The X-Men Fatality Timeline (2nd Draft)

[Lorendiac]

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! :)

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. (If someone has already done this, I hope one of my readers will point me to the correct URL so I can compare my work to my unknown predecessor’s work and see what I missed on the first pass.)

DISCLAIMER: This is not yet a completely comprehensive listing. I am counting on my fellow fans, people who are more up-to-date on their X-Men continuity than I am, to help me fill in the gaps. (For instance, I couldn't even remember just when it was in the 1990s that Havok died all over again, so I left it out! Anybody have the answer on the tip of your tongue? Speak up!)

Likewise, if you know of any other "Deaths" or "Returns" of X-Men that I missed, please say so! I know they're out there; I spent much of the mid-to-late 90s largely ignoring the X-Titles, so there's no telling how many I'm missing from that era in particular! :)


A Few Ground Rules

These are subject to change without notice as I work out the bugs in my approach to the problem :)

1. I only want to list “deaths” of characters who were serving as X-Men at the time, or had previously done so before they died. Right now, I don’t care about people who had only been members of the New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, Alpha Flight, Excalibur, or any other group (or any combination of the above).

As one example: This rule means I don’t list the first apparent “death” of Emma Frost back in the Dark Phoenix Saga, when she clashed with Phoenix and was declared (by Phoenix) to have not survived the experience. It must have been about twenty issues later that we found out she had (somehow) pulled through. Emma later became affiliated with the X-Men, but that was far in the future.

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.)

2. I’m taking a fairly liberal definition of “death.” If the character was definitely, undeniably dead, with an identifiable corpse and all that, I count it. But I probably will also count it if the character was firmly believed to be “dead” by surviving X-Men and other friends and relatives, for more than a couple of minutes, even though they were wrong. Or if there was later a retcon explaining that the dead body had been someone else entirely – an impostor was buried at the funeral everyone attended! It’s hard to tell where to draw the line, and I may redraw it at any time! :)

3. I’m trying to report each case “straight” – if readers were meant to think a character was dead at the time, then in the listing for that event, I generally just describe it as “that person died.” If there were later retcons, I deal with those separately. So Professor X’s death in X-Men #42 is described as if he really died in #42, without mention of the later retcon until we reach the story of his return on my Timeline.

4. I’m ignoring stories from alternate timelines. I don’t really care about the death of an evil analog of Professor X in Exiles #2, nor the deaths of any other “analogs” of characters we know in the “regular” X-Titles. By the same token, I don’t bother listing the time in 1982 that Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover, with a temporary “resurrection” of Dark Phoenix, because as far as I know the events of that story were never referred to again as being “established history” in any later Marvel or DC comic, so I figure it’s “out of continuity” from both publishers’ points of view. Likewise, I have no interest in trying to include "Ultimate X-Men" continuity in this Timeline.

NOTE: I generally abbreviate "Uncanny X-Men" as "UXM."


THE X-MEN FATALITY TIMELINE

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 to 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.)

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! : )

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 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 are afraid 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 himself killed and there's no longer an X-Men team that might need his continued guidance.

[Lorendiac]

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.

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.

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 emerges from a “survival pod” which had just recently been found over in Avengers #263. It turns out she is not the “Jean Grey” who went nuts and wiped out a star, complete with billions of sentient residents of one of its planets, in the Dark Phoenix Saga.

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. X-Factor #24. Written by Louise Simonson.

Angel is back as "Death" of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," actually brainwashed to serve the villain Apocalypse. Naturally, we 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. 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 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 the other close 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, as well, 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.

[Lorendiac]

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. 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 their 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. 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.)

1993. UXM #303. Written by Scott Lobdell.

Illyana Rasputin dies of the Legacy Virus. According to some of the discussion that the First Draft of this post stirred up a couple of months ago, the Illyana who dies here should not be listed, because she was "still" a little girl who had never grown into her teens to have adventures with the New Mutants as "Magik." Therefore she must be an alternate-timeline version of Illyana. That seems logical, but I decided to put her in anyway, for the time being. Someone else discussing this said that the "alternate-timeline version" thing has never been nailed down "in continuity." To look at it from another angle, if "this Illyana" ever comes back, that will mean she's quite possibly still on track to become the Magik who adventured with the New Mutants in the 1980s, won't it?

