A Death in the Family (comics)

Background Robin, the adolescent sidekick of the DC Comics superhero Batman, first appeared in Detective Comics #38 in April 1940. He was introduced by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson to give Batman a companion and increase his appeal to children. The original Robin, Dick Grayson, made regular appearances in Batman publications from 1940 until the early 1980s, when Marv Wolfman and George Pérez began including him in the New Teen Titans comics. So Robin could continue appearing in Batman comics, Batman writer Gerry Conway and artist Don Newton introduced Jason Todd in Batman #357 (March 1983). Originally, Jason's origin story was virtually identical to Dick's; like Dick, Jason was depicted as the son of circus acrobats, who became Batman's sidekick after his parents were murdered. Dennis O'Neil, who wrote Batman and Detective Comics throughout the 1970s and became the Batman group editor in 1986, said that Conway and Newton worried about creating a new character. I think they thought, 'We've got to have a Robin in the series so let's go with the tried and true. This Robin has worked for so many years, so let's do him again. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986) crossover event, which rebooted the DC Universe, Batman writer Max Allan Collins was asked to reintroduce Jason. He initially avoided featuring Jason, but began to use him at the request of O'Neil. Starlin "decided to play on that dislike" in his stories. By 1988, the Batman creative team knew Jason presented a problem that needed to be resolved. Development (pictured in 2008) proposed killing Robin six months before he was asked to write "A Death in the Family".|alt=Jim Starlin, a bald man with a goatee wearing a purple shirt, sits at a table. O'Neil decided that Jason either needed another personality revamp or to be written out of Batman. Around that time, DC was planning to publish a comic promoting HIV/AIDS education, and requested that writers submit suggestions for characters to kill off from AIDS. Starlin, who had advocated killing Robin when he began writing Batman, However, DC president Jenette Kahn wanted to address Jason's unpopularity. Batman #426, the first issue of "A Death in the Family", was released on August 23, 1988, and Batman #427, the second, was released two weeks later, on September 6. A hardcover deluxe edition was published in April 2021. In March 2020, the DC Daily web show unveiled all of the pages to the public for the first time, and the artwork was published in the 2021 deluxe edition. A physical facsimile issue of the alternate pages, including the original advertisements and letters column, was published on December 12, 2023. ==Synopsis==

While eavesdropping on a child pornography ring and awaiting police backup in Gotham City, Jason Todd (Robin) ignores Batman's orders and attacks the criminals. Batman chastises Jason and asks if he considers crimefighting a game; Jason replies that life is a game. At Wayne Manor, Batman decides Jason is emotionally unstable and relieves him of his duties as Robin; an enraged Jason storms off. Meanwhile, the Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum. Batman discovers that he has obtained a nuclear weapon and plans to sell it to terrorists, and tracks him to war-torn Lebanon. Walking through his old neighborhood, Jason meets a friend of his late parents, who gives him his father's old documents. Jason discovers that his mother's name on his birth certificate is blotted out. Her first initial is "S", not "C" as in Catherine Todd, the woman he knew as his mother. Jason concludes that Catherine was his stepmother and decides to search for his biological mother. He uses the Batcomputer to track three possible individuals to the Middle East and Africa. Jason travels to Lebanon, where he and Batman reunite. The two foil an attempt by terrorists to destroy Tel Aviv using the nuclear missile purchased from the Joker. Batman agrees to help Jason find his mother, and Jason interrogates his first suspect, Mossad agent Sharmin Rosen. His next suspect, Batman's old acquaintance Lady Shiva, says she is not Jason's mother after she is administered a truth serum by the duo. Batman and Jason travel to Ethiopia and confirm that Jason's mother is Sheila Haywood, an aid worker; Jason has an emotional reunion with her. However, the Joker discovers that Sheila had performed illegal surgeries on teenagers in Gotham and has been blacklisted as a medical practitioner. He blackmails her into giving him the medical supplies her agency has stockpiled in a warehouse. He sells them on the black market and stocks the warehouse with Joker venom, which will kill thousands of people. Jason witnesses the Joker blackmail Sheila, so he reveals his identity as Robin to her and offers to help. Sheila rebuffs him, as she has been embezzling from the aid agency; in an attempt to cover this up, she hands Jason over to the Joker. The Joker beats Jason with a crowbar and restrains him and Sheila in the warehouse with a time bomb. Jason throws himself on the bomb to protect Sheila as the warehouse explodes. Batman arrives too late to save them, and Jason and Sheila die from their injuries. Traumatized, Batman takