise” some of the dialogue at the last minute, uncredited, for some reason).
Jean Grey, long presumed dead until this issue, emerges from a “survival pod” which had just recently been found over in Avengers #263. It turns out she is not the same “Jean Grey” who went nuts and wiped out a star, complete with billions of sentient residents of one of its planets, during the Dark Phoenix Saga. That Phoenix/Dark Phoenix character was actually a psychotic alien entity, a physical manifestation of the Phoenix Force which (for its own reasons) had tucked Jean away in suspended animation way back around UXM #101 and turned itself into a perfect duplicate of her, so that even Professor Xavier couldn't tell the difference.
1986. Uncanny X-Men #207. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rachel Summers (Phoenix) is about to kill Selene, the current Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Wolverine tells her to back off. She doesn’t. Wolverine shoves his claws through her heart and lungs, apparently working on the theory that it’s better for him to kill a friend than it is for his friend to hunt down and kill an evil enemy after capturing her. (In the following issue, other X-Men seem very unhappy with Wolverine’s decision, but they don’t actually do anything about it. Such as threatening to expel him from the group for instance.)
We also will learn in the following issue that Rachel is still alive – just barely – thanks to the heavy use of telekinesis to hold things together so she doesn’t bleed to death. However, if I have the timing right, she has not yet healed from her wounds the next time the X-Men see her, so a death in the near future remains a very strong possibility if anything goes wrong. Then she vanishes from their ken and ends up on Mojoworld for awhile. As far as they know, she could have quietly bled to death in a dark alley somewhere. I’m counting this one as a “death,” in large part because of some dialogue in Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn. (Which will have its own listing below.)
1987. X-Men Annual #11. Written by Chris Claremont.
Wolverine gets his heart ripped out, which would normally mean that a character was dead, even when that character is Logan. However, one drop of his blood falls on an alien god-gem thingie, which conveniently goes into third gear and restores Wolverine, alive and well, from that single drop of blood.
1987. X-Factor #15. Written by Louise Simonson.
Angel, unhappy after the amputation of his wings, gets in a plane and takes off. The plane explodes, leaving his friends to assume he committed suicide rather than live without his wings.
1988. Excalibur: The Sword is Drawn. (Graphic novel.) Written by Chris Claremont.
Rachel Summers (Phoenix) is back, from the perspective of other X-Men who had apparently long since lost hope of ever seeing her again.
Nightcrawler, apparently speaking for both himself and Kitty Pryde (who is standing right beside him at this moment), and probably for a bunch of other X-Men who aren’t present, says to Rachel, “We believed you dead.” As the three of them go into a group hug, Rachel says (inevitably, I felt): “You forget, fuzzy-elf . . . I’m Phoenix. If I die, it’s only to be reborn . . . hopefully better and brighter than before.”
Kurt’s comment is my primary reason for listing Wolverine’s stabbing of Rachel, and the aftermath, as a “death” inasmuch as the X-Men apparently ended up feeling strongly that Rachel would have reestablished contact with them had she still been alive and able to do so.
1988. X-Factor #24. Written by Louise Simonson.
Angel is back as "Death" of the "Four Horsemen of Apocalypse," actually brainwashed to serve the villain Apocalypse. Naturally, we will later see him recover his free will, etc., and take on the new alias of Archangel.
1988. New Mutants 60. Written by Louise Simonson.
Cypher (Doug Ramsey) dies after being shot by the Ani-Mator. He deliberately took the bullet when he saw the Ani-Mator was aiming at Wolfsbane.
1988. UXM #227. Written by Chris Claremont.
The concluding chapter of the Uncanny X-Men’s share of the “Fall of the Mutants” event. Claremont apparently decided to go for the all-time record and kill off at least eight X-Men, and one woman who was arguably affiliated with them despite the lack (we thought at the time!) of mutant powers, in a Nine-For-The-Price-Of-One Death Scene!
In alphabetical order, the following characters voluntarily sacrifice their lives in order to power up a special magic spell cast by Forge: Colossus, Dazzler, Havok, Longshot, Madelyne Pryor, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine. For my purposes, I count this as the moment when Madelyne Pryor effectively became a member of the X-Men team.
Later in the same issue: The nine characters I just mentioned are miraculously raised from the dead by the great sorceress, Roma. The only faster X-Men resurrection that I can think of, offhand, was that stunt with a drop of Wolverine’s blood falling on that god-gem.
1988. X-Factor #38. Written by Louise Simonson. Part of the "Inferno" crossover.
Madelyne Pryor, wife of Cyclops, now calling herself the Goblyn Queen, also now revealed as a clone of Jean Grey, created by Mister Sinister way back when, kills herself after ranting about her entire Secret Origin, etc., to tie up some loose ends.
1989. X-Men Annual #13. Written by Terry Austin.
As the story starts, Diamondback (not an X-Man) and Dazzler have already been mind-swapped, each personality ending up in the other woman’s body. We see how this happened in flashback. By the end of the story, they’re both back to normal.
I’m currently working on the theory that if the character’s mind gets separated from its proper body for a significant length of time, this pretty much qualifies as a “death” even if the mind takes up residence in a different body instead of becoming a ghost, and even if the body still has a pulse. Hence this story qualifies.
1989. UXM #247. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rogue and Master Mold get knocked through the Siege Perilous and vanish from mortal ken (the Siege Perilous was previously provided to the X-Men by Roma after she resurrected a bunch of them). As near as I can recall, the other X-Men subsequently react as if Rogue has “died.” In the sense that her body probably no longer existed anywhere in Timeline 616 until such time as the Siege Perilous gave her a second chance on her life, I suppose they had a point. The copy of Carol Danvers's personality that was sharing space with Rogue inside her skull also gets knocked through the Siege Perilous as part of a package deal. This may count as an additional "death," depending upon how you feel about carbon copies of someone else's personality as "living entities" in their own right?
1989. UXM #248. Written by Chris Claremont.
Storm dies. There is a perfectly identifiable corpse left behind in the wreckage of villain Nanny’s airship after a dazed and confused Havok blasts it out of the sky. What more proof could you want?
1989. UXM #251. Written by Chris Claremont.
In a “Fever Dream” flashback possibly connected with Gateway’s access to dreamtime (or not?), a captive Wolverine “watches” something that apparently “really happened” at their Australian base some days earlier, well before he had returned to base from personal business elsewhere – and promptly got ambushed by the Reavers. In the “vision” that he sees: Psylocke uses her telepathy to “encourage” Havok, Dazzler, and Colossus to go through the Siege Perilous, and then follows them herself. Her apparent motive was that otherwise all four of them would get skragged by the Reavers, who were fast approaching – according to a possibly “prophetic” vision which Psylocke, in turn, had experienced in the previous issue. (Was all that clear as mud?)
[Score card: At this point, Storm is dead (everybody thinks), and five other X-Men – Rogue, Psylocke, Havok, Colossus, and Dazzler – have all passed through the Siege Perilous recently, which is supposed to be very nearly the same thing as dying in anticipation of possible rebirth. Thoroughly confusing the issue: At this time, and for quite some time thereafter, most of the other people in the Marvel Universe (including some former X-Men and many other friends and relatives of the missing ones) still firmly believed that a group of eight X-Men had “really died” in Dallas back in UXM #227, being totally unaware of a) the resurrection and b) the Siege Perilous thing.]
1989. UXM #253. Written by Chris Claremont.
Storm is back! Albeit in the body of a young girl, and apparently with her memory also regressed back to her days as a child thief in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, with no recollection of the X-Men at all. For some reason, she has ended up in Cairo, Illinois.
(About a year later, it will finally be explained to us that Storm never actually “died” in the first place. A S.H.I.E.L.D. LMD (Life Model Decoy) “died” in her stead. Nanny just loves playing her little mind games.)
1989. UXM #255 Written by Chris Claremont.
Psylocke is back, totally amnesiac (we are told).
Roma, or whoever passes judgment on the souls that wander through the Siege Perilous, apparently thought it would be a very uplifting and appropriate experience for her to lose her conscious memories and fall into the clutches of the ninja outfit known as The Hand (the same outfit that trained Elektra, back in the day) so that they could change her to look rather Asian (but keeping the purple hair) and brainwash her to be a loyal telepathic ninja assassin who just happened to be loyal first and foremost to Iron Man’s old sparring partner, The Mandarin. (No, I don’t quite follow the Siege Perilous’s “logic” on this point, either!)
1989. UXM #259. Written by Chris Claremont.
Colossus is back, totally amnesiac, except for having a vague idea that his name is “Peter Nicholas.” (Actually the Anglicized version of part of his name.) He is considerably luckier than Psylocke in the resurrection sweepstakes, however. He ends up in the SoHo apartment of a couple of friends from a previous adventure, although he doesn’t recognize them and they don’t recognize him (since they previously only met him when he was in his giant organic steel form). He also gets shot in the arm by their enemies, but he’ll pull through.
