Welcome to the second weekly edition of “Leave it to the Greekâ€! Through this column I’ll get the chance to talk with some of the industry’s premiere comics creators about their views on a specific comics-related topic. We’ll be tackling a different topic every month and talking to a different creator every week.
This month we talk about death in comics, and I’m honoured to welcome this week’s guest creator: Mike Carey, critically-acclaimed and fan-favourite writer of Vertigo’s Lucifer, Hellblazer and the Furies HC…
Manolis: Hello Mike, and welcome to my column. Do you think death is the trendy new thing in comics?
Mike Carey: I think death has always been trendy. It’s got a lot of advantages if you don’t over-use it: it gives a sort of tragic grandeur even to silly characters; it pulls in casual and occasional readers so it gives you a sales spike; it clears away dead wood. And of course, because this is comics, it doesn’t really change anything. The dead character can rise from the grave a few months later and nobody will bat an eyelid. As Bob Dylan once said, “death is not the end.”
Manolis: Do you believe this particular motif has been overused lately in comics?
Mike: However frivolous I sounded earlier, I’m never happy with death being used just as a gimmick. There has to be at the very least a reason for the death arising from the mechanics of a particular story. it shouldn’t be a case of “I don’t have the faintest idea how to wrap this story up, so I’m just gonna kill someone. Not a hoax, not a brainfart, et cetera.” So yes, I guess I do think it’s done too often – or perhaps it’s done too often for the wrong reasons. Remember the original Star Trek, where characters you’d never met before who went on on away term to a planet’s surface were always the ones who got killed? The most dishonest thing you can do as a writer is to introduce expendable characters just so you can bump them off and get a cheap effect. Well, actually the most dishonest thing is to sign your editor’s name on a cheque, but this is a close second.
I’ve had a pretty high body count in Lucifer over the years, but if you think about the characters who’ve died, they’ve all of them mattered to some extent and their deaths have been given a certain amount of narrative weight. Mona, Musubi, Amenadiel and so on – they were none of them nameless bit players.
I’m aware as I say this, though, that I’m as guilty as anyone of nibbling around the edges of death. We’ve had resurrections in Lucifer – some very significant ones. Again, I hope they all made narrative sense and didn’t feel like cheating. Musubi returns from death because Lucifer has the disposition of her soul: Cestis never really died, she was just dissipated and then collected again in one place; Lucifer came so close to death he couldn’t even exert any effort to pull himself back from the edge without tipping himself over – so someone else died to bring him back.
Manolis: Why choose to kill one of your main characters, Elaine?
Mike: Because to move something as big as Lucifer from death to life you need a counter-balance that works in narrative terms. If Elaine had been able to tap Lucifer on the shoulder, pass on just enough power to pull him back from the brink and then fly away into the sunset, it wouldn’t have felt real: it would have felt convenient. One of the main problems I faced in the Paradiso/Purgatorio storylines was keeping the focus on how much was at stake all the way through. It was especially necessary not to blow that at the pivotal point when Lucifer escapes from the Basanos’s schemes and turns the situation around.
So I think there were strong narrative reasons why Elaine had to die – I mean, in relation to that story. But her death is also part of a broader plan, which is then played out in the Naglfar storyline and after. She still has a role to play, and we do get to see her again, although not as a little girl living in West London.
Manolis: Once the decision about a character’s death is made do you continue to develop him/her like the rest of your cast or single him/her out and provide more/less spotlight, counting down to the imminent demise?
Mike: No, I think as with any other important character development you start building towards it. Particularly, I think you do probably bring them more into the spotlight. The edge of the stage is a bad place to die from, just from the point of view of aesthetics.
Manolis: When do you think a character’s death becomes gratuitous?
Mike: As above – when it’s not related to the story and is nailed on to get a big bang and a good cover image.
Manolis: Thank you for your time and insights!
Mike: Best wishes and speak to you soon.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
