Death of a semi-major marvel character, um... for a while
With the increasing number of comic book stores around the country, Marvel's first large-format graphic novel was amazing. Not because of the size of the book or the glosy pages, but because of the death of a classic hero, Captain Marvel (Mar-vel in the Kree language).
Many heroes on the market have had their close calls or have come back less than a year latter, but what made his death special was instead of dying from an alien named Doomsday, getting knocked off a bridge during a superhero slugfest, or even dying from an exchange of bullets; Captain Marvel died from cancer, cancer of all things, giving the alien Kree soldier who came to Earth to prepare our planet for conquest seem very human indeed.
Much like the Secret Wars, this book features a Whos Whos of the Marvel Universe as just about every hero at the time comes to pays their respects to Captain Marvel in a rather emotional display that is a bit heart wrenching for those who had read Captain Marvel in the past.
Jim Starlin (who does the writing as well as the art for this tale) is best known for his work of the Death in the Family series, the death of Robin 2 (Jason Todd).
If you've never read this tale, do so. It has been reprinted as many times as Thantos has been resurrected. Think of it as a view in the end of the current Captain Marvel series, a thinks to come, not only in our own lives, but for a hero among the stars named Marvel.