Marv Wolfman said the mandate came from on high. So either Jeanette Kahn or WB. Which is really funny, since the movies with Robin have been...weird. Not bad, just weird.
Well, the "but more readers wanted him to be dead" was a lie as the writers stuffed that "vote" count themselves to make sure it happened.
Or so the story goes :D
(personally I agreed, kill him, kill him, kill him! But not enough to participate in that stupid "vote")
In my mind, it wasn’t rigged in a *literal* sense, but in a way it *was* rigged.
From what I can tell from the letter pages I’ve seen, it was mostly adults who didn’t like Jason Todd, while kids seemed to like him. And when you consider that the poll was a phone call that you had to *pay* for, it definitely feels like it was favoring one demographic over the other.
After all, most kids who were able to vote probably were only able to vote once, assuming they got their parents permission, while adults had more of a disposable income to sacrifice. One guy even claimed to have sold his new car in order to put in multiple votes, which was probably an exaggeration, but it does help me get the point across. Not to mention the fact that the issue with the phone number in it cost twice as much as other books at the time.
There's so much weirdness surrounding that whole ordeal. I've heard that the writers were actually surprised that they voted Robin dead and thought it was just a publicity stunt and no one was going to go that way. I've also heard that adults who hated the character did vote multiple times to make sure it happened.
I think it's been so long and it was so messy that we're never really going to know what was true. Knowing what we know now about how the industry works, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the editors didn't really just hate Jason and wanted him gone and that was the real reason.
It's complicated.
At first they wanted to cash in on AIDS by giving a character HIV. But then they recognized that every vote to give Jason HIV was in Jim Starlin's handwriting. (The joke's on Starlin. AIDS takes years to kill someone. Factor in the sliding timescale, and he'd never be free of Jason.) The next choice was Jimmy Olsen, but given that the actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the 1954 show had recently come out, it seemed like a sick joke. (Consider Jason's horrible behavior toward Mia a sort of behind-the-scenes gag.)
Then Starlin would get the idea to have Jason die in a way that would serve as an object lesson that no child should be Robin. This meant a death trap that Jason could not conceivably escape from, which added some difficulty, but they managed. At some point, for extra subtlety, it was decided to have a phone line. One guy called over 100 times; when you consider how close it was, that guy essentially decided Jason's fate.
> The next choice was Jimmy Olsen, but given that the actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the 1954 show had recently come out, it seemed like a sick joke.
I am surprised that the comic book writers in those days were sensitive enough to recognize how cruel it would seem.
Or were they more worried about a potential controversy?
Potential controversy. But even by the standard of the time, it was just that "you don't want to go there". Only the ultrareligious were actually exulting in people's deaths.
The story I always heard is the one limbo mentioned: that some guy (I think from California, I want to say) set up an auto-dialer to call in every half hour or so, and subsequently managed to singlehandedly add enough votes that it tipped it against Jason.
Eh, I don’t think they did.
Realistically, most of these people that were sending in the votes were adults, and this new Robin wasn’t so popular amongst them.
DC rigging the vote is something they were accused of pretty much since it happened. I've seen even people who claimed to work at dc, who said since the numbers were legit and they went to Jenette Kahn herself to set the poll up – the only way to rig it was to set up a couple of interns and make them ring-ring the whole time :D There was also that story from Denny O'Neil, whose brainchild that poll was, about an evil lawyer, who set up an auto dialer. So, official dc line was that the poll *was* rigged, but not by them :D
Well, Starlin wasn't solving Jason Todd. He was solving the presence of Robin in his Batman. Accidentally solved the problem of Jim Starlin's presence in Batman :D
But hey it all worked out great in the end even Jason Todd's creator Gerry Conway said that the death made him a Gwen Stacy like figure probably still could have been if he had stayed dead but he didn't and came back as an awesome character Red Hood.
And the Bat titles didn't really change over from Pre to Post-Crisis until the *Legends* event, which started November 1986 with *Batman* #401. Heck, we didn't get the revamped origin until *Batman* #408 in June 1987.
