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Those fantastic swerves that totally had us all fooled.
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00:00The world of comic books is one forever full of false twists and turns as it looks to pull the
00:05rug out from under its readers. Just when you think a tail is taking a left turn, so often we
00:09see said tail veer off and take a right. These fake-out endings in comics were so bloody good
00:15that you had to commend them. So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com
00:19and these are the 10 best fake-out endings in comics.
00:2210. Superman Can't Save Green Arrow
00:26This particular fake-out was great in how DC Comics actually went through with killing off
00:31Oliver Queen. Once the all-powerful Man of Steel arrived on the scene, it was presumed that the
00:35Big Blue Boy Scout would fly in and save the day as he had done so time and time again over the
00:40decades. Superman is Superman and thus forever does Superman things. And for the most part,
00:45this means always overcoming any odds, always triumphing and always being the great shining
00:50hope of comics. This time though, the last son of Krypton was helpless as Oliver sacrificed his
00:55own life to save Metropolis. Essentially, this was a fake-out that was the opposite of what we
01:00were used to. As Green Arrow number 100 came to an end, Ollie was in an airplane heading to the
01:05home city of Superman with his arm trapped in an explosive device that would detonate and wipe
01:09out Metropolis should he remove his limb. The big cliffhanger was how Supes could save the
01:14Emerald Archer. After weighing up all options, the only way Kal-El can save Queen is to use his heat
01:19vision to sever the arrow's arm, and then detonate the bomb elsewhere. Shockingly, the concept of Superman's
01:25saving the day was the fake-out here, with Ollie setting off the bomb and sacrificing himself for
01:29the greater good rather than becoming a one-armed archer. That was in 1995, and Queen would remain
01:35dead for the next six years.
01:379. The Not-Quite-Death of Captain America
01:39While Captain America more recently had the fake-out revealed that he actually hadn't been
01:44working as an undercover HYDRA agent for the past several decades, a far more engaging fake-out
01:48relating to the Sentinel of Liberty occurred in the aftermath of 2006's Civil War arc.
01:53After Steve Rogers and Tony Stark had butted head over Stark's belief that all superheroes
01:57needed to be registered and governed, the fallout of this saw the does exactly as it said on the
02:02tin tale of Fallen Son, the death of Captain America. Having handed himself into SHIELD custody
02:06after Civil War, Cap is assassinated at the orders of the Red Skull. Skull first had Crossbones
02:12shoot Rogers from a distance with a sniper rifle, and then brainwashed Sharon Carter, who was at this
02:16point dating Steve, to deliver the fatal shot from close range. With that, Captain America was dead.
02:21The world of Marvel Comics grieved, two funerals took place, and the world tried to adjust to a
02:26life without Steve Rogers by having Bucky Barnes take on the Cap mantle, as per Rogers' wishes.
02:31Much like the death of Superman back in 1993, Rogers remained dead for a hefty amount of time,
02:36and it would be two years later with Captain America Reborn that we'd see Steve return,
02:41what with it revealed that the fatal shot from Sharon Carter had actually phased Cap through space
02:45and time rather than killed him. Because of course it did.
02:488. Wolverine isn't dead, he's death
02:511999 saw Marvel Comics make the bold move to kill off one of its most popular characters ever
02:56in the form of Wolverine. Of course, comics being comics, this death was shown to be a ruse,
03:01and Logan would be dead for barely a month. Not just that, but Wolverine himself would be revealed
03:06as his own killer. Clarify this point, September 99's Astonishing X-Men number 3 has Wolvie murdered by
03:12the latest new horseman of the apocalypse, Death. With this taking readers by genuine surprise,
03:17the rest of Charles Xavier's merry band of mutants discovered that the dead Wolverine is actually a
03:21shape-shifting Skrull who had been serving undercover as Wolverine for months. By the time
03:26of X-Men number 95 a month later, the mysterious Death would eventually be unmasked to reveal
03:30themselves to be Wolverine. In an explanation typical of the time, it would be detailed how
03:35Apocalypse had orchestrated the plan to have old Knucklehead replaced in the X-Men by a doppelganger.
03:40The real Logan would be kidnapped and brainwashed in order to serve as Death under the charge of
03:45Apocalypse. This may have been a tad too convoluted once the truth was spotlighted,
03:50but it was still a great rug pull to find Wolverine as the person parading as Death.
