Death Through the Years Recently, I became quite angry with one Jack Chick for his frequent portrayal of Christianity as a damning, angry religion based around death. To illustrate his death-centric universe, Mr. Chick often penciled in the actual character of "Death" aka the Grim Reaper. Being the history buff that I am, I decided to research the many faces of death throughout history, going all the way back twenty years, because that will take dramatically less time. The character of Death first appeared in art in 1986. At this time, the Grim Reaper was a purple or orange hooded skeleton that wielded a gigantic scythe. While he is not depicted as taking many souls to Heaven or Hell, he is shown attacking one whip wielder with a flurry of little scythes. Amusingly, Death in this instance does not use his gigantic scythe, but just little scythes he materialize from nowhere. Through careful analyzation, one can surmise that this was an allegory for the post-Chernobyl energy conservation crisis, that one not even bound by man must conserve what he holds close, and use things he can create out of nothing. 1987 brought us a Death that could dance and sing a jaunty tune in an attempt to murder a little angel boy. We will never speak of this Death again. In 1988, Death again reappeared, this time sticking to the purple cloak. In this incarnation, he was dramatically less deadly, and wholly avoidable by the average man by simply walking past his hovering presence. 1988 was a great year for indulgences, and clearly even the artists of the day decided that death was something not to be feared, that it held no sway over the reckless, super powered people of 1988. Oh, if only we lived in such amazing times. Death returned with a vengeance in 1990. Man had again regained his fear of death in all its forms, and Death regained many of the same powers he had in ’86. However, this Death was a twofold threat to any and all who passed him, as he had the ability to morph into a gigantic skull. Embodying the very image of a man’s ultimate destiny is enough to put a knot in even the most courageous of men’s stomachs, but Death could continue his barrage of mini-scythes in skull mode, and then presumably snack on the defeated. 1990, obviously, was a time of great turmoil, of uncertainty as the nation grew closer to the 21st century, and nothing embodies that fear greater than a humongous flying skull. A mere year later Death again appeared, this time more detailed, though roughly as deadly as his 1986 appearance. The time with a blue cloak, he attacked mortals with his little materializing mini-scythes, and, in a new twist, actually attacked with his gigantic, hand-held scythe. Clearly, society had gotten over its conservation crisis from 1986 and was now ready to use every material at hand in pursuit of its goals. Skipping ahead for a moment, this version of Death appeared again in 1994, though in a different colored cloak and with playing cards that represented the past. This Death represented nostalgia for 1991, a simpler time, completely devoid of Dakota Fanning. The Death of 1993 wore a silly hat with his dark blue cloak, and attacked in much the same fashion as he had in his previous incarnations. However, upon suffering the indignity of being attacked by a mortal, Grim decided to actually stop hovering and adapt a more "human" fighting style by attacking with his scythe as if dueling with a foil, and using a shield for defense. Man’s hubris had grown so that by ’93 even Death was now relegated to attacking from the Earth that Man dwelled upon. Death, Man’s greatest fear, was now on the same plane as man; though the reaper could also turn into a crazy cannonball human-projectile, one would assume that was merely added by the artist as point of "flourish". 1997 saw Death in his same old form, cloak, sickles, and then an all new metamorphosis into what can best be described as... weird... yeah... weird. The Grim Reaper becomes some sort of skeletal snake thing with a cobra skull head, clutching to a pair of curved blades. This form isn’t so much deadly as it is mind boggling, and, while appearing to be his most destructive form yet, is about as strong as a de-clawed, de-toothed, de-legged kitten. Perhaps the people of 1997 want us to learn that all that glitters is not gold, that it’s what on the inside that counts, and that Death is most frightening when it is simply taking your soul, and not trying to impress you with a new look. Or maybe it was an allegory for Microsoft buying a big chunk of Apple, I don’t know. The "ninja invasion" of 1998 (a short lived movement in response to the Y2K bug that caused many in the tech sector to become ninja) caused Death to behave not unlike a ninja. Death was forced to jump around like a maniac while tossing his infamous sickles. Frankly, it was humiliating for everyone involved. The final Death of the 20th century wore black wings in an attempt to incur thoughts of "The Angel of Death". 1999 was a year of great spiritual revival, so it was only natural for Death to return to his Biblical, angelical roots. Though the Bible never mentions Death summoning homing, multiple-eyed fish, one can assume it’s implied somewhere in the less popular chapters. 2001 and 2002 continued the tradition of the "evolving" Death, that is, a Grim Reaper that initially appears to be just normal (though, in 2001, wore a silly hat again) and then mutates into a second, somewhat scarier form. In 2001, Death chose a very similar form to his ’97 incarnation, though this time with a turtle shell. Was this a sign of America’s want to "turtle up" and fear outsiders in the wake of 9/11? Death’s return in ’02 saw him change into a long bone snake. While this snake was rather weak, it was greatly evocative of 1989’s hero, Strider, who came up against a similarly maneuvering flying snake when the Russian parliament pooled their power into one monster. A sign of the long completed fall of the USSR? Most certainly. A back to basics Grim Reaper returned in 2003, boasting only an advanced, double-sided scythe as his latest innovation. No transformations, no metaphors, just plain old Death. And isn’t that scariest thing of all? Nope, even Death with the ability to shoot puppy missiles is more threatening than a plain old skeleton in a purple hood. A second Death was seen in 2003 (a good year for Death), and, while he was slightly larger than usual, he was another plain old Grim Reaper. Have the artists run out of ideas? Is the 21st century so devoid of new thoughts? Can we have a cyborg Death, please? The Reaper has been through a lot over the last two decades, from tarot cards to turtle power. One thing remains constant, though, and I believe it is summed up best in Blue Oyster Cult’s "Don’t Fear the Reaper"... Note to Self: Add witty reference to Saturday Night Live’s "More Cowbell" sketch here. Avoid Death back at Game'in

All non-copyrighted material is copyright 2005 Robert Pollack. Reproduction of most anything without Robert's express permission in whole or in part is prohibited by law. Ain't that a kick in the pants?