Top 5 Worst Resurrections

...in comics, that is. I am not discussing Jesus again, especially not in the context of comics resurrections. (Although that one was kinda lame. His dad just zaps him back to life a few days later? Puh-lease. It wasn't even foreshadowed.)

No, I'm talking about the comic-book trend of bringing back dead characters with very contrived explanations, primarily because fans want to continue reading about said character's adventures and won't take "Ack, gurgle, thud!" for an answer. Here they are...

5. Jean Grey. Technically not a very bad one, but it set the precedent for BS "Look, I'm back!" resurrections. Jean Grey's mutant powers had kicked into overdrive, making her telekinesis so powerful that she could snuff out stars--which she did, destroying an entire solar system when he went crazy from having so much power. She nobly decided to kill herself, rather than risk endangering the entire universe should she go crazy again. Resurrection: It turned out that an actual super-powerful cosmic entity precisely duplicated her, and the cosmic entity/duplicate killed itself because That's What Jean Would Have Done. The real Jean was found years later, just fine and dandy.

4. Elektra. She was stabbed in the chest with her own sai by Bullseye (although unlike the movie version, it was in a rivalry over who would become the Kingpin's personal hitman.) Resurrection: Ninja magic.

3. Green Lantern. Hal Jordan went insane after the destruction of his hometown, Coast City, at the hands of the alien Mongul, and tried to gather enough cosmic power to rewrite history and save those victims no matter what the cost to anyone else. To this end, he destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, destroyed and remade the universe, yet still failed at saving the people he cared about the most. Finally, having regained his sanity, he sacrificed his power and life restoring Earth's sun in a heroic and noble moment, and became DC's ghostly spirit of redemption, The Spectre. Resurrection: All the evil stuff he did was because of alien fear parasites, and when he found that out, he got better.

2. Green Goblin. In one of the most iconic and memorable stories of Spider-Man's 44-year history, Norman Osborn's mind reverted to his sinister Green Goblin persona one last time, prompting him to kidnap Peter Parker's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and throw her off a bridge. Spider-Man failed to save her, and he tracked down the Green Goblin and beat him savagely--and yet, he couldn't kill him. The Goblin did that himself, when he tried to impale Spidey from behind on his Goblin Glider and Spidey dodged it. The Goblin's own Glider stabbed him through the heart. Resurrection: It just hurt real bad. He's better now.

1. Guardian. Alpha Flight's charismatic leader died in a battle with Omega Flight, a team assembled to take the Canadian super-heroes down. Months later, he returned, explaining that he'd actually activated a prototype teleporter in his battlesuit that teleported him to one of the moons of Jupiter, where he was rescued and healed by a race of benevolent aliens. But this turned out to be a lie covering the return of Omega Flight's leader disguised as Guardian--writer John Byrne cleverly parodied implausible resurrection stories to sucker fans into believing Guardian was back, knowing that the more convoluted and unbelievable the resurrection, the more the fans bought it. The unveiling of Guardian as a villain was therefore a genuine surprise. Resurrection: The whole BS story about the moons of Jupiter and the benevolent aliens turned out to be true. Says it all, don't it?