One (potentially) nice thing about being a fictional character is that normal rules of life and death don’t necessarily have to apply – especially if you live in a place like the Marvel Universe. While ordinary citizens may still age, get sick, and die, main characters (and sometimes their supporting cast) can escape the Grim Reaper through super science, magic spells, or even divine intervention. Some characters have died and come back so many times, Professor X of the X-Men once stated that mutant heaven doesn’t have pearly gates – just revolving doors.
That being said, not all resurrection methods are created equally. Just because a character returns from the dead doesn’t mean he or she will necessarily come back exactly the way he or she used to be. Heroes have come back from the dead as vampires, zombies, or brainwashed monsters begging to be killed again. Given these less-than-perfect resurrection methods, it’s probably a good idea for characters to take stock of healthier methods of coming back from the dead – like the ones below:
Have A Cosmic Being Bring You Back To Life
If health insurance included resurrection specialists, then Marvel’s cosmic beings would probably be among the top-tier health care providers. Not only can these incredibly powerful beings restore life, they often offer a few additional upgrades to the person they’re working on.
Take Roma, daughter of Merlin and Marvel’s Omniversal Guardian. In one X-Men storyline, the X-Men sacrificed their life forces to banish the Adversary, a trickster deity intent on destroying the world who was also holding Roma captive. In gratitude, Roma retrieved the X-Men’s souls and resurrected them. As an interesting side effect of the resurrection process, the X-Men became undetectable to electronic equipment and cameras. Although the X-Men member Dazzler hated this as it effectively destroyed her career as a recording star, it proved a useful ability for a while.
Call Reed Richards
Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four, is said to be the smartest man in the Marvel Universe. So, when his best friend Ben Grimm (aka The Thing) is killed, he just rolls up his sleeves and comes up with a way to enter the afterlife and bring the Thing back. Remarkably, Reed is able to transport the entire Fantastic Four to heaven where they get an audience with God (represented by original Fantastic Four artist Jack Kirby). After passing a few tests of temptation, Ben is allowed to return with the team to Earth (Kirby even “draws” them back into their headquarters). The only caveat is that Ben must become the Thing again – but even he decides that’s acceptable for a second lease on life.
Be Born Homo Supreme
Marvel’s mutant population is considered “Homo Superior” – the next step in evolution from “Homo Sapiens.” However, there’s actually a branch of humanity above the mutants, designated “Homo Supreme.” As of now, only one being has this designation – Craig Hollis (aka Mr. Immortal) a superhero whose body has evolved past death itself. It doesn’t matter if Craig gets poisoned, shot, stabbed, or hit by a bus – within seconds he’ll come back to life in perfect mint condition. Later stories also establish that he’s effectively ageless and will literally be the last person left alive in the universe.
While this seems like the kind of power that could earn a superhero a lot of respect, most Marvel superheroes treat Mr. Immortal like a joke. Granted, being an immortal hero is still kind of ineffective when the bad guy can still temporarily kill you and get away before you come back to life – which is why Craig founded the Great Lakes Avengers so he could use his power as part of a team. Craig is prone to fits of depression as he realizes he can never follow his friends into the Great Beyond, but he still recognizes that his power is a useful one.
Be Chosen As “The Other”
The resurrection method has a lousy process – but a nice payoff. When Spider-Man starts having blackouts and dizzy spells, tests on his body reveal that he’s dying of a radiation-based infectious disease. Peter’s condition gets progressively worse and he even gets attacked by the Inheritor Morlun who rips out one of Peter’s eyes. Eventually, Peter “dies” but ends up just shedding his outer skin and obeys a mystical command to embrace his spider-self. In so doing, he gains a new body, regrows his missing eye, and even gets a bunch of new powers including greater strength, stingers, night vision, and organic webbing!
Later, during the Spider-Geddon event, the alternate MC2 version of Peter Parker who was killed by the Inheritors is chosen as the new “Other” and breaks free of his grave. As this Peter Parker lost a leg in a fight with the Green Goblin, it’s very likely that he’ll get his leg back after coming back to life. Nice perk!
Use Time Travel
Time travel has been a useful tool to bring people back from the dead by going back to the moment before they were killed and saving them from whatever bullet, laser beam, or explosion that was about to do them in. While this isn’t technically “resurrection,” it does ensure the person can live on in basically the same form he or she was up to the moment of “death,” which is what happened to Scott Lang when his daughter Cassie pulled him out of a deadly situation. Some time travelers, however, take a more convoluted path to resurrection. When the time traveling hero Teen Cable decides to bring his father Scott Summers back to life in the weirdest way possible. First, he goes back in time to visit a brilliant scientist two years before Cyclops was killed. He then employs the scientist to build a machine that can siphon off and store a small piece of the Phoenix Force – which the scientist spends the next two years doing.
Next, Teen Cable travels forward in time right after Cyclops died and gets the scientist to implant the completed device in Cyclops’ chest. As Cyclops will be temporarily resurrected later on by the Phoenix Force (only to die again), the resulting event will store a fragment of the cosmic power in the device now in Cyclops’ chest. From that point, it’s a simple matter of using the device in the present to permanently bring Cyclops back to full, healthy life. Frankly, after all the times the X-Men have died and come back to life… they’re probably just coming up with new ways to resurrect people on a dare.