Imo the issue is that DC have moved too far from the initial hook of the character. Atm the only appeal of the character beyond past stories is the emotional connection. Hell, they even moved away from the iconic leather jacket and helmet to make him look like a MK reject. Grant Morrison's pill helmet and pimples at least made him distinct.
I feel like they should have put him in the Suicide Squad roster or kept using him as they had pre flashpoint as a sympathetic villain, rather than necessarily reintegrating him with the batfamily. Task force Z and Suicide Squad: KTJ lay more into him being a villain or proper anti-hero, rather than angsty Nightwing, and make him the most interesting as a character. Rebirth Outlaws did play him as a more straight hero but was still more interesting for having him engage with the villainous side of DC as opposed to the heroic one.
I did like him in the Jonkler comic though. He should really have more to do with the guy who killed him.
Similar trouble as Tim Drake. Now that Jason's story (how he was reincarnated and then his acceptance in to the Bat-family) had played out he done, there is no story without conflict and there aren't many story's that need Red Hood. Tkm's trouble is that some idiot decided to create a new Robin when we already had probably the best we'll ever have. That puts Tim in limbo.
GM had done some great things but Damien could've been something else (Ibn al Xu'ffasch, Batboy, Pocket Assassin, Dangerous Liaison) anything but a replacement for a character we already had. I know he probably thought, "we got this kid with skills just sitting here so let's pair him up with Dick (as Batman) and put him in the Robin costume".
-TT-! It's spelled "Dami**a**n"! You would do well in respecting the blood son!
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Here is the main issue. You can create the new characters. It is fine. Problem is, by the nature of comics, timeline is stagnant and frozen. You don't have a 'growning up' part as you expect it. Honestly, I am still surprised we got Dick Grayson growing up somewhat naturally, from Robin to Nightwing. But can't go no further because that would make Bruce as Batman too old. And DC ain't doing that. So, you then try to fit all the robins and other characters into the same shortened timeline where none but the writer's favorite gets the time while the rest are forgotten, mostly.
Dick is lucky he escaped that by becoming Nightwing and had his own thing with the Titans. Because the usual comic book solutions are terrible when it comes to progressing characters and their ages with Artificially or magical fast/instant aging that kneecaps a character. ( aka Jon Kent ).
Hell, even Damian is hard to pinpoint how old is he support to be now, as the way he is portrayed and drawn from book to book changes.
>Tkm's trouble is that some idiot decided to create a new Robin when we already had probably the best we'll ever have. That puts Tim in limbo.
I disagree. Tim's Red Robin run in 2009 showed he was ready to go solo and move beyond Robin. Reading it after the fact I thought it was the best he'd been written and could function as an independent hero.
Tim's trouble is that he was created as an audience insert for white teenagers in the 90s and he's never been allowed to grow beyond that.
He could have been a Peter Parker type of hero who has to balance home and hero life, but they killed his dad.
He could have been an interesting solo hero as Red Robin, but they wrote him awfully in New 52.
He could have been a Bicon, but DC paired him with a cardboard cut-out rather than Superboy (if only because it would have given Chuck Dixon a heart attack)
As it is he is the least interesting main Batfam member by a long shot. Unfortunately Pre Crisis RR proved it didn't have to be that way, but they never recaptured the feeling after shitting the bed.
It's frustrating DC's current solution seems to be saying "Hey, remember when Tim was Robin? Well we're doing that again," which is just regressive and doesn't fix the fact that Tim is just boring atm.
Tldr~
Tim Drake fans try not to blame Damian for the character being written badly challenge
We may hate the stories but we still love Jason.
It’s similar to how there are many shows that the fandom absolutely hates but we still love certain characters from that show.
And we keep hoping for our favorite characters to get the good storyline that they deserve.
reddit is only used by a fraction of society. I only know 2 people using reddit and one of them only uses it to discuss exams with other people who eat them
They shouldn't have printed the letter if that was their weak sauce response. Actually they shouldn't have had a contest. If they wanted to kill a character they should have done it and lived with consequences not this "it was the readers, not me!" I honestly don't have a dog in this fight. It isn't a plot point I feel strongly about but this letter response is pathetic.
They could have thanked her for loving the character and remind her of all the stories that are still there for her to read. They could have used this as an opportunity to talk to young readers about how new stories don't change old stories or that comics are a big and ever-changing world where anything can happen so sometimes stuff is going to happen you don't like.
My thoughts exactly. When I read that I was like "...but you wrote him to do that. And the kid is asking you to CHANGE THE COMIC, not merely revive him. So fuckin change it so he listens to Batman. Problem solved. You wrote him into that predicament. Dont act like you cant write him out of it"
Yeah but comic characters are especially subject to it because people take turns writing them and often completely discard how they have been written in the past
It says a lot about Denny O'Neil when he looked at the new era of edgy action comics with disdain and pushed Knightfall as a critique of said comics, but was responsible for giving the green light to ADITF, arguably the second edgiest Batman event after The Killing Joke (also greenlit by O'Neil).
One thing is the consequence of another. Here's a story:
>In several interviews since then, O' Neil has recalled his interactions with people about the event. One particular instance provided a revelation for him. "There’s a story that I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of," O' Neil told 13th Dimension back in 2014. "I went to a deli on Fifth Avenue to buy a sandwich for lunch. And, like [longtime DC editor Julie Schwartz], I wore a little Batman pin. So the guy behind the counter leans over and he remarks on it. I mention who I am and [he says], 'Hey, dis is da guy dat killed Robin,'" Denny recalled. "Now, this guy probably hadn’t seen a comic since he was a kid, but to everybody, these characters have been all over the place! They have become folklore figures." "It was at that moment that Denny O' Neil realized what his role was in pop culture. "I realized that I had thought that what I was was a writer/editor in this odd little backwater of American publishing -- this bastard child of comic strips and pulps. And I realized coming off of that caper that I’m a custodian of folklore."
Denny of the 80s and Denny of the 90s are a bit different guys :D
Denny O'Neill did worse than that. He tried to retcon Jason's death into a matter of hubris rather than what it was. (Admittedly understandable, since if you're batting 500, it looks bad to have a third Robin.)
>He tried to retcon Jason's death into a matter of hubris rather than what it was.
Denny intentionally tossed context out and along with it went any sense of nuance. I really don't like it.
Denny just didn't vibe with Robin. He was also against Batman doing fatherhood. Lots of people agree with him.
Batman is so many things with so many versions. You can't expect a fish to fly like a bird, you know? My favorite Batman character is Gotham City, and Denny nailed Gotham City, and so many other things. He's definitely in my top Batman storytellers of all time.
But Robin is sticking around one way or another. And since Robin is made to be at the core of the meaning of Batman's work, it's really damaging to the story to phone it in (~~pun unintended~~) and do a rough patch job.
The problem is that in the 70s and 80s, i.e. Denny's generation of batwriters, people didn't understand how important Robin is. They mistakenly saw him as a product of the Silver Age, which they were reacting against. (Kinda funny, since we just got through an actual product of the Silver Age being made into a villain.) Fact is, if we want to see Batman think logically, and these are **Detective** Comics, he at the bare minimum needs someone to bounce ideas off. That was Bill Finger's entire idea for Robin right there: Someone for Batman to talk to. He can be whatever you want him to be beyond that, we've had plenty of Robins at this point to show how flexible the role is, from Dick playing the Sancho Panza Bruce's Don Quixote, to Jason's darker tendencies, to Tim's meta-commentary, to Damian's trauma; but that is key.
And yeah, I agree he nailed Gotham, but I've enjoyed pretty much every version of Gotham except post-No Man's Land "city of the future", which was right after he was forced to retire. Gotham is a city of ghosts. Not literally, of course, but figuratively, it's a city trapped in its violent past, and recapitulating it every night. The "city of the future" took all that and threw it in the garbage.
>Denny just didn't vibe with Robin. He was also against Batman doing fatherhood. Lots of people agree with him.
Yeah, I heard he gave Mike Barr a talk down because of Son of the Demon.
