Every Character Who Dies in Heroes in Crisis #3, Ranked
Tom King, Clay Mann & Lee Weeks’ DC Comics Event Series Ups the Death Toll
Main Art by Clay Mann & Tomeu Morey
Tom King and Clay Mann’s hotly debated DC Comics event series Heroes in Crisis deliver its third issue to stands today, although Mann draws just two pages, leaving the bulk of the issue to King’s recent Batman collaborator Lee Weeks. Unlike the preceding issue, which hinted heavily at a casualty we’ll mention below but had no on-panel demises, Heroes in Crisis #3 flashes back to the massacre, confirming two previously unknown deaths, and strongly suggesting a whole bunch more.
If you somehow missed all the hubbub, Heroes in Crisis revolves around a mass murder at the Sanctuary, a mental health facility founded by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman to care for the specific trauma needs of the super-powered community. Sanctuary was briefly mentioned in King’s Batman run, but Heroes in Crisis #1 was its first official appearance, and readers discovered the facility littered with the bodies of its costumed patients. If you’d like to know more about the book’s uncertain tone—and who perishes in the first issue—check out the breakdown we ran back in September. For a rundown of which characters meet their untimely fate in Heroes in Crisis #3 (and how likely they are to stay dead), scroll on down.
And we really shouldn’t have to explicitly state this, but Massive Spoilers Ahead. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Heroes in Crisis #3 Interior Art by Lee Weeks & Tomeu Morey
Even More Tragically Dead Than We Knew:
“Lagoon Boy has such a great design, DC Comics should do more with him,” an innocent Young Justice viewer said aloud, unknowingly causing a desiccated finger on Tom King’s monkey’s paw to bend and crack. Heroes in Crisis #3 is split between three flashbacks of different heroes processing their trauma, and Lagoon Boy’s might be the most upsetting. We won’t spoil it here, but we found it kind of funny, we found it kind of sad, the story in which Lagoon Boy died might be the best he ever had (or at least the most attention he ever got on the printed page, anyway).
Heroes in Crisis #3 Interior Art by Lee Weeks & Tomeu Morey
Dead Forever:
Latter-day teen heroes are at particular risk of becoming cannon fodder during event series—just ask dozens and dozens of dead X-Men cadets, or Hotspot, confirmed dead in Heroes in Crisis #1 and seen again here. Red Devil is probably chilling down in Hell forever more, seeing as how his mentor, Blue Devil, barely gets any page time himself (props to Blue Devil’s new Frazetta-esque reimagining in Justice League Dark, though). Red Devil was a fun addition to the Teen Titans dynamic during his pre-New 52 tenure, but he hails from a legacy-friendly era that sees little love at DC these days, and it’s unlikely he’ll be back.
Gunfire, meanwhile, is a joke…which means there’s actually an outside chance some too-clever writer brings him back down the line. A spawn of the abortive Bloodlines event from the early ‘90s, Gunfire can “agitate particles” to make objects explode or shoot energy projectiles—a.k.a. Gambit without the sleazy charm or playing-card shtick. Gunfire is probably best known for his mocking appearance in Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s Hitman series, and odds are that will remain his only moment of “glory” regardless of whether or not he stays dead.