03:557. Robin is forced to kill Batgirl
03:57The daughter of assassins Lady Shiva and David Kane, Cassandra Kane, spent her younger day solely
04:02being trained in brutal fashion to become a master martial artist. While she became well-versed in a
04:08plethora of fighting styles, part of the strict training regime meant that she wasn't allowed
04:12to speak, and thus she was a mute when readers were first introduced to her as the new Batgirl
04:16in 1999. As part of 2005's Fresh Blood story, Cass and the Tim Drake incarnation of Robin find
04:23themselves caught up in one of the Penguin's schemes. Forced by Cobblepot and his cohorts to
04:27fight to the death or both be killed, these two heroes get surprisingly brutal with one another.
04:32The violent, aggressive ante upped by Kane mocking Tim for how he'll never be Batman,
04:37and Robin responding by slating Batgirls off brutal methods. With Cass knocked unconscious,
04:43Penguin wants to make sure the deed is done, and so he gives Robin a gun to make sure Batgirl
04:47really is dead, and jarringly, Drake doesn't hesitate in putting a bullet into his teammate.
04:52The brilliant part of this is that Batgirl's intense training means that she's remarkably able
04:56to not flinch after being shot. The tragic part of this, of course, is that it shows how
05:01disturbing that training was. Regardless, Kane soon gets to her feet, as our two heroes then
05:06take out the bad guys. 6. Jean Grey Doesn't Return
05:10Death is famously far from a permanent arrangement in the world of comics, and few characters have
05:15had as many encounters with the Grim Reaper as the X-Men's Jean Grey. Jean has died, been resurrected,
05:20died again, had fake-out deaths, had fake-out resurrections, had alternative versions of herself
05:25surface, and a whole lot more since she debuted in September 1963 as part of the original X-Men
05:31lineup created by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. At the times that Jean was dead
05:36in the main 616 Marvel canon, it always felt like yet another return from the grave was only just an
05:41issue or two away. So when Joss Whedon and John Cassidy's run on Astonishing X-Men began with a
05:46mutant cure being tested out on unwilling subjects, it seemed as if Jean was back from the dead when
05:51Beast pondered, why does nothing ever stay buried? In response to Beast's troubled comment,
05:56even Cyclops believed that Jean had returned. Skip ahead to the end of Astonishing X-Men 4,
06:01and it was actually Colossus who died four years prior who was back from the grave. And thank God
06:06for that, because another return of Jean Grey was so not needed at that point in time.
06:105. There's Still Life Left in The Dark Knight
06:13Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic book tales
06:18in the history of the medium. Picking things up ten years after Bruce Wayne has hung up the old cape
06:23and cowl, the battered, broken, older Bruce is forced to suit up once more when the brutal
06:27mutants gang surfaces to terrorise Gotham. But with the re-emergence of the caped crusader,
06:33the US government sends Superman to politely talk Wayne out of returning from retirement.
06:37Of course, once the threat of the mutants is finally quelled, not to mention a battle with
06:41the Joker that will see the clown prince of crime take his own life and frame Bats for his murder,
06:45Reed has got the inevitable matchup of Batman v Superman. In a war that saw both men beat the tar
06:51out of each other, this legendary fight was only brought to a halt once Bruce's heart failed on
06:56him. Here we get the image of the Man of Steel cradling the dead body of his longtime friend
07:00slash foe, before the scene then cuts to Wayne's funeral. As Clark Kent, Selina, Kyle, and Jim
07:05Gordon stand at the grave of Gotham's greatest protector, it's then that Clark and his superhearing
07:10picks up the murmurs of a heartbeat. This led to the revelation that Bruce had slowed his heart down
07:14by using certain chemicals, and that Carrie Kelly, his new Robin, was able to dig up Wayne's
07:19air quotes dead body. 4. Doc Ock's superiority over Spider-Man kills Peter Parker
07:25While he often uses his smarts for nefarious means, there's absolutely no doubting the vast
07:30intelligence of Otto Octavius. Likely the greatest example of said smarts came during The Dying
07:35Wish Tale, where Dr. Octopus was able to change the very fundamentals of the Spider-Man books of the
07:40time. And how did he do this? Why, Ock managed to switch bodies with the one and only Peter Parker.
07:45After years of tormenting the wallcrawler, and obviously continually getting bested by the old
07:49webhead, the terminally ill Otto put into place one final master plan in an attempt to save his life.
07:55Said master plan saw Octavius swap consciousness with Peter just as Doc's body was about to take
08:00its final breath. Thus, Parker died in the body of Ock, and the spirit of Otto was placed in the
08:05alive and very well body of Spider-Man. With that, readers were left to believe that Peter Parker had
08:10died in the body of Otto Octavius, as Ock now proclaiming his intention to prove himself as
08:15the superior Spider-Man to Peter Parker encouraged his long-time rival to embrace a life of heroism.