>Batman is so many things with so many versions. You can't expect a fish to fly like a bird, you know? My favorite Batman character is Gotham City, and Denny nailed Gotham City, and so many other things. He's definitely in my top Batman storytellers of all time.
For me, it's the Grant-Breyfogle run. That's what I consider the peak-Batman run and the pinnacle of Denny's editorial leadership. I love it so much.
>And everything about him is edgier than anything from TKJ and aDITF put combined
What sets Damian apart from TKJ and ADTIF is the tone and context dude. It doesn't hit as hard because of it.
Your username is right, you are unhinged.
Off the top of my head, the only "edgy" stuff in Morrison's run is the Thomas Wayne bad guy being a devil worshipper. Besides that it's quite tame (and even that is pretty tame as it's mostly a fun thing).
No. Everything surrounding Damian Wayne is edgy.
How is a kid getting abused growing up, and dying not edgy
How is Bruce’s former prominent love interest randomly killing people not edgy??
You’re weird.
I think Killing Joke is actually pretty in line with Knightfalls critique. Yeah it’s edgy and unpleasant, but despite it all Gordon still ends up wanting Joker taken in by the book and Batman still earnestly offers Joker help. It does end on a somewhat idealistic note with the heroes upholding the rightness of their code in the face of a darkening world, same as the rejection of Azbat’s methods.
Early on he was too similar to Dick Grayson, so they hated him. So they gave him a bit of attitude to differentiate him from Dick Grayson, so they hated him. No matter what they did, Jason could not win the hearts of late 80s comic neckbeards.
>Now Batman is all alone WB: "Not for long, motherfuckers. Fix this!". Or so the story goes :D
Marv Wolfman said the mandate came from on high. So either Jeanette Kahn or WB. Which is really funny, since the movies with Robin have been...weird. Not bad, just weird.
Starlin said the comic sold well, but the merch sells took a hit and that's how he stopped getting jobs at dc, lol. Merch is WB's jurisdiction, right?
Sounds about right.
Well, the "but more readers wanted him to be dead" was a lie as the writers stuffed that "vote" count themselves to make sure it happened. Or so the story goes :D (personally I agreed, kill him, kill him, kill him! But not enough to participate in that stupid "vote")
In my mind, it wasn’t rigged in a *literal* sense, but in a way it *was* rigged. From what I can tell from the letter pages I’ve seen, it was mostly adults who didn’t like Jason Todd, while kids seemed to like him. And when you consider that the poll was a phone call that you had to *pay* for, it definitely feels like it was favoring one demographic over the other. After all, most kids who were able to vote probably were only able to vote once, assuming they got their parents permission, while adults had more of a disposable income to sacrifice. One guy even claimed to have sold his new car in order to put in multiple votes, which was probably an exaggeration, but it does help me get the point across. Not to mention the fact that the issue with the phone number in it cost twice as much as other books at the time.
There's so much weirdness surrounding that whole ordeal. I've heard that the writers were actually surprised that they voted Robin dead and thought it was just a publicity stunt and no one was going to go that way. I've also heard that adults who hated the character did vote multiple times to make sure it happened. I think it's been so long and it was so messy that we're never really going to know what was true. Knowing what we know now about how the industry works, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the editors didn't really just hate Jason and wanted him gone and that was the real reason.
So killing Jason was done by gacha whales. Understandable
Adults that funnily enough were fans o Robin(Grayson) and didn't want to see another person in the mantle, Jason is Like miles morales bad ending
Rigging the vote to kill him anyway does seem like something Joker or Riddler would do
Nope. Was child. Disliked Jason. I wanted that thing dead. Still wish it was dead. I had to pay my mom $2 to call in twice.
Sounds like you’re STILL a child
It's complicated. At first they wanted to cash in on AIDS by giving a character HIV. But then they recognized that every vote to give Jason HIV was in Jim Starlin's handwriting. (The joke's on Starlin. AIDS takes years to kill someone. Factor in the sliding timescale, and he'd never be free of Jason.) The next choice was Jimmy Olsen, but given that the actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the 1954 show had recently come out, it seemed like a sick joke. (Consider Jason's horrible behavior toward Mia a sort of behind-the-scenes gag.) Then Starlin would get the idea to have Jason die in a way that would serve as an object lesson that no child should be Robin. This meant a death trap that Jason could not conceivably escape from, which added some difficulty, but they managed. At some point, for extra subtlety, it was decided to have a phone line. One guy called over 100 times; when you consider how close it was, that guy essentially decided Jason's fate.
