Dan Didio's Bodycount of Fun 2007!

You know I was idly curious about reading the first issue of DC’s “The Death of the New Gods” due to the presence of one man… Jim Starlin. Yes the guy who killed Captain Mar-vel, drew the bludgeoning of Jason Todd, and wrote The Infinity Gauntlet. It is a well known equation that Jim Starlin + Epic Space Battles + Superhero Deaths = Sales.  Except for Marvel: The End… that sucked.

That said I am supremely displeased with the death of Big Barda. I’m not against the concept of killing off Big Barda in a book titled “The Death of the New Gods,” but good lord could the execution have been any worse? This is quite possibly the least fitting most crap-tastic superhero death scene since poor Steph Brown’ General-hospital esc deathbed scene in Batman: War Games.  I mean for god’s sake… she was shot in the chest while putting away groceries.  That kind of death scene might have been fitting for a character like Linda Park West or Lana Lang, but Barda sure as hell deserved better than such a stereotypical Superhero wife/girlfriend death.

For starters killing off Barda this early in the game is a patently stupid move as well, Barda is the Jack Kirby Fourth World character for people who don’t care about Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. She is arguably the most popular forth world character, and the most recognizable to younger readers due to her appearances in Birds of Prey and Grant Morrison’s JLA run. People who don’t care the slightest about more obscure Fourth World characters like Mark Moonrider or Metron probably picked this up because they were expecting to see Barda go out in some big cosmic battle scene, not in something that plays like a deleted subplot from Identity Crisis.

Lets be perfectly frank… in giving Barda such a miserable death scene Starlin seems to have overlooked the one trait that makes Barda significant in comic book history, namely that she was a rank-A Badass.  Barda was arguably the first real feminist super heroine.  While Wonder Woman was running around as a confused Emma Peel and Batgirl was still in “Eeek I got a run in my tights Batman” mode, Big Barda was kicking ass. She didn’t play damsel in distress, leaving her husband to deal with absurd traps and anytime she did (like John Byrne’s despicable Action Comics 592-593) it seemed like she was an actress being cast against type.

Now I realize that my ideal send-off for the character in which Big Barda dies stabbing Darkseid with a flaming harpoon and jumping on a grenade while Finnish Metal Band Nightwish plays a ballad in her honor would have been difficult to illustrate… but c’mon the last thing I should think about when seeing a death scene is how boring and lazy it is in execution.
Type your cut contents here.