08:21Now, the complete demise of Peter was a fake-out here, with his consciousness eventually resurfacing
08:25in his own body to serve as something of a good angel to Otto. Still, Octavius would parade as Spider-Man
08:31for over a year before voluntarily letting Parker regain control of his own body in order to stop
08:36Norman Osborn as part of the Goblin Nation arc. 3. The Joker as Gotham's Eternal Prince
08:42Having been absent for over two years following the events of 2012's A Death of the Family,
08:48the Joker resurfaced in magnificent fashion in Batman Endgame. When the disguised clown prince of
08:53crime comes face to face with bats, he lets the cat out of the bag that he is an eternal prince,
08:58who has tormented Gotham City for centuries. For Jim Gordon and Batman, this bold claim is given
09:02further credence when they discover Joker in countless images from Gotham's past.
09:07Despite it sounding impossible, the excellent storytelling of the arc makes the reader,
09:11in addition to Gordon and the Dark Knight, start to believe that the Jester of Genocide's
09:15claims of being immortal are actually genuine. This is only further emphasised when the Joker
09:19rises up after being fatally shot by Gordon. All of this plays out over the backdrop of Gotham City
09:25being infected by a new strain of the Joker virus, and we're led to believe that Mr. J really
09:29has got the better of Batman this time out. The world's greatest detective would eventually deduce
09:33that his long-time rival is actually just full of bullsh**, and that the Joker has merely beefed
09:37up his immune system using a ton of drugs. As for the images of Joker from decades past,
09:42well that was all merely a well-constructed ruse.
09:442. The Death of Deadpool Is Far More Than We Thought
09:47The 250th of Deadpool's collective solo titles, also known as Deadpool Volume 5,
09:52number 45, was heavily billed as the death of the famed Merc with a Mouth. This issue involved an
09:58all-out war that pitted Wade Wilson against Flag Smasher and the Ultimatum Group. Promoted as
10:03Deadpool's final stand, reading through the issue really did have you leaning towards Marvel being
10:07serious about killing off the regenerating degenerate. And while Wilson's death would
10:12eventually happen, the fake-out element was that his demise was a whole lot more than we were led to
10:16believe. Wade actually overcame the odds to topple Flag Smasher and Ultimatum, and readers got
10:21somewhat of a fake-out when Wade Wilson discarded his Deadpool costume and weapons before declaring
10:26Deadpool was dead. This was a part of Wilson leaving behind his superhero-slash-anti-hero-slash-super-villain
10:32alter-ego as he and his nearest and dearest stole a yacht to start a new life. Was this really what
10:37was meant by the death? It seemed so. Well, until not only was Wade killed off, but the entire
10:42population of Earth died as the incursion between the main 616 Marvel Universe and the Ultimate
10:47Marvel Universe happened in order to set up the Secret Wars crossover event.
10:511. James Gordon Jr. Is Not His Sister's Knight in Shining Armor
10:56One of the great comic book runs of the modern era is Gail Simone's time writing Batgirl as Barbara
11:01Gordon successfully underwent experimental surgery to regain her mobility. And with said regaining of
11:06mobility came Babs once more suiting up to protect the streets of Gotham City. With Barbara still
11:11haunted by what the Joker did to her so many years ago, it's not long before Batgirl once again finds
11:16herself butting heads with the gesture of genocide. After taking her mother hostage, the Joker insist
11:21Batgirl become his bride in order to spare Mrs. Gordon. Just when it looks like Babs has no choice
11:26but to give in to the Harlequin of hate's demands, her brother James Jr. arrives on the scene to put a
11:31stop to the Joker's scheme. As this issue Batgirl Vol. 5 No. 16 rolls to a close, these strained
11:36siblings look to be on the same page, only for this in itself to be a fake-out, as James Jr. sneakily
11:43ambushes his sister with a chemical attack. With that, Jimbo leaves Batgirl for the Joker, in order
11:48that Mr. J let his mother go free. Having often been a menacing presence himself, we were all fooled
11:53into thinking that James Gordon Jr. had finally changed his spots. Only he hadn't, the sinister little prick.
11:59And there we go my friends, those were the 10 best fake-out endings in comics. I hope you enjoyed
12:03that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below. As always,
12:07I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJWithAZero, or you can swing by
12:11Live and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work, and it'd be great to see you
12:15over there. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome. Never forget that. I'll speak to
12:19you soon. Bye.
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