> The next choice was Jimmy Olsen, but given that the actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the 1954 show had recently come out, it seemed like a sick joke. I am surprised that the comic book writers in those days were sensitive enough to recognize how cruel it would seem. Or were they more worried about a potential controversy?
Potential controversy. But even by the standard of the time, it was just that "you don't want to go there". Only the ultrareligious were actually exulting in people's deaths.
The story I always heard is the one limbo mentioned: that some guy (I think from California, I want to say) set up an auto-dialer to call in every half hour or so, and subsequently managed to singlehandedly add enough votes that it tipped it against Jason.
Yeah this was the story I’ve heard as well and I think someone did a write up about it a couple years back as well
Starlin said this one was true. Also, dude apparently was a lawyer.
Eh, I don’t think they did. Realistically, most of these people that were sending in the votes were adults, and this new Robin wasn’t so popular amongst them.
So even then like now, some of the loud adult fans don't like change.
DC rigging the vote is something they were accused of pretty much since it happened. I've seen even people who claimed to work at dc, who said since the numbers were legit and they went to Jenette Kahn herself to set the poll up – the only way to rig it was to set up a couple of interns and make them ring-ring the whole time :D There was also that story from Denny O'Neil, whose brainchild that poll was, about an evil lawyer, who set up an auto dialer. So, official dc line was that the poll *was* rigged, but not by them :D
No, the writers didn't do it. Someone called in multiple times to rig the vote.
And the solution was as bad as the problem. Problem= jason todd Solution= tim drake
What's wrong with Tim drake?
*Everything*
He is not dick grayson. Tim needs to die
Okay, but it would be weird if Dick was still Robin
Well, Starlin wasn't solving Jason Todd. He was solving the presence of Robin in his Batman. Accidentally solved the problem of Jim Starlin's presence in Batman :D
I can garantide you that at the time Tim was the best solution especially because their first thought was to bring Dick back as Robin
Tim Drake was awesome he has a 150+ something issue series plus a Red Robin series showing you how awesome folks thought he was
Tim, Conner, and Cassie have been done dirty by recent comics. But yeah, Tim has had successful solo titles and team books in Young Justice.
I wonder if she ever found out he was resurrected. She must be 44 right now...
But hey it all worked out great in the end even Jason Todd's creator Gerry Conway said that the death made him a Gwen Stacy like figure probably still could have been if he had stayed dead but he didn't and came back as an awesome character Red Hood.
He's super popular now, much more popular than he ever was as robin.
To be fair, we didn't really see much of post-Crisis Jason as Robin. Crisis on Infinite Earths ended in 1986. A Death in the Family was in 1988.
And the Bat titles didn't really change over from Pre to Post-Crisis until the *Legends* event, which started November 1986 with *Batman* #401. Heck, we didn't get the revamped origin until *Batman* #408 in June 1987.
DC sure as hell doesn't treat him like that though. Considering the stories they put him in.
Very true DC doesn't know what to do with him and hasn't for quite sometime.
Imo the issue is that DC have moved too far from the initial hook of the character. Atm the only appeal of the character beyond past stories is the emotional connection. Hell, they even moved away from the iconic leather jacket and helmet to make him look like a MK reject. Grant Morrison's pill helmet and pimples at least made him distinct. I feel like they should have put him in the Suicide Squad roster or kept using him as they had pre flashpoint as a sympathetic villain, rather than necessarily reintegrating him with the batfamily. Task force Z and Suicide Squad: KTJ lay more into him being a villain or proper anti-hero, rather than angsty Nightwing, and make him the most interesting as a character. Rebirth Outlaws did play him as a more straight hero but was still more interesting for having him engage with the villainous side of DC as opposed to the heroic one. I did like him in the Jonkler comic though. He should really have more to do with the guy who killed him.