1993. X-Men #25. Written by Fabian Nicieza.

On Asteroid M, Professor X allegedly "removes" Magneto's mind, leaving his body a mere vegetable. Arguably, this amounts to much the same thing as killing him. If you think I'm wrong to include this as a "death," say so! You might convince me to remove it from the next draft!
(After feedback on my first draft, I am currently counting any death of Magneto that occurred after UXM #200 to qualify as a death of a former X-Man.)

1994. Excalibur #78. Written by Chris Cooper, from a plot by Scott Lobdell.

"First appearance" of the techno-organic being known as Douglock, who seemed as if he might be Doug Ramsey, or possibly a Doug/Warlock merged entity, but eventually (in some later comic) turned out to be a resurrected version of Warlock of the New Mutants.

1994. X-Men #31. Written by Fabian Nicieza.

Revanche, a character comprised of Kwannon's mind that is currently inhabiting the original body of Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), is slowly dying of the Legacy Virus. She begs her old lover, Matsuo Tsurayaba of The Hand, to put her out of her misery with a sword she thoughtfully provides. She talks him into it, and he does.

1998. X-Factor #149. Written by Howard Mackie.

Havok is aboard Greystone’s time-ship when the reactor goes up in their faces. Havok presumably dies. (You don’t expect to find much in the way of mortal remains when a guy was standing right over a reactor just before it blew.)

1998. Mutant X #1. Written by Howard Mackie.

Havok, our old friend from the 616 universe, suddenly wakes up to discover his consciousness, mind , ego, soul, spirit, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it is now firmly planted inside the skull of an Alex Summers of an alternate timeline. This particular body was blasted by a Sentinel immediately prior to “our Havok’s” arrival. This is a world where Scott Summers died as a kid and his little brother Havok had to take up the slack by growing up to play much the same leadership role among his fellow mutant heroes that Cyclops played in 616 continuity. Presumably the original consciousness (or whatever) of this alternate-timeline Havok is now dead and gone for good. Havok will spend the full 32 issues of the Mutant X title “alive” but without any of his friends and relatives back in dear old 616 knowing about it.

1999. X-Men #87. Written by Fabian Nicieza from a plot by Alan Davis.

Joseph, a clone of Magneto and a member of the X-Men in his own right, sacrifices himself to save the world.

1999. X-Men #97. Written by Terry Kavanagh, but plotted by Alan Davis if I have this right.

Cyclops sacrifices himself and is merged together with Apocalypse. Professor X offers the shocked comment that now he can’t detect any trace of Scott’s mind or soul! Most of the X-Men apparently interpret this to mean: “No question about it, boys and girls - Scott is dead! May he rest in peace!” His wife Jean has more faith in him – but I believe that hers remains the minority opinion for quite some time. So I’m taking this as a “death scene” for him, and listing it on that basis.

2000. UXM #390. Written by Scott Lobdell.

Colossus dies voluntarily, as a human sacrifice to stop the Legacy Virus. (Yes, I personally believe a “super-powered mutant” can still be a “human” sacrifice. I have serious trouble with the assumption that one stupid mutant gene makes a guy a “nonhuman.”)

(In a later comic, we learned his body was cremated and the ashes scattered, so you'd think he would have been dead by the time that cremation process was finished if he hadn't already been when it started. But when did a little thing like that ever stop an X-Man?)

2000. UXM #391. Written by Scott Lobdell.

Although this story does not show Cyclops’s “miraculous return,” it is published before the story that does! So chronologically, it is arguably the “first” reappearance of a healthy Cyclops who is his own man again, free and clear. His memory apparently got somewhat damaged by the psychological trauma of the whole experience with Apocalypse, however, because he simply can’t remember that he already asked his long-lost father “why did you never come back for me?” almost twenty years earlier (our time), and Corsair already explained.

