Quote Originally Posted by jedipotter View Post
Um...well, it does not. The death of a fictional character is meaningless. Remember, for example, when Superman died? It was all over the news, it was a really, really, really big deal. Superman died...for real..forever...from that date forward. So from that day, years ago, there was to never, ever be another Superman story...he was dead and gone forever. Except....of course...he was NOT Can I go to Wal Mart right now and buy a Superman comic? Wow...well, I can! Go figure....
Superman, or for that matter any other Marvel/DC character is a bit of a special case. The death of a fictional character does generally alter the space in which future stories can be made within the same setting. When Boromir dies, he never comes back in Lord of the Rings, for example. Obviously this is only relevant while the series as a whole or the set of series of a shared setting as a whole continue, but within the context of an individual story or set of stories it's relevant. The bulk of published stories are largely self contained works made by one author, and probably one book long. Under those continuity is going to generally be maintained.