Wow, that's pretty odd. I wonder if this is some sort of sub-conscious theme or just coincidence because there's a ton of death in comic books and there are really only so many places for people to die.

This is an interesting subject, but all of the response letters I've read so far have brought up the same thing: the list is useless without other lists for comparison, specifically, a list of male characters who have had tragic fates befall them, and lists of male and female characters who are alive and well. And we'd have to be sure that those lists encompassed at least a majority of the set of comic characters in whom we're interested.

I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility of subconscious misogynistic tendencies in an industry populated primarily by males -- and sometimes not very well-adjusted ones, if you'll pardon my stereotyping. (It's okay for me to say it, since I'm a comics fan too, right?) I'm just saying that this list doesn't exactly prove anything.

As an aside, Fabian Nicezia wrote a defensive but technically sound [url=http://www.the-pantheon.net/wir/c-fabn.html]response[/url] which contains the interesting statement, "Remember, monthly comics publishing is akin to a soap opera with more punches thrown." Soaps have such a negative reputation, at least among writers, that I'm surprised to see any other writer willingly compare them to his own profession.

In any case stating that something is "unfair" to one sex or another, it would be worthless without comparison, but one of the lists original authors does bring up a more interesting point in his [url=http://www.the-pantheon.net/wir/r-jbartol2.html]Dead Men Defrosting[/url] with "...male heroes usually are [given] the chance to return to their original heroic states."