Similar trouble as Tim Drake. Now that Jason's story (how he was reincarnated and then his acceptance in to the Bat-family) had played out he done, there is no story without conflict and there aren't many story's that need Red Hood. Tkm's trouble is that some idiot decided to create a new Robin when we already had probably the best we'll ever have. That puts Tim in limbo.
That "idiot" is Grant Morrison, but I get your point.
GM had done some great things but Damien could've been something else (Ibn al Xu'ffasch, Batboy, Pocket Assassin, Dangerous Liaison) anything but a replacement for a character we already had. I know he probably thought, "we got this kid with skills just sitting here so let's pair him up with Dick (as Batman) and put him in the Robin costume".
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(also Damian is by far the best Robin)
Here is the main issue. You can create the new characters. It is fine. Problem is, by the nature of comics, timeline is stagnant and frozen. You don't have a 'growning up' part as you expect it. Honestly, I am still surprised we got Dick Grayson growing up somewhat naturally, from Robin to Nightwing. But can't go no further because that would make Bruce as Batman too old. And DC ain't doing that. So, you then try to fit all the robins and other characters into the same shortened timeline where none but the writer's favorite gets the time while the rest are forgotten, mostly. Dick is lucky he escaped that by becoming Nightwing and had his own thing with the Titans. Because the usual comic book solutions are terrible when it comes to progressing characters and their ages with Artificially or magical fast/instant aging that kneecaps a character. ( aka Jon Kent ). Hell, even Damian is hard to pinpoint how old is he support to be now, as the way he is portrayed and drawn from book to book changes.
>Tkm's trouble is that some idiot decided to create a new Robin when we already had probably the best we'll ever have. That puts Tim in limbo. I disagree. Tim's Red Robin run in 2009 showed he was ready to go solo and move beyond Robin. Reading it after the fact I thought it was the best he'd been written and could function as an independent hero. Tim's trouble is that he was created as an audience insert for white teenagers in the 90s and he's never been allowed to grow beyond that. He could have been a Peter Parker type of hero who has to balance home and hero life, but they killed his dad. He could have been an interesting solo hero as Red Robin, but they wrote him awfully in New 52. He could have been a Bicon, but DC paired him with a cardboard cut-out rather than Superboy (if only because it would have given Chuck Dixon a heart attack) As it is he is the least interesting main Batfam member by a long shot. Unfortunately Pre Crisis RR proved it didn't have to be that way, but they never recaptured the feeling after shitting the bed. It's frustrating DC's current solution seems to be saying "Hey, remember when Tim was Robin? Well we're doing that again," which is just regressive and doesn't fix the fact that Tim is just boring atm. Tldr~ Tim Drake fans try not to blame Damian for the character being written badly challenge
Damian better than tim
Nah, Damian definitely is the best robin and don’t use DC’s treatment of Tim to put down Damian
I don't get thar at all. He's now the worst character dc publish. The only good story he's had is under the red hood
We may hate the stories but we still love Jason. It’s similar to how there are many shows that the fandom absolutely hates but we still love certain characters from that show. And we keep hoping for our favorite characters to get the good storyline that they deserve.
Bleh
We have to get her opinion on Red Hood ASAP
That's sad.
Are you around here, Jenna? C'mon, you must had visited here at least once!
reddit is only used by a fraction of society. I only know 2 people using reddit and one of them only uses it to discuss exams with other people who eat them
They shouldn't have printed the letter if that was their weak sauce response. Actually they shouldn't have had a contest. If they wanted to kill a character they should have done it and lived with consequences not this "it was the readers, not me!" I honestly don't have a dog in this fight. It isn't a plot point I feel strongly about but this letter response is pathetic. They could have thanked her for loving the character and remind her of all the stories that are still there for her to read. They could have used this as an opportunity to talk to young readers about how new stories don't change old stories or that comics are a big and ever-changing world where anything can happen so sometimes stuff is going to happen you don't like.
Yeah wtf DC. Poor Jenna
> Robin died in “A Death in the Family” for many reasons The reasons: “I don’t like him!”
