I don’t understand it when people complain about another comic book death. I don’t understand the argument that they’re meaningless or that they’re cheap storytelling. Sure, there are times when it might not be executed well, and I will always be an advocate against using murder or sexual violence as a ploy to demonstrate how badass a villain is, but when it comes down to it, the history of comics is full of death, and I find it hard not to be continually haunted by it.

All things considered, I have a pretty good life. I have a good relationship with my family, a lot of good friends and a job I like that lets me afford a good apartment, the ability to eat well and more interests than I have time for. I am not complaining about any of this, because that would be so absurd it wouldn’t even be comical. And yet, like many people’s, my life has had death on its periphery for years. When I was a teenager, a friend of mine died in a car accident. He was riding in a car with a friend; they were young, reckless and maybe a little dumb like we all are. They hit a light pole and it took almost a decade before I was able to drive down that hill without having a wave of panic rush over me. Four years ago a friend, almost an older sister to me, died after her long fight with cystic fibrosis, and I still remember sitting with her in the hospital during some of her periodic stays, laughing and sighing. Less than a year later, my grandfather died suddenly, and over the next two years I watched my grandmother fade away painfully without the man she loved to keep her tethered to the world. These friends and family are never far from my thoughts.

These stories are likely familiar; it is impossible to get older without losing people along the way. Faced with this, fictional deaths might seem more frivolous and less impactful. What does another death of Thor matter when there are real people dying, after all?

To the contrary, I find fictional deaths more meaningful because of the closeness of the feelings of family and friends gone. Thor was not my brother, but he was Loki’s, and I can relate to his loss specifically because I spent those nights in the hospital with my big sister as she wasted away. Comics are not an escape from the real world, but a place where we are encouraged by writers and artists to re-experience our losses alongside the characters’.

Comics are permeated by death. I have loved Spider-Man and Batman since I was a small child, and both of them are defined by the deaths of their loved ones. They lost Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Thomas and Martha Wayne, and it has haunted and propelled them ever since. It is impossible not to re-feel my own losses sometimes when faced with theirs. Over the years, characters have died and come back, but every return is preceded by a loss that is completely real for the characters around them. In Secret Avengers #15, Nick Spencer wrote about the loss of Bucky Barnes through Natasha Romanoff and her quest to make sure that people knew it was real for her whether or not he came back. She spoke to the air of death around herself and her comrades, about how death is never far away, and both the fear and sadness that comes with it. Look at your favourite characters and think of how many times they or someone close to them has died. Think about what living in that world must be like. I don’t get sad in spite of that world of death and resurrection; I get sad because of it. It hits too close to home.

This happens several times a year, or at least it seems to. Again, I don’t view this negatively. A well-made story should make me feel this. But at the same, with so much death in the air, it can be draining, which leads me to latch onto the happiness and determination I can find inside the pages.

Luckily, 2011 was also a year full of this. Despite the deaths of Bucky, Thor, Johnny Storm and more, it was also a year of stories with such effervescent joy and resolve, and I hold each one dearly. In Amazing Spider-Man #655, Peter vows that nobody will die on his watch. It was a startling announcement considering the medium in which he lives, and even more surprising was the result. Throughout the year, he fights to keep his resolution and at the end of Spider Island, faced with outrageous odds in the face of a wall of potential murder… he does it. He saves everybody.

I wept.

I was similarly brought to tears when, following Fear Itself, Tony Stark witnessed a miracle. The petrifaction of the entire population of Paris was so horrifying that it broke his resolve and caused him to throw away what he held dearest: his dignity and his sobriety. In the wake of so much worldwide tragedy, Odin gave Tony a gift and a reason to keep going on when he saved everybody in Paris. Millions of people… alive. I cried again.

In 2011, we also saw the return of Johnny Storm and Spider-Man’s exuberant hug at seeing his friend again. We found out Bucky was alive and, even though I might have partially shared Captain America’s annoyance at being tricked… it felt good to know James Barnes was alright.

I started thinking about all this because of Doctor Who‘s 2011 Christmas special, “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.” I loved that episode, and yet I couldn’t quite place the reason why it affected me as much as it did, why I felt myself so moved by it. Eventually, I read an AV Club comment (shut up) that summarized things perfectly:

Everybody lived.

It was as simple as that. 2010′s incredible “A Christmas Carol” featured the love of a character’s life dying to save others, and in every other Christmas special since the reboot, the episodes have contained death. As great as they were, they were permeated with a certain sadness. But this year… everybody lives. Families come together. Things, however fleetingly, are right in the world. It was a sigh of relief at the end of a year.

In comics, it’s often said that nobody really dies, that in the end they are all alive. Despite this, I find myself moved by all the death that seems to permeate the medium but simultaneously full of such uplifting hope. In real life, my friend, sister and grandparents are dead. They will always be dead, and I will never see them again. People die every day and there is nothing I can do about that. But just when that comes within a hair’s breadth of breaking my heart… I have comics and I have stories. I can have days where nobody dies and where everybody lives. Comics might encourage me to relive the sadness of parts of my life, but they can also give me an entirely different reason to cry. How marvelous.