For me, the decline set in when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought back Sherlock Holmes.

Don't forget when Caveman Ogg crushed the skull of Caveman Zunk and thought, I wonder if he come back from dead?

Some sort of cocoon was found in an issue of Avengers (can't recall the issue number). The cocoon was brought to FF headquarters (in an issue of FF) & when it was opened there, inside was the REAL Jean Grey. These issues led into the first issue of X-Factor.

Apparently when there was some sort of discussion regarding bring the original X-Men back together, they ran into a dead end because Jean Grey was dead. JB came up with a way to bring her back.

What a great find. Some neat stuff there. Congratulations.

Great art by Paul Smith in those issues of X-Men in which Madelyne Pryor first appeared. Didn't like that part of the story all that much, though.

In any case, I don't think anyone was claiming that bringing characters back from the dead in comics was anything new.



As I already showed, this so-called tipping point, is anything BUT...at least in regards to JB having a major hand in it.

So! It's all Caveman Ogg's fault! I hope they ban him from attending all comic book conventions!

I was never happy that Jean Grey was brought back. It undermined one of the best superheroes stories ever. I can't say I ever regarded it as a tipping point but clearly, it does represent an important step in the direction of which comics have become.

Unlike, say Captain America's death, Jean Grey was alway really dead. No one acted as if she was coming back and this was just a stunt. However, I am not unhappy with the Cap story as Brubaker was obviously setting it up to bring him back from the get go. So bringing back Elektra, Norman Osborne and Jean Grey are bad as they were really dead whereas bringing back Cap is not bad.

And how many years after he wrote that story did any other major returns from the dead occur?

JB didn't set a precedent when he was allowed to bring Jean Grey back. There wasn't an immediate barrage of such stories that were inspired by JB were there? Does anyone REALLY think that someone decided to write a story in which a character was returned from the dead & they thought...It worked for JB. And if they did, it took 6 years for Marvel to allow another such story to be told (and that was ALSO by JB). Six years to tip a point, so to speak? 1 + 1 = It's JB's fault. Weird math.

It seems like something snapped after 2003 & JB had nothing to do with this trend-setting storytelling device becoming so popular.

Just because you may not have enjoyed Jean Grey's return doesn't mean blame should be placed on that story or it's writer(s) for what, in the end, was not a very original storytelling device anyway (And no, this does not indicate that I agree that the story was bad in any way, shape or form).

I can see WHY certain individuals around here WANT to place the blame at JB's feet, but the blame should really go with the PTB that decided to make such a trend (LONG after JB's stories were written, by the way).

More baloney for a few gullibles to chew on.