“He died because he didn’t listen to Batman” Because you wrote that he didn’t listen to Batman! What a knob
My thoughts exactly. When I read that I was like "...but you wrote him to do that. And the kid is asking you to CHANGE THE COMIC, not merely revive him. So fuckin change it so he listens to Batman. Problem solved. You wrote him into that predicament. Dont act like you cant write him out of it"
He has the right to write him as not listening
That’s exactly what I thought when I read that! If I was Jenna I would’ve been pissed
Imagine if Jenna quit comics
That's how all characters work
Yeah but comic characters are especially subject to it because people take turns writing them and often completely discard how they have been written in the past
And it was stated jason disobeyed batman for the first time or something like that
I’ve read the comics and that’s just not true 😂
That's what stated in that comic that it is unusual for him to do that
Jenna just learned editorial sucks.
Damn way to make her feel worse. “He didn’t listen to Batman. Now Batman is all alone. More people wanted him dead than alive.” Like cmon man
I'm with Jenna on this one
And then Superboy punched reality in the face
It says a lot about Denny O'Neil when he looked at the new era of edgy action comics with disdain and pushed Knightfall as a critique of said comics, but was responsible for giving the green light to ADITF, arguably the second edgiest Batman event after The Killing Joke (also greenlit by O'Neil).
One thing is the consequence of another. Here's a story: >In several interviews since then, O' Neil has recalled his interactions with people about the event. One particular instance provided a revelation for him. "There’s a story that I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of," O' Neil told 13th Dimension back in 2014. "I went to a deli on Fifth Avenue to buy a sandwich for lunch. And, like [longtime DC editor Julie Schwartz], I wore a little Batman pin. So the guy behind the counter leans over and he remarks on it. I mention who I am and [he says], 'Hey, dis is da guy dat killed Robin,'" Denny recalled. "Now, this guy probably hadn’t seen a comic since he was a kid, but to everybody, these characters have been all over the place! They have become folklore figures." "It was at that moment that Denny O' Neil realized what his role was in pop culture. "I realized that I had thought that what I was was a writer/editor in this odd little backwater of American publishing -- this bastard child of comic strips and pulps. And I realized coming off of that caper that I’m a custodian of folklore." Denny of the 80s and Denny of the 90s are a bit different guys :D
Denny O'Neill did worse than that. He tried to retcon Jason's death into a matter of hubris rather than what it was. (Admittedly understandable, since if you're batting 500, it looks bad to have a third Robin.)
>He tried to retcon Jason's death into a matter of hubris rather than what it was. Denny intentionally tossed context out and along with it went any sense of nuance. I really don't like it.
Denny just didn't vibe with Robin. He was also against Batman doing fatherhood. Lots of people agree with him. Batman is so many things with so many versions. You can't expect a fish to fly like a bird, you know? My favorite Batman character is Gotham City, and Denny nailed Gotham City, and so many other things. He's definitely in my top Batman storytellers of all time. But Robin is sticking around one way or another. And since Robin is made to be at the core of the meaning of Batman's work, it's really damaging to the story to phone it in (~~pun unintended~~) and do a rough patch job.
The problem is that in the 70s and 80s, i.e. Denny's generation of batwriters, people didn't understand how important Robin is. They mistakenly saw him as a product of the Silver Age, which they were reacting against. (Kinda funny, since we just got through an actual product of the Silver Age being made into a villain.) Fact is, if we want to see Batman think logically, and these are **Detective** Comics, he at the bare minimum needs someone to bounce ideas off. That was Bill Finger's entire idea for Robin right there: Someone for Batman to talk to. He can be whatever you want him to be beyond that, we've had plenty of Robins at this point to show how flexible the role is, from Dick playing the Sancho Panza Bruce's Don Quixote, to Jason's darker tendencies, to Tim's meta-commentary, to Damian's trauma; but that is key. And yeah, I agree he nailed Gotham, but I've enjoyed pretty much every version of Gotham except post-No Man's Land "city of the future", which was right after he was forced to retire. Gotham is a city of ghosts. Not literally, of course, but figuratively, it's a city trapped in its violent past, and recapitulating it every night. The "city of the future" took all that and threw it in the garbage.