Meanwhile, in a separate subplot that has zero contact with the “Colossus in SoHo” one that starts in this same issue, Dazzler is back. Totally amnesiac – unlike Colossus, she doesn’t even remember any part of her name. On the other hand, she also lands among friends – the Siege Perilous apparently dumped her on a nice quiet stretch of beach near the Malibu residence of singer Lila Cheney, and she is conveniently found by Guido, an employee of Lila’s who quickly recognizes her as a former member of Lila's band and makes sure she gets good care. (This is the same Guido who later became known as Strong Guy of X-Factor.)
1989. Avengers #314. Written by John Byrne.
Nebula destroys the universe five times in a row. Each time she activates an experimental device, the universe temporarily blinks out of existence. By that logic, each character who is or ever has been an X-Man prior to this date is “dying” and “being resurrected” each time the device is switched on and then off. Not that any of them got specifically mentioned in this story – as far as I can recall – but the thought was there.
1990. Avengers #315. Written by John Byrne.
They’re back! The universe is restored (for the fifth time in this story arc) as the surviving Avengers disable Nebula’s equipment, and that naturally includes all those X-Men who were still “erased” as of the final page of the previous issue.
1990. X-Men Annual #14. Second story in the Annual. Written by Chris Claremont.
The concluding installment of the “Days of Future Present” arc that ran through four annuals in 1990.
In a backup story set before the conclusion of the lead story in the Annual, a high-powered adult Franklin Richards (from the future of an alternate timeline first shown to us in “Days of Future Past”) meets Wolverine in Madripoor and is annoyed by the presence of Jubilee and Psylocke, total strangers who never had any part in the X-Men history of his timeline. So he makes them vanish into thin air. In context, it appears that he didn’t just “teleport” them somewhere else -– he “erased” them entirely!
Wolverine, of course, manages to persuade him to bring them back by the end of the story.
The way I figure it -– and I could be wrong -– during the panels between when Franklin made Jubilee and Psylocke disappear, and when he brought them back, they did not physically exist anywhere. I figure that qualifies as being “dead” even if they made complete recoveries with no particular trauma suffered from the experience.
1990. Marvel Comics Presents #54. The relevant story is the first installment of an 8-part serial, written by Michael Higgins.
Mimic is back! We don't know that right away; he is currently a Wolverine impersonator, but by the end of the serial we will get it all explained to us in loving detail.
1990. UXM #269. Written by Chris Claremont.
Rogue is back. Oddly enough, not the least bit amnesiac! (Maybe the Siege Perilous is biased in her favor? On the other hand, it dumps her back at the old base in Australia, which had long since been reclaimed by the Reavers, so maybe the Siege wasn't really doing her any huge favors after all.)
It also turns out that the carbon copy of the personality of Carol Danvers is back -– but in a decaying body. For some reason, the Siege Perilous set it up in such a way that there doesn't seem to be enough lifeforce to go around. Possibly because they only had one living, breathing body between the two of them when they first entered the Siege. One or the other of these two women will now die. (Magneto intervenes and makes sure it's the Carol-Copy who dies, never to be heard from again to the best of my knowledge. I believe that ever since the Carol-Copy persona ended up in Rogue's skull, it had basically been a totally separate and different "person" from the Carol Danvers in her own body who has been known by such names as Ms. Marvel, Binary, and Warbird.)
1990. UXM #270. Written by Chris Claremont.
Havok is back. He has suffered a fate similar to Psylocke’s; evidently he landed some time earlier, amnesiac, in Genosha, and was somehow conditioned to be a loyal servant of the oppressive, bigoted (against mutants!) government. He doesn’t remember that he used to be an X-Man, or that Scott is his brother with a partial immunity to his power (and vice versa), or much of anything. (Why the Siege Perilous wished this upon him is far from clear. Had he and Psylocke in particular accumulated an awful lot of bad karma that they had to pay for?)
1990. New Mutants #95. Written by Louise Simonson.
Part of the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover event.
Warlock is drained of lifeforce by Cameron Hodge.
(Later, some crystals that the other New Mutants consider to be his mortal remains are carefully placed on top of the grave of his "selfriend," Doug Ramsey, AKA Cypher.)
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #1. Written by Jim Starlin.
Thanos uses the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half the universe. Stay tuned for further details.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #2. Written by Jim Starlin.
In the opening pages of this issue, we get more detail on the consequences of Thanos’s actions in the previous issue. Among other things, we are told that Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Iceman, Archangel, and Beast are no longer among the living.
I’m listing both #1 and #2 in this miniseries because you can argue that they died at the moment Thanos exerted himself in #1, even though we didn’t know for sure that they had died until #2.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #4. Written by Jim Starlin.
Thanos kills Cyclops.
