westwinterblue:

comic-commentary:

There are so many misconceptions about why Jason Todd was killed off, and I’m here to correct them to the best of my ability. 

First of all, I recommend you read this, as it’s very thorough and informative and I’ll be referencing it frequently. 

• The vote was very close–5,343 for Jason’s death, 5,271 for Jason’s survival. That’s 72 votes, less than 0.68% of the total votes. Let’s not pretend Jason was killed off by a landslide. “Everybody hated him” is just…literally not true, and those votes aren’t all related to Jason himself.
• There might have been one guy who really hated Robin (not necessarily Jason Todd) who voted more than enough times to sway the vote on his own. Alternatively, DC might have said that to cover their asses because this publicity stunt was not received well in the media or by fans. O’Neil later went on to rethink his entire career due to the backlash.
• People did like Jason. We have the letters to prove it. Lots of letters! Granted, some were begrudging. 
• One guy even wrote a eulogy for Jason after his death! It’s actually a bit heartbreaking. 
• A lot of people really hated Pre-Crisis Jason for being a Dick Grayson clone, and didn’t realize that Post-Crisis Jason was a different character or still resented him for that. Some people, however, realized how much he’d changed after the Crisis and respected the new version. 
• Some voters assumed that they were voting to kill Jason and the Joker, which is kind of different than voting to kill off Jason just for kicks. 
• Some voted just to see if DC would actually go through with it even if they sympathized with Jason and liked him as Robin. 
• Most of the voters were adults, not children, because voting on the phone cost money and it was a number similar to some not-so-appropriate phone lines or it was forbidden altogether. A little girl cried all day because Jason died, and DC consoled her by saying that Jason deserved it for disobeying Batman, as if that warranted a teenager’s brutal death. The vote was not representative of the readers, particularly the children. 
• Some adult readers at the time weren’t keen on the concept of Robin, and I’m sure a lot of them also hated Jason Todd specifically, but that wasn’t the main issue. They were ushering in the grimdark era of Miller and really long pointy eared-cowls, where they saw no place for a Robin. 
• Even then, Frank Miller called the stunt one of the “ugliest” and “most cynical” things in comics. FRANK. MILLER.
• Jim Starlin’s particular issue was with Robin, and while I don’t think his viewpoint matches up with DC’s world, I do see his point. He doesn’t understand why Batman would allow a brightly-dressed child join him in a war on crime, in a city that was only becoming more dangerous each year. If this were the real world, everyone would be crying child abuse and endangerment, and they’d be right, but this is a world where child sidekicks are the norm.
• O’Neil said that he tried to make Jason less likable because the fans weren’t responding well to him. What I find disturbing is that it worked and Jason’s “unlikable” behavior was based on him using excessive force against those who raped women and children and on acting like, y’know, a traumatized kid rescued from the streets. 
• I can’t figure out if I hallucinated this or not, but I recall reading a letter from an employee of a group home saying that the kids weren’t surprised that Jason had died. These were kids who related to someone like Jason, and were probably ecstatic that even he could be Robin, only to get shot down in the worst way possible. Everyone deserves a hero. 
• Classist bullshit. The next Robin was well-spoken, mild-mannered, and from a wealthy family, unlike Jason, whose speech was rough and attitude was harsh and defensive from living on the streets. I highly doubt that was a coincidence. 
• No but honestly who votes for a 15-year old kid who is obviously traumatized by his parents’ deaths and living on the streets and overreacts to violence against women and children to be murdered? Even if people didn’t like Jason, that’s just…so unnecessary. 
• If you want to be an asshole, you can go on saying that a lot of people hated Jason–but for good reasons? No. It’s nothing worth gloating about when many reasons are founded on prejudice and ignorance. 

This is all true