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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9545577" data-attributes="member: 6790260">....does that matter?I'm genuinely serious. Even if the answer is no (and I'm fairly sure it isn't--comics in general love their time travel retcon-induced angst and Spider-Man is always in the top 5 of Most Angsty Marvel Supers), does it matter that it hasn't happened more than once in a single continuity?Because once the Pandora's box of infinite retcon-erasure is opened, it cheapens the stakes of every future conflict, even if it's in a new continuity. I've seen many people have this exact response to Spider-Man specifically, and to superhero deaths generally. Another great example is deaths in shonen anime. Somebody of meaningful importance &quot;dies&quot; in a shonen anime? You straight-up won't be able to convince the audience that they're actually dead, not for a long, long time, unless you go through the full and complete motions (like what Fullmetal Alchemist does with--obviously, major spoilers--[ISPOILER]Lt. Col. Maes Hughes, where his death is given exactly the amount of weight it deserves, the characters don't instantly and totally shut down without him but they intensely feel his loss and the story lingers on the consequences of his death.[/ISPOILER]) Shonen protagonists in particular are basically totally immune to any actual death, so authors/artists who frame a scene as potentially lethal for a shonen protagonist are basically never able to actually convince the audience that the stakes are real. The bluff will always be called, because it always is a bluff, and then both sides are left disappointed and unsatisfied.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9545577, member: 6790260"] ....does that [I]matter?[/I] I'm genuinely serious. Even if the answer is no (and I'm fairly sure it isn't--comics in general [I]love[/I] their time travel retcon-induced angst and Spider-Man is always in the top 5 of Most Angsty Marvel Supers), does it [I]matter[/I] that it hasn't happened more than once in a single continuity? Because once the Pandora's box of infinite retcon-erasure is opened, it cheapens the stakes of every future conflict, even if it's in a new continuity. I've seen many people have this exact response to Spider-Man specifically, and to superhero deaths generally. Another great example is deaths in shonen anime. Somebody of meaningful importance "dies" in a shonen anime? You straight-up won't be able to convince the audience that they're actually dead, not for a long, long time, unless you go through the full and complete motions (like what [I]Fullmetal Alchemist[/I] does with--obviously, major spoilers--[ISPOILER]Lt. Col. Maes Hughes, where his death is given [I]exactly[/I] the amount of weight it deserves, the characters don't instantly and totally shut down without him but they intensely feel his loss and the story [I]lingers[/I] on the consequences of his death.[/ISPOILER]) Shonen protagonists in particular are basically totally immune to any actual death, so authors/artists who frame a scene as potentially lethal for a shonen protagonist are basically [I]never[/I] able to actually convince the audience that the stakes are real. The bluff will always be called, because it always [I]is[/I] a bluff, and then both sides are left disappointed and unsatisfied. [/QUOTE]

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