Marvel-616 Afterlife: What happens to a soul when it dies?

[ReturnOfTheComeback]

Is it permanently destroyed, merely dispersed (like the element of mercury) until it is restored, or does the spirit go to an even lower plane of existence? Recent stories from Marvel have been all over the map on this circumstance...

[Habis]

Well, I don´t see the souls trapped in the afterlifes of the pagan gods or the hells of the devils to be truly dead; more like they have been absorbed and integrated into their narrative, becoming mythical beings themselves (they become asgardian, olympian, celtic mythical creatures); they have physical bodies while they stay there, and if they escape they can interact physically with living beings. I don´t think Hell is a natural destination for souls; more like predators like Mephisto and Satannish steal souls and trap them there, preventing them to go where they should go.

Now, about the TRUE afterlife, it seems to exist a sort of heaven, of which we have had some glimpses, and Mistress Death´s kingdom. A "God", the One-Above-All is hinted, but we don´t know if he pays any attention at all to human souls; for all we know he could be even more distant that Eternity. We don´t know about a "true" Satan and a "real" Hell; the throne of Satan is shown empty in Journey into Mystery (but it still exists, hinting to the existance of a real Satan).

Personally I like to think that good people´s soul go to Therea, shown in the Man-Thing pages, protected by the gods Zokk and Maftra, who are so humble nobody knows them, save some people from mystical dimensions.

[DaronK]

Marvel 616??? They come right back to life...

[Iron Maiden]

Two stories come to mind on this topic and that is Mark Waid's Fantastic Four arc called "Hereafter" and the graphic novel "Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment"

In "Hereafter", Ben was presumed dead. He sacrificed himself because Doom had used the Ovoid mind swap and was using Ben's strength to snap Johnny's bone one by one. Reed used a Thing - killer gun on Ben's body to force Doom out. He kept Ben's body in a stasis chamber and IIRC he had detected a very small, steady energy signature. Using the specs from Doom's machine that he built in their college days that was used to attempt to contact his mother in the Netherworld, Reed built his own version. While on the journey, they encountered the soul of Ben's long dead brother Danny along with Ben himself, now in human form. So I suppose you could say this was a version of Heaven ruled by a guy who looked like Jack Kirby, who restored Ben to his body back on Earth.

In Triumph and Torment, Doom and Doctor Strange battle Mephisto for the soul of Doom's mother. Her soul was imprisoned in amber as I recall and Mephisto created a lifelike effigy to contain it when Doom gave Doctor Strange over to Mephisto as part of his bargain. Not to spoil the end too much but the soul of Doom's mother was redeemed and moved on to a higher plane from Mephisto's realm.

The dead that were present in Waid's "Hereafter" stories possessed bodies and weren't in some kind of ghostly form. Neither of them visited the living as ghosts. Doom used to claim to hear his mother's voice pleading for him to save her but who knows if that was just his overwrought imagination? We know from Books of Doom he had nightmares about it at least. But it's hard to say if that was the demons really taunting him or not with the soul of his mother as a lure.

[Expletive Deleted]

If it's all over the map and there's no "official" position, then you're free to pick and choose whichever version you like best.

[Songbird/Diamondback]

How often do you have a story where the soul is destroyed?

Isn't death enough?

[Wellman]

The only times I've heard of souls being destroyed and it was more then a boastful threat were during Thanos Imperative, where the H.P. Lovecraft elements ran super high and being immortal was the major threat and Chaos War where they were fighting a deity that wanted to become and may have already been a fraction of Oblivion.

But depending on what their beliefs are or their location, most Marvel souls have a form of the Afterlife they go to. Unless they sold their souls or are linked somehow to another pantheon.

[Imraith Nimphais]

They float around in limbo counting down the minutes until the body is brought back to life. (Except for Strong-guy of X-Factor...his soul decided it wanted absolutely nothing more to do with the MU and has gone off to enjoy some personal downtime...indefinitely).

[DebkoX]

Well dr doom's mother soul was taken to hell from Mesphisto.

[The Black Guardian]

I'm convinced that everyone we've ever seen in a Marvel afterlife lies. I'm not even convinced "soul" has much meaning, other than some wacky non-Einsteinian form of energy from multiple random sources.

[Jumpoff!]

well as far as human souls go johnny blaze's wife and kids where seen in heaven.

[AdamYJ]

Well, the way I see it . . .

First super-heroes and super-villians are sent to a form of purgatory that resembles a large convenience store. There, the hero or villian is presented with the chance to review their own sins and virtues as represented by a spinner rack filled with comics that depict the events of their own life. They must pay for their sins, however (it's not a library, you know). They also have this opportunity to sample the food of the dead. This is usually represented by a snack cake which has the ability to purify and ward off the influence of evil (you've seen the ads, you know what I'm talking about) and a sweet, fruity, icy beverage that has enough "spiritual sugar" in it to give them energy for the long trip ahead. At some point they're judged and sent to the appropriate afterlife, but I'm not sure when.

I came up with this screwy idea in the not too distant past and was waiting for something to do with it. :p

[Ravin' Ray]

If Annihilus kills you with the Cosmic Control Rod in the Negative Zone like Johnny Storm, your soul doesn't leave the material plane of existence and can easily return to your body.

[Wellman]

If Annihilus kills you with the Cosmic Control Rod in the Negative Zone like Johnny Storm, your soul doesn't leave the material plane of existence and can easily return to your body.

That was more the fact that they kept forcibly resurrecting them with the equivalent of Blade of the Immortal's bloodworms that kept repairing the body no matter what damage was done. Had the body stayed dead, the soul would have past on, Annihilus never left his prisoners dead for that long if they were entertaining.

[CrazyOldHermit]

well as far as human souls go johnny blaze's wife and kids where seen in heaven.

Frank Castle's family went to heaven as well.

And then theres the matter of both Hell and Hel existing....