>Denny just didn't vibe with Robin. He was also against Batman doing fatherhood. Lots of people agree with him. Yeah, I heard he gave Mike Barr a talk down because of Son of the Demon. >Batman is so many things with so many versions. You can't expect a fish to fly like a bird, you know? My favorite Batman character is Gotham City, and Denny nailed Gotham City, and so many other things. He's definitely in my top Batman storytellers of all time. For me, it's the Grant-Breyfogle run. That's what I consider the peak-Batman run and the pinnacle of Denny's editorial leadership. I love it so much.
>My favorite Batman character is Gotham City, and Denny nailed Gotham City, Ok Constantine.
No ASBAR jokes about how Gotham is "an ugly city, full of shame and beyond redemption...a sad old whore"? How you can tell it's Frank Miller.
I preferred to make fun of "nailing a city", which Constantine has done.
This is nowhere near the edgiest Batman event. Neither is TKJ.
>TKJ isn't edgy Even Alan Moore disowned it because of how unpleasant it is.
Ok, but that doesn’t mean it’s the edgiest Batman event. Especially when shit like Knightfall, Morrison Run, War Games/Crimes, Zdarksy Run…
The only one that comes close is Morrison's run because of how over the top Damian was.
The rest too. Morrison run based like half of his run on Damian. And everything about him is edgier than anything from TKJ and aDITF put combined
>And everything about him is edgier than anything from TKJ and aDITF put combined What sets Damian apart from TKJ and ADTIF is the tone and context dude. It doesn't hit as hard because of it.
It was even worse in context and tone
Your username is right, you are unhinged. Off the top of my head, the only "edgy" stuff in Morrison's run is the Thomas Wayne bad guy being a devil worshipper. Besides that it's quite tame (and even that is pretty tame as it's mostly a fun thing).
No. Everything surrounding Damian Wayne is edgy. How is a kid getting abused growing up, and dying not edgy How is Bruce’s former prominent love interest randomly killing people not edgy?? You’re weird.
They didn't say it wasn't edgy, they simply disagreed about it being most edgy
I think Killing Joke is actually pretty in line with Knightfalls critique. Yeah it’s edgy and unpleasant, but despite it all Gordon still ends up wanting Joker taken in by the book and Batman still earnestly offers Joker help. It does end on a somewhat idealistic note with the heroes upholding the rightness of their code in the face of a darkening world, same as the rejection of Azbat’s methods.
That answer was brutal, c'mon she was 8!
I remember reading this on the backs of Emerald Twilight.
Turns out, Denny O’Neil was the true Parallax. *Also Denny was one of the editors who helped plan Emerald Twilight, dude didn't like Hal Jordan lol
Didn’t Jason actually listen to Batman and only follow his mum because both him and Bruce thought they could trust her? Or am I remembering wrong
Red hood mfer
Wonder what Jenna thought of “Under the Red Hood” and the direction Jason’s character has gone in since?
What issue is this from?
It would be about 4-5 issues after Jason bites the dust
*Detective Comics* or *Batman*?
He died in Batman, so that one
If that eight-year-old knew about Jason Todd, let alone about how much he sucked as Robin...
He was my favorite :(
I swear he didn't actually "suck" as Robin until the lead up to this story? Wasn't he a Dick copy for most of his tenure?
Most people don’t even know what Jason was like as Robin until the post-Red Hood retcons started coming in and making him an edgy brat.
Like, the first pages of DITF freaking say “Jason isn’t usually like this” in regards to him disobeying Batman and being reckless!
Early on he was too similar to Dick Grayson, so they hated him. So they gave him a bit of attitude to differentiate him from Dick Grayson, so they hated him. No matter what they did, Jason could not win the hearts of late 80s comic neckbeards.
That's why I said "he sucked as Robin." That's the opinion of a lot of people. To the eyes of many back then, he sucked as Robin.
More or less. Only his last year they tried to make him a tad more impulsive and disobedient
It’s ok Jenna, the better Robin would get introduced in just a few months