(If I recall correctly, the basic excuse provided by Claremont in the early 80s was that Corsair "knew" his two sons were dead, since he last saw them dangling from a burning parachute thousands of feet above the ground, so what was there on Earth that he really wanted or needed to go back to? When he broke out of captivity, he preferred to dedicate his life to getting revenge for the deaths of his wife and children! Only many years later did he find out the kids had survived because of the mutant superpowers he never knew they had. Made sense to me!)

[Lorendiac]

2000. X-Men: The Search for Cyclops #4. Written by Joseph Harris.

Better late than never? Now that UXM #391 had already shown us that Scott Summers was back in the land of the living, good as new (except for those ugly memory problems I mentioned), Marvel finally decided it might as well publish the last part of the miniseries that was dedicated to explaining how he did, in fact, get separated from Apocalypse and returned to active duty with the X-Men. Pity that UXM #391 had already destroyed any faint shred of “suspense” regarding just how this was going to play out, though.

2001. X-Treme X-Men #2. Written by Chris Claremont.

Psylocke dies when Vargas runs a sword right through her and then flees the scene, leaving the corpse behind for the other X-Men to grieve over. Seems like an open-and-shut case of death.

2001. UXM #393. Written by Scott Lobdell. Part 3 of "Eve of Destruction."

Dazzler is apparently killed by Magneto, in full view of other X-Men.

2001. X-Men #113. Written by Scott Lobdell. Part 4 of "Eve of Destruction."

Dazzler is back! She was just faking. Using her powers over light to confuse the issue with illusions.

2001. X-Men #115. Written by Grant Morrison.

Magneto apparently dies in Genosha when his Citadel is blasted by a bunch of Sentinels.

2001. Mutant X #32. Written by Howard Mackie.

Final issue of this title. Havok -- still the 616 Havok’s mind in this alternate Havok’s body -- disappears into the Nexus of All Realities and it seems as if he might be dying. At this time (as far as any reader knows) his original body is still supposed to have gone up in smoke when that reactor blew way back in X-Factor #149.. If Havok’s mind, with or without his “new” body, has now gone the way of all flesh as well, then he’s really and truly, no-foolin’, we-actually-mean-it-this-time, dead!

2002. UXM #404. Written by Joe Casey.

Mystique murders Sunpyre.

2002. UXM #405. Written by Joe Casey.

Chamber and Nightcrawler are in a jet. Then it explodes. The other X-Men worry that they are dead. Apparently the reader doesn't know any better, either. It doesn't help that Archangel, for some reason, orders Madrox not to search the wreckage.

2002. Uncanny X-Men #407. Written by Joe Casey.

They're back! Nightcrawler and Chamber are fine and dandy, thanks to Nightcrawler's teleporting them away at the last moment. They just happened to end up at a remote mountain cabin in Bavaria which belongs to an old circus buddy of Kurt's who is now retired to live a life of quiet seclusion. The rest of the X-Men, as well as the readers, become aware of their survival in this issue.

2002. Uncanny X-Men #410. Written by Chuck Austen.

Several X-Men are in a Blackbird which gets attacked near the coast of Scotland and crashes into a castle. Stacy X panics when she discovers Archangel is not breathing. So I'd say she had reason to believe he was dead. Professor X -- communicating long-distance via telepathy -- recommends CPR. We do not find out -- in this issue -- if his suggestion does any good.

2002. Uncanny X-Men #411. Written by Chuck Austen.

Archangel is in lousy shape but will apparently pull through. Also, Havok is back. We discover that for months he's been catatonic in the Rosy Manor Convalescent Hospital in upstate New York. A "John Doe," identity unknown. At the end of this issue, Nurse Annie Ghazikhanian calls the X-Mansion to mention the similarity of "John Doe" to a photo of Alex Summers in a magazine article.

NOTE: I am told that the Havok who eventually (in a later story) recovered full consciousness did not appear to remember anything about his adventures in the alternate timeline of the Mutant X title.

