Summary

• With the Resurrection Protocols, Jonathan Hickman revolutionized X-Men storytelling, integrating resurrections into a grand narrative tapestry in a way previously not done in superhero comics.
• The Protocols allowed for exploring big metaphysical questions and raised the stakes, elevating the superhero genre in a way that Marvel's early-2000s "dead is dead" policy sought to by taking the reverse position on character deaths.
• Marvel's "dead is dead" policy failed because character deaths and resurrections are an integral part of comic book storytelling, though it may have had an impact on making the current generation of comic book creators realize that.

With the creation of mutantkind's "Resurrection Protocols" in his 2019 miniseries House of X, author Jonathan Hickman introduced a revolutionizing plot device into Marvel as a whole; many years prior, Marvel attempted to take a very different tack when it came to handling character deaths, by imposing a "dead means death" policy that ultimately proved unsustainable.

Most famously, X-Treme X-Men #2 — written by Chris Claremont, with art by Salvador Larroca — featured the shocking death of Psylocke at the hands of newly-introduced villain Vargas. Claremont intended for the character's death to be short-lived. In fact, it was a utilitarian solution intended to help iron out Psylocke's convoluted backstory.

Unfortunately, Marvel Editor-In-Chief at the time, Joe Quesada, was attempting to move the company away from the frequent killing-off and resurrection of characters, something that had become a defining trope associated with the comic book medium. For several years, Psylocke remained the defining example of this dictum.

Marvel's "dead is dead" edict, which came and went nearly twenty years ago, was not a long-term solution, in part because it misidentified something as a problem that, in fact, was not. Rather than a trope holding comic book storytelling back, the ability for characters to circumvent death, to die and come back, is an integral part of the medium, especially when it comes to superhero stories. One of the brilliant, and most enduring, features of Jonathan Hickman's 2019 House of X miniseries — which rebooted the X-Men franchise, ushering in its most glorious era yet — was the way it integrated resurrections into its grand narrative tapestry.

Mutantkind's Resurrection Protocols gave Hickman and subsequent X-writers the ability to play with life and death deliberately; rather than killing and bringing back characters carelessly, the perils of mutant life and the mechanics of resurrection became more vital than ever before. The Protocols have allowed for X-titles to explore big metaphysical questions, as well as putting familiar characters in mortal peril like never before. It has allowed for villains to become heroes, heroes to become villains, and for an overall exceptional era of X-Men storytelling. In many ways, it has achieved what Marvel's earlier "dead is dead" policy aimed to do: elevating the superhero genre's stakes.

The "dead is dead" policy instituted by Joe Quesada was, in a sense, intended to make life in the Marvel Universe more precious. One lasting effect of this editorial position, though it only remained in place for a few years, is that it made Marvel creators more conscious of the decision to kill characters off; certainly, once the position was reversed, and resurrections became commonplace once more, it made writers more aware of how meaningful character returns are. Though it took longer than he intended, Chris Claremont brought Psylocke back to life in 2005's Uncanny X-Men #455, if not officially ending Marvel's "dead is dead" era, at least signaling that it wouldn't last.