Possibilities for HER. There happen to be about a dozen other characters in that series, and I like their possibilities without her just fine. Better, in fact.
But the "Militant Janeway Fans" (
Brit's own characterization) don't care about the other characters. For whatever reason, they're not
Voyager fans, they're Kathryn Janeway fans. So their perspective on
Voyager fiction is never going to be the same as that of people who see
Voyager as what it is, an ensemble series, rather than merely a vehicle for Kathryn Janeway.
Why don't you have them kill Picard or Sisko and then only allow their fans flashback stories.
If there were good stories to be told about the aftermath of their deaths and the changed circumstances and relationships of the other characters, indeed, why not? And again, I think the majority of Trek fans are fans of the shows or the franchise overall, not tunnel-vision fixated on only one character. No Trek series has ever been a star vehicle for only one performer, and all the 24th-century series were pretty much equal ensembles.
Well, there's ways to bring somebody back without doing an actual reset. Looking at comics, there's a difference between a Green Lantern: Rebirth and a Flash: Rebirth. And the return of Colossus was handled very well, IMO (although I hear they've done little useful with him sense Whedon went off the book). And Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier might be the best example there is of a character going from "sacrosanct cannot-be-resurrected" to "well-done resurrection."
But even if the individual stories are well-done, they're still symptoms of an unfortunate syndrome in the comics industry as a whole. Nothing is moving forward anymore. Every story these days is about nostalgia and returning to the status quo that the creators grew up with. Comics are trapped in a loop, enslaved to their own past. When was the last time a major
new superhero came along and became a success? When was the last time an established character got to go through any real growth rather than just the illusion of change that got reset a few years later? Even good changes that were made in years past, like Peter Parker growing up and getting married, have been cast aside in favor of nostalgia. The only new ideas we get are gimmicks like turning the Green Lantern Corps into the Care Bears, with lots of multicolored promotional rings and t-shirts. And even that storyline involved bringing back a lot of dead characters -- including characters who were killed solely so that they could be brought back as zombies and then resurrected at the end. (And sure, they say that now death is permanent in the DC Universe again, but how long is that going to stick? And will it bring about any other kinds of real, lasting change, in a creative climate that's so obsessed with reliving past glories?)
Don't get me wrong -- there's value in retelling old stories. This week's
Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode, in which Paul Dini retold the original story of Batman's origin and his discovery of his parents' killer, was a superb example. But in the case of an ongoing series or companywide continuity, something that's nominally about characters actually moving forward continuously in time, there should be actual forward movement. Revisiting the past should be saved for adaptations, alternate realities, and so forth. Nostalgia has its place, but it shouldn't take the place of progress.