2002. X-Treme X-Men #18. Written by Chris Claremont.

Now patients in a M.A.S.H. unit after suffering nasty injuries in a recent battle, Rogue, Gambit, and Storm all have out-of-body experiences before ultimately all three pulling through, with their spirits firmly parked inside their mortal bodies once more. You could argue that all three of them were dead at some point here, I think. (Storm actually took the deliberate risk of having her spirit leave her body for a bit, on the theory that this might be a great opportunity to finally touch bases with her long-dead parents.)

2003. Uncanny X-Men #418. Written by Chuck Austen.

At the end of the issue, Warren (Archangel) and Paige Guthrie (Husk) are both badly wounded. Paige may be dead. The primary evidence for Paige's (very temporary) death is that a maggot crawls over her eyeball without her even mustering the energy to blink on reflex.

2003. Uncanny X-Men #419. Written by Chuck Austen.

Whether Paige was briefly dead or not, she and Warren will both pull through. This was how Warren discovered he had a nifty secondary mutation such that his blood could serve as a sort of healing potion for any sick or injured person he touched.

2003. UXM #423. Written by Chuck Austen.

Six crucified mutants, dead, are found on the front lawn of the X-Mansion one morning. They include Jubilee and Magma, who are brought back to life when Archangel drips his potent blood onto their bodies. (The others stay dead, but as near as I can tell, none of them had ever qualified for the distinction of being considered "members of the X-Men," so I won't list them.)

2003. Uncanny X-Men #430. Written by Chuck Austen.

Iceman is shot with an arrow. His icy body shatters. Archangel assumes he is dead, and takes the trouble to retrieve the head.

2003. Uncanny X-Men #431. Written by Chuck Austen.

Archangel observes that the eyes and mouth of Iceman's head are still moving. Two more issues will pass before Bobby Drake is back to anything remotely resembling "normal," but I figure this qualifies as the moment when his friends realize he isn't exactly dead after all!

2003. Weapon X #5. Written by Frank Tieri.

Maggott is one of the mutants killed in a gas chamber at the Neverland concentration camp in a scene straight out of the Jewish Holocaust. However, we see that one of his slugs escaped.

2003. New X-Men #148. Written by Grant Morrison.

Jean Grey and Wolverine are trapped on Asteroid X as it goes hurtling straight toward the sun, courtesy of Magneto. Wolverine finally kills Jean with his claws on the theory that it's a quicker, more merciful death than being roasted alive as the heat increases.

She gets over it, though - we see her eyes fire up before the issue ends. Somehow the death was a necessary preliminary step before she could access the full power of the Phoenix or some such thing (according to what she says later. You know how Phoenixes are). Wolverine had not anticipated that result, incidentally, but it saved him from dying himself.

2003. New X-Men #150. Written by Grant Morrison.

Magneto, previously posing as Xorn for many issues, manages to fatally injure Jean Grey with a big electromagnetic pulse, so that she soon dies. Magneto then dies himself.

[Yes, yes, I know, it was later retconned to not be Magneto at all. But for the moment, I prefer to describe things as they seemed to be happening at the time.]

2004. Astonishing X-Men #4. Written by Joss Whedon.

Colossus is back.

[Lorendiac]

2005. Wolverine #25. Written by Mark Millar.

Wolverine, under the influence of some sort of mind-control programming courtesy of HYDRA, stabs Northstar through the chest, killing him.

2005. Wolverine #26. Written by Mark Millar.

The ninja group known as The Hand steals Northstar’s corpse and resurrects him as one of their own, conveniently brainwashed, merciless killers.

(Note: Later, in Wolverine #31, it develops that S.H.I.E.L.D. has captured Northstar and is trying to deprogram him. Apparently, most of the people who knew him in the MU still think he’s dead at this point?)

2005. UXM #455. Written by Chris Claremont.

Psylocke is back! As I recall, no explanation is provided in this issue.

2005. Alpha Flight #9 (third series). Written by Scott Lobdell.

Apparently working on the theory that you should "never apologize and never explain" regarding a return from the dead, Sunpyre appears as part of a mind-controlled team called Big Hero Six, fighting the Alphans.

