WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Extermination #1 Ed Brisson, Pepe Larraz, and Marte Gracia, on sale now.


Do superhero deaths mean much in the grand scheme of things? This is a debate that has been prevalent among comic fans for nearly a century. What is often seen as a gimmick to move more units in a comic book industry, the death of major characters is something that some fans roll their eyes at. Ever since Superman met his demise at the rocky hands of Doomsday during the height of the ‘90s comic book boom, only to see the Man of Steel return shortly thereafter, large chunks of long-time readers have been wary of any issue with a banner proclaiming it contains “The Death of [insert character name here].”

This level of cynicism has been ingrained in us thanks to the constant deaths and resurrections of some of our most beloved characters, and this emotional roller coaster is one of the main attractions in the soap opera that unfolds in the pages of myriad X-Men comics being published. Even before the ‘90s speculative boom, X-Men characters were frequently subjected to death and rebirth. Hell, it’s always been difficult to keep track of how many times Jean Grey or Professor X were “killed” only to be brought back by increasingly more ridiculous means in subsequent issues.

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To be fair, the X-Men tend to keep characters dead for a relatively long period of time in a lot of instances. But sometimes, in a character's absence, there is some sort of analog to fill their void. We’ve seen a lot of this recently, following the death of arguably the most popular X-Man, Wolverine. In 2014 Wolverine met his end after losing his powers and being encased in adamantium. But despite the fact that James Howlett from Earth-616 was taken from readers, there were several other versions of the character still alive to glom onto in his stead.

Characters like Old Man Logan and the son of Ultimate Wolverine, Jimmy Hudson, both of whom were originally relegated to their own realities, were brought into the main Marvel Continuity; Literal Wolverine clone and fan-favorite, Laura Kinney donned her genetic father’s X-Man moniker; And even new Wolverines like Gabby (another clone) were introduced. In short, we almost had a baker’s dozen of Wolverines without our main dude there to throw his pointy-eared hat in the ring.

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Now, with Wolverine returning (and sporting new and improved “Hot Claws™” no less), the fate of some of his clawed surrogates are most likely up in the air. If Marvel really is using the five-issue miniseries Extermination to consolidate some X-Men and dial things back to a relatively easy entry point for new readers (or just help long-time readers who are sick of getting migraines), there are a lot of duplicate and alternate versions of characters who had better watch their backs. Extermination #1 has set a pretty dire precedence for this early on, with the death of the vampiric version of Ororo Monroe from Earth-TRN643, also known as Bloodstorm.

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The “real” Storm is no stranger to bizarre deaths and rebirths (one of which involved a space whale, bee tee dub), so if she had died in this first issue as some sort of opening declaration regarding just how serious of an event Extinction will be, it may not have rang true with us. This is precisely why Bloodstorm's death carries legitimate weight.

With “Storm Prime” alive and well, Bloodstorm is, for all intent and purposes, cannon fodder. And look, we don’t use nomenclature like that to diminish the characters’ merits; Bloodstorm certainly has her fans, and we like her just fine (she’s a much cooler vampiric X-Man than oh, say, Jubilee), but if her fate is sealed, and boy it sure looks to be, then what would be the benefit of bringing her back to the overall narrative?

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Killing off characters can be used as a cheap storytelling gimmick to propel a plot forward, or simply a means of generating shock value to keep readers coming back next month. However, the effectiveness of both of these notions are really in the eye of the beholder. How a reader feels about a characters’ death will very much depend on their personal interest in them.

How shocking or compelling a hero or villain's demise will be is dependent on how much a reader has invested in that character, and how that death will make a reader feel is predicated upon so much nuance in personality that it’s almost impossible to predict. Fans can see a character’s death in an issue and immediately want to throw the comic out a window and never read the series again. A death can also have the opposite effect. Deaths can cause a reader to become more invested, now that they know the stakes are high. It would seem the latter is occurring in Extinction. After all, there is another death in the book that seems... well... you'll see...

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With so many characters being displaced from their original time or reality, the X-Men Universe has become a nebulous place for these mutants to inhabit. The ultimate fates of these characters is anybody’s guess, which is something X-Men comics haven’t fully embraced since the Ultimate Universe. Insane story developments don’t always make for emotional unpredictability. We can have X-Men travel through time and meet older or younger versions of themselves, but taking the time to establish some of these characters so we care about them is a creator’s greatest storytelling asset.

Killing these characters would also prove to be a creator’s greatest force for change via emotional turmoil. Some may see Extermination as Marvel “cleaning house,” but for readers who love characters like Bloodstorm, they like the clutter right where it is. Maybe some of us are just mutant hoarders.