Nerdrage!

“No one stays dead in comics.”

The Human Torch is dead.

When it was announced that one of the Fantastic Four was going to die in January, I had the feeling Johnny’s time was up.  He had never died before and, given the recent deaths (and returns) of both the Invisible Woman and The Thing, I just knew. I kept trying to tell myself, “Well, they’re really setting it up to be Mr. Fantastic.”  I really wanted to believe that.

I cannot express how much I did not want to be right.  Today I found out I was.  It feels like someone punched me directly in the heart.

I know the odds of Torch staying dead are 45,000,000:1 against.  That is the way mainstream comics work.  They get us all worked up and sad over a character sacrificing themself or getting shot on the steps of a courthouse only to bring them back when the title’s sales start to dip.

Space/time-altering bullets, anyone?

“No one stays dead in comics, Lisa.  You should know this.”

When I read the last page of Fantastic Four #587, I just… sat there for a moment.  At first I didn’t feel anything except numbness.  Was it because I knew he’d eventually be back and that grieving was useless? No.  I needed those moments to process that someone, albeit fictional, that I loved so much for eight years was gone.  Once it hit me, despite all I knew about comic book deaths, I cried.  The tears were there and they were real, unlike the person I was grieving over.

Those who know me know I love the Fantastic Four.  It’s kind of my thing.  More importantly, I love Johnny Storm.   He has been my most beloved superhero since I picked up my first Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo Fantastic Four trade paperback in late 2003.  Not many people actually like the Human Torch.  His character can be, admittedly, pretty one-dimensional.  Most of the time he’s a cocky arrogant little prick who flies over New York in a fiery ball of “LOOK AT ME AND HOW AWESOME I AM.”

I mean, what's not to love?

But goddamn if that didn’t just strike the right chord with yours truly at 16 years old.

There’s just, I don’t know, something about jerk characters that aren’t really jerks at all that I find myself drawn to.  It’s a phenomenon I like to call “the Han Solo effect.”  Johnny embodied that so well.  He was capable of being a complete dick to his own family, but he was so fiercely loyal to them that he would give his life to protect them.  In the end, that’s exactly what happened.

“Don’t worry.  He’ll be back.”

Fucking hell, you guys, I don’t want him to come back.  For how much I love the son of a bitch, I hope for his sake he stays dead.  His death was written in such a noble and befitting manner to him that it would be an even greater tragedy for me if it was all in vain or it was really a goddamn Skrull or something.

Goodbye, my dear Jonathan Spencer Storm.  May you rest in peace as long as Marvel will let you.

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General by Lisa