1991. Infinity Gauntlet #5. Written by Jim Starlin.
Nebula, granddaughter of Thanos, manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat and manipulate time enough to undo his recent slaughter of Scott, Jean, Bobby, Warren, and Hank (along with zillions of other sentient beings).
1991. UXM #281. Scripted by John Byrne from a plot by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio.
Jean Grey is blasted by Sentinels. At the end of the issue, her body is stated to be dead.
1991. UXM #281. Scripted by John Byrne from a plot by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio.
Jean Grey's mind wakes up inside the body of Emma Frost, thanks to a telepathic download she arranged just before the Sentinels got the drop on her in the previous issue. (Jean will later be restored to her own body, which apparently wasn't too badly damaged by those nasty Sentinels, after all.)
1991. X-Force #7. Written by Fabian Nicieza from a plot by Rob Liefeld.
Cannonball is killed by Sauron. (No, not the master villain from the Lord of the Rings – a different villain who apparently liked the name and swiped it.)
1991. X-Men #3. (second series). Written by Chris Claremont. Co-plotted by Claremont and Jim Lee.
As the story ends, Magneto is still on Asteroid M, and everyone and his brother (apparently including Magneto) believes the Asteroid is about to be destroyed and Magneto with it. For quite some time after this issue, Magneto is regarded as dead by the X-Men, the Acolytes, and apparently just about anybody else who actually cares. (However, no one actually got a good look at a corpse when all was said and done.)
1992. X-Force #9. Written by Fabian Nicieza from a plot by Rob Liefeld.
Cannonball spontaneously wakes up, alive and well! He doesn’t know how or why. In fact, he has a hard time believing other people’s claims that he was absolutely, positively dead for awhile there. (But he really had been!)
[NOTE: In a later issue, Cable solemnly explains that Cannonball is an External. A special type of immortal mutant who can die from time to time . . . without really being hurt in the long run. If coming back from the dead is the principal distinguishing characteristic of an External, then I believe we could make a good argument that throughout the team’s history, most of the X-Men have been Externals – by that definition! Whether or not anyone ever bothered to diagnose them as such! Somehow, though, I don’t think that was exactly what Cable meant.]
1993. X-Men #20. Written by Fabian Nicieza.
Psylocke’s original body is back!
Bear with me; this one will take some explaining . . .
Years earlier, in UXM #256 it appeared that Psylocke, having just recently been restored to the world by the Siege Perilous, was heavily brainwashed by the combined efforts of The Hand and The Mandarin in order to make her a loyal assassin. At the same time, someone apparently had a bright idea of changing her body in various ways to make her look more Asian. Darker complexion, slanted eyes, and hair that (I’ve been told) was now naturally black instead of naturally blonde, as Englishwoman Betsy Braddock’s hair had previously been. (Although the natural color hardly matters, because both before and after she got that involuntary makeover, Betsy has demonstrated a strong habit of dyeing it purple.)
That’s what everybody thought had happened for the next few years (and Psylocke appeared to have overcome the attempted brainwashing fairly quickly at the time).
This story cast doubt on all that, and the exact understanding of the relationship between Betsy’s original soul, Betsy’s original body, Kwannon’s original soul, and Kwannon’s original body fluctuated back and forth for awhile. What we were eventually told was that most of Kwannon’s soul had ended up in Betsy’s body, with a few bits and pieces of Betsy’s essence mixed in, and most of Betsy’s soul had ended up in Kwannon’s body, with a few bits and pieces of Kwannon’s essence mixed in, but eventually they swapped those “bits and pieces” back so that each “complete” persona was now inside what had originally been the other woman’s body.
If that’s the way it was, then it means that “between the scenes” in UXM #256 Betsy had now “retroactively died” in the sense that her mind was removed from her natural body and shoehorned into Kwannon’s. (I really don’t think that was what Claremont had in mind at the time, though.)
I think all of the above is a reasonably accurate summary of what was gradually “revealed” in subsequent stories. But all that may have been retconned further when I wasn’t looking.
(Incidentally, Kwannon – to call the person inside Betsy’s original body by that name for the time being – defiantly presented herself in this issue as being the one and only real Psylocke, but in dialogue spoken in the next issue she was already meekly accepting the alias of “Revanche” instead of Psylocke, for reasons that were never explained.)
1993. Mys-Tech Wars #3. Written by Dan Abnett.
There is great carnage in this miniseries as many doughty Marvel heroes fall in battle. I only need to list the X-Men casualties: Cyclops, Havok, Jubilee, and Jean Grey.
1993. Mys-Tech Wars #4. Written by Dan Abnett.
Cyclops, Havok, Jubilee, and Jean Grey are back! I believe time travel was used so that their deaths hadn’t really happened after all, but I could be wrong on the details.