NOTE: Later in 2005, "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Teams" will assert that Sunpyre just happens to be an alternate-timeline version of the deceased character; this version having been dragged kicking and screaming into 616 thanks to the character known as Honey Lemon and her Power Purse.

2005. Rogue #11. Written by Tony Bedard.

Sunfire possibly dies. His legs have been amputated by Lady Deathstrike, and then he urges Rogue to touch him and absorb his own powers so that she can get out of the nasty jam they're in. She is afraid that doing that to him, in his current condition, could easily kill him. He apparently states that without his legs, he doesn't really care about staying alive anyhow. A third party to the conversation makes sure Rogue touches him and involuntarily absorbs his powers. Sunfire is either unconscious or dead by the time this issue ends.

As near as I can tell from online research, the primary evidence for thinking he had "died" is that in the following issue of this series, Wolverine claims to smell "the stink of death" all over the room in which Sunfire's body, live or dead, had last been seen. And apparently no one else was known to have been dying in that room lately. However, by the time Logan was examining the room, Sunfire's body (alive or dead) had mysteriously vanished since the last time any witness had glanced at it, so there was no autopsy, funeral, etc.

I am told that Sunfire has been heard from again since then, in and after "House of M," but I am not clear on whether or not he "actually" died here. If he didn't, I don't know what that "stink of death" that Logan sniffed was all about.

2005. X-Men: Phoenix -- Endsong #1. Written by Greg Pak.

This five-part miniseries raises knotty questions for me about what constitutes "death" and "resurrection."

We start out this story with the discovery that some blooming idiots among the Shi'ar thought it would be a peachy keen idea to build a fancy device to "reconstitute" the Phoenix Force . . . so that they could destroy it properly, once and for all, after it was a live target again! (Talk about children playing with matches and then wondering why the house is burning down . . . couldn't they just have counted their blessings re: the Phoenix Force's current "dead" condition, and left it at that?)

Active and conscious once again, the Phoenix Force wants to take up residence in a proper body once more. Later in this issue, it raises Jean Grey's body from the dead and reinhabits it (the Phoenix Force personality, and Jean Grey's own human personality, are apparently uneasy psychic roommates at this stage in the story, vying for dominance).

2005. X-Men: Phoenix -- Endsong #3. Written by Greg Pak.

Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.
Wolverine kills Jean Grey/Phoenix with his claws. She recovers.

I may have lot count somewhere along the line, but I make it seven times minimum, in quick succession. In Logan's defense, I should mention that Jean specifically asked him to do this. Hey, what are friends for?

2005. X-Men: Phoenix -- Endsong #4. Written by Greg Pak.

The Phoenix is persuaded to take up residence in the body of Emma Frost. You could call this a new "reincarnation" of the Phoenix. Not that it lasts long.

2005. X-Men: Phoenix -- Endsong #5. Written by Greg Pak.

The Phoenix merges with Jean again. Then they both end up "dying" all over again. I think. With the Phoenix, it's awfully hard to know where to draw the line between "alive" and "dead" at any given moment in its existence. Case in point: At the very end of this story arc, the Phoenix Force appears to be making a sales pitch (or something -- details are unclear) to one of the telepathic girls known as the Stepford Cuckoos.

2005. New Excalibur #1. Written by Chris Claremont, but I don’t know who wrote the editorial comments in the letter column, which is the only part that concerns us right now.

Almost three years after the publication of Weapon X #5, an editorial comment in a lettercol "confirms" that Cecelia Reyes was murdered during the events of that issue (see that story's own entry further above, a 2003 listing, for the sad death of Maggott).

Just to complicate the issue: Frank Tieri, writer of "Weapon X #5" (and the rest of that series) has reportedly said loud and clear that in his opinion, Cecelia never died at all. (This would certainly explain why he never wrote any dialogue that had people mourning over her corpse.)

X-Men and former X-Men have died in all sorts of strange ways over the years, but this may be some sort of record for weirdness in that department. "Death by Letter Column, Three Years after the Putative Fact! And even the writer of the relevant story swears he didn't think he killed her off!"


