The Justice League will soon die and only one member is destined to survive - but who will it be? Nearly 30 years ago, DC Comics made the unprecedented decision to kill Superman. Modern readers are jaded to comic book deaths, but in 1992 Superman's fate became a subject for the international news. In truth, the death wasn't the point, and it was soon reversed. The purpose of Superman's death was to explore his impact on the wider DC universe by showing what a world without Superman would look like.
In honor of this legendary story, DC Comics has announced its next event — Death of the Justice League, which will take place in the upcoming Justice League #75. A team of heroes — consisting of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Zatanna — will travel into a dead multiverse in order to battle a dark army. According to DC, the heroes will fail, and only one of their number will return to tell the story of the Justice League's greatest defeat. But just which of the heroes is destined to survive?
In narrative terms, it's unlikely to be one of the main heroes — simply because that would detract from the impact of the story. If Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman — DC's "Trinity" — survived, they'd simply try to form a new Justice League, and the same is likely true for Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile, if DC is really interested in exploring a world without some of its greatest heroes, it surely won't be able to resist killing off Green Lantern John Stewart or Aquaman; both deaths would radically alter their own corners of the DC universe.
That leaves only a handful of potential survivors left: Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Zatanna. It would be particularly interesting to see how Green Arrow or Black Canary dealt with being the sole survivor of this mission, given their longstanding romance; they'd likely carry a dark burden of survivor's guilt, pushing their characters in interesting new directions. But probably the most likely survivor is Zatanna, simply because she isn't traditionally associated with the Justice League — shaking things up all the more.
This isn't 1992, of course. Nobody is really expecting the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman to stay dead. But the interest in this story is simply to explore what the world would look like without its greatest heroes — and how the death of the Justice League would shake the entire DC universe. Such a story truly honors the legendary "Death of Superman," which followed the same format. No doubt readers will pick up Justice League #75 with curiosity, eager to see if they can figure out how the supposedly dead heroes return en masse in the end.
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