Superheroes We've Lost In 2023 So Far - Looper

Superheroes We've Lost In 2023 So Far - Looper,From live-action A-listers to minor comic book figures, these are the superheroes who died in 2023.

Superheroes We’ve Lost In 2023 So Far – Looper

There are only four certainties in life — death, taxes, superhero death, and the retconning of superhero death in future stories. The following victims of tragic, usually violent circumstances may all very well follow the trajectory of Superman after his murder at the hands of Doomsday in 1993’s “The Death of Superman,” as well as Jean Grey when she nobly sacrificed herself at the conclusion of 1980’s “Dark Phoenix Saga.” Jean’s not even the only X-Man with a touch-and-go approach to the great beyond anymore. Most of her teammates have died and returned to life several times over ever since they moved to Krakoa and became functionally immortal in 2019’s “House of X” and “Powers of X.”

And what about superheroes who die in alternate realities while their counterparts in adjacent dimensions remain among the living? What about heroes who die in one medium but remain upright and breathing in another? It’s all profoundly confusing, but if we didn’t enjoy being confused then we wouldn’t be fans of superhero media, would we? Let’s gaze upon the superheroes we’ve lost so far in 2023, mourn their passing, and anxiously await their inevitable return to glory.

Updated on April 19, 2023: As the year goes on, we’ll keep you aware of all the heartbreaking losses in the superhero community. So be warned — there are major spoilers below.

ForgetMeNot

Marvel Comics

In the world of the X-Men, Charles Xavier devised a compilated process to literally resurrect any member of homo superior who no longer resides among the living. Said process involves Cerebro automatically backing up the memories of every mutant on the planet, as well as Hope Summers, Tempus, Proteus, Elixir, and Egg all combining their powers. Wolverine fell out of a spaceship next to the Sun and was instantly incinerated? No problem. Hope and her crew, known as The Five, will make sure he’s back and even better at what he does by the next morning.

However, in order to bring a mutant back, Professor X and The Five have to remember that mutant existed, which creates a special problem for the member of Nightcrawler and David Haller’s team of Legionnaires known (or should we say “unknown?”) as ForgetMeNot, whose power is an inability to register in the memory of other beings. During “Legion of X” #10, in what what word-count restrictions force us to describe as a very elaborate Sentinel attack on Krakoa — in which Cain Marko temporarily merges with the Spirit of Variance and essentially battles killer robots as a Ghost Rider-Juggernaut hybrid — the remarkably unremarkable mutant sometimes called Xabi volunteers to be blown to bits in order to protect the island.

The techno-organic being known as Warlock also perishes in the scuffle, but the surviving Legionnaires immediately begin laying plans to reassemble him. As far as Xabi is concerned, it’s impossible to bring back a dead person if you don’t remember they ever existed.

Xolum

Marvel Studios

In case anyone who watched “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” needs a reminder, whimsical sci-fi novelty characters like Veb the squishy guy and the glowing cylinder-headed Xolum are a dead giveaway that somebody from the “Rick & Morty” writing staff had a strong hand in Scott Lang’s most contentious big-screen adventure. Jeff Loveness will get another MCU at-bat with “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” which is more than we can say for poor dumb Xolum.

Despite his lack of a backstory or really much of an identity beyond a warrior-like disposition, an alliance with the Quantum Realm rebels, and his aforementioned flashlight-for-a-head thing, audiences the world over felt a slight tug on their heartstrings when Kang popped Xolum’s cranium like an overcharged florescent bulb. Granted, it might have been a very slight tug in most instances, but as far as “Quantumania” characters go, Xolum definitely does more to further the plot than Lord Krylar or Hope van Dyne, and they’re both played by major celebrities. Xolum didn’t deserve much better, but he definitely deserved a little better.

MODOK

Marvel Studios

The MCU’s infamously overworked digital designers did the best they could to turn Corey Stoll into a giant head with proportionately tiny arms and legs. Whether they pulled it off might be a matter for debate, but for reasons totally unrelated to the limits of modern special effects technology, MODOK — the Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing — isn’t expected to appear in future MCU films.

After Cassie Lang reminds Kang’s most ridiculous henchman that it’s “never too late to stop being a d***,” MODOK takes her advice to heart and bites the big one while helping an army of giant ants vanquish the Quantum Realm’s one-time Conqueror. With his dying breath, he looks into the eyes of former arch enemy Scott Lang and says, “At least I died … an Avenger.” While MODOK probably can’t legitimately declare himself an Avenger and Scott probably doesn’t have the clout to approve new members even if he wants to, MODOK’s last-second face turn is enough to qualify him for this list.

Shazam

Warner Bros.

In this instance, when we say Shazam “died” this year, we actually mean a couple of different things. Since basically nobody saw “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” during its theatrical run in March, star Zachary Levi invited us all to question his judgement with some truly baffling PR blunders, and the entire live-action DC Universe is in the process of a highly publicized reboot overseen by James Gunn, the prospects for this iteration of “Shazam!” carrying on as a franchise look very slim. Incidentally, the character Shazam, aka Billy Batson, also fails to survive a battle against the film’s ultimate antagonist, the goddess Kalypso, one of the daughters of Atlas. But Billy’s death is very temporary; Wonder Woman makes a surprise cameo and brings him back to life in a scenario that makes Krakoan mutant resurrection look plausible by comparison. Incidentally, Wonder Woman probably doesn’t have a third movie coming out, either.

Jinx

Warner Bros./YouTube

By splitting its 12-episode Season 4 in half, “Titans” made sure we wouldn’t know if Jinx survived getting stabbed in the gut with a magic pitchfork in Episode 6 — which aired in 2022 — until 2023. It’s here in Episode 7 that we learn Jinx does, in fact, expire. Rachel “Raven” Roth sends the fragments of Jinx’s soul to be at peace in the afterlife, and that’s apparently that.

A recent addition to “Titans” who made her first appearance Season 4’s Episode 3, appropriately titled “Jinx,” the snarky magic user and “Teen Titans” adversary going back to Marv Wolfman’s 1980s had a certain amount of “Red Shirt on ‘Star Trek'” energy surrounding her before HBO Max announced this show wouldn’t continue beyond this season anyway. Still, it’s a drag Jinx won’t be in the final six episodes. Or maybe it’s for the best? Is being on “Titans” — a grim, live-action “adult” iteration of “Teen Titans” that never quite felt necessary — a good thing? A bad thing? Maybe it just is what it is.