***** END OF TIMELINE *****

I want to thank everybody who offered constructive criticism regarding mistakes and omissions in the First Draft. This Second Draft greatly benefitted from the things other people pointed out that I had forgotten or never knew about before. Some of the "death scenes" that other people brought to my attention did not quite fit within my criteria, as near as I could tell after researching them further, but I appreciated being told about them anyway.

Even so, I strongly suspect my improved Second Draft is not yet perfect. If you think I missed a "death" of a character who was serving as an X-Man at the time he or she died -- or had previously served as an X-Man in continuity in other stories before the death scene -- then please let me know!

Incidentally, on the subject of adding things up and offering Grand Totals of how often each X-Man has "died" over the years, I currently am holding off on that until the Third Draft. I will point out that if I am right to count Jean Grey as having died about eight more times, all put together, within the pages of "Phoenix: Endsong," on top of any previous deaths of hers, then she is definitely in first place now if she wasn't before! :)

[Beast]

Quick addendum:
2005. Rogue #11. Written by Tony Bedard.

Sunfire possibly dies. His legs have been amputated by Lady Deathstrike, and then he urges Rogue to touch him and absorb his own powers so that she can get out of the nasty jam they're in. She is afraid that doing that to him, in his current condition, could easily kill him. He apparently states that without his legs, he doesn't really care about staying alive anyhow. A third party to the conversation makes sure Rogue touches him and involuntarily absorbs his powers. Sunfire is either unconscious or dead by the time this issue ends.

As near as I can tell from online research, the primary evidence for thinking he had "died" is that in the following issue of this series, Wolverine claims to smell "the stink of death" all over the room in which Sunfire's body, live or dead, had last been seen. And apparently no one else was known to have been dying in that room lately. However, by the time Logan was examining the room, Sunfire's body (alive or dead) had mysteriously vanished since the last time any witness had glanced at it, so there was no autopsy, funeral, etc.

I am told that Sunfire has been heard from again since then, in and after "House of M," but I am not clear on whether or not he "actually" died here. If he didn't, I don't know what that "stink of death" that Logan sniffed was all about.
As seen in the current 'Blood of Apocalypse' storyline in Adjectiveless X-Men, Sunfire did not die.

[Dizzy D]

1990.
1998. Mutant X #1. Written by Howard Mackie.

Havok, our old friend from the 616 universe, suddenly wakes up to discover his consciousness, mind , ego, soul, spirit, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it is now firmly planted inside the skull of an Alex Summers of an alternate timeline. This particular body was blasted by a Sentinel immediately prior to “our Havok’s” arrival. This is a world where Scott Summers died as a kid and his little brother Havok had to take up the slack by growing up to play much the same leadership role among his fellow mutant heroes that Cyclops played in 616 continuity. Presumably the original consciousness (or whatever) of this alternate-timeline Havok is now dead and gone for good. Havok will spend the full 32 issues of the Mutant X title “alive” but without any of his friends and relatives back in dear old 616 knowing about it.

In later Mutant X, Mutant X's Hank McCoy theorizes that both Havok's swapped minds. In Exiles, when the Exiles visit Earth 616, their mission is to kill Havok because he has an alternate reality version (the Mutant X-version) of himself living inside him and it basically is a psychopath, it takes control, fights X-men and Exiles, gets defeated and Havok is restored to his normal self.

[Lorendiac]

In later Mutant X, Mutant X's Hank McCoy theorizes that both Havok's swapped minds. In Exiles, when the Exiles visit Earth 616, their mission is to kill Havok because he has an alternate reality version (the Mutant X-version) of himself living inside him and it basically is a psychopath, it takes control, fights X-men and Exiles, gets defeated and Havok is restored to his normal self.

I actually read that Exiles story arc some time ago, in TPB I believe. Problem is, at the time I knew absolutely nothing about the "Mutant X" series and didn't really understand how Havok had gotten all tangled up with an alternate reality version of himself. By the time I recently learned what the premise of "Mutant X" had been, I had forgotten the details of that Exiles story and wasn't sure how it fit in. :)

[FieryBalrog]

I think you missed Emma Frost's death in New X-men #139.