Ms. Marvel is the latest high-profile superhero to have died, which created some controversy with comic book fans. But what was even more troubling was the jaded reaction from many others who knew she would come back to life as was recently announced. This development is just another example of lazy comic book writing trope of killing off then resurrecting a popular character.

When Ms. Marvel was killed off in the closing pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #26, her death made lots of headlines and angered many fans. But many of them were not upset because she was killed. They were upset over the way Marvel Comics threw out all the pomp and circumstances to commemorate the superhero because it was clear she would not stay dead. Sure enough, Marvel Comics announced a few days ago that she will return in a new mini-series called Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant, which will be written by Iman Vellani, who portrays the superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Seriously, is anyone surprised by any of this? Of course, they would not let the poor girl rest in piece. Not when she will co-star in The Marvels later this year. The only reason as to why go through all this death and resurrection is to synch the character with the MCU version. As most comic book readers know, Ms. Marvel is an Inhuman in the comic books, but for whatever reason she was designated as a mutant in the final episode of Ms. Marvel. Given that Inhumans never reached the popularity of mutants in the pages of Marvel Comics, perhaps the powers-that-be gave up on the Inhumans and decided to have it revealed that she is actually a mutant.

Still, why go through all the hand wringing and kill her off in the first place? In the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, the title character is shown to be in full mourning over Ms. Marvel aka Kamala Khan, but the two were hardly best buddies. Sure, they’ve teamed up a few times it’s not like this happened to the Human Torch. It would have made more sense if she died in the arms of the superhero Ms. Marvel looks up to, Captain Marvel. This was most likely done to generate sales and interest for the comic books, but we’ve been through this too many times, and it was done much better before.

The best example was with the Death of Superman storyline that spanned many comics. That event worked because his death and resurrection felt organic, had a huge impact in the world of DC, and explored all the nuances of Superman dying and coming back to life. Even the death of Captain America years later was better executed as readers had time to process his death and see the Winter Soldier becoming the new Captain America and so on. There is also the death of the Ultimate Comics version of Spider-Man, which turned out to have introduced an even more popular version of the superhero: Miles Morales.

The problem with Ms. Marvel’s death is that these superheroes deaths have been done to death and in Ms. Marvel’s case, it was done too abruptly. Then before anyone could process anything, Marvel goes and announces she is coming back. There were much more imaginative ways to transform Ms. Marvel into a mutant without using the cheap theatrics of temporary deaths. This development still would have generated news, but with less cynical reactions. The fact that Marvel chose the cheap and easy way to go about her transformation just underlines how the so-called House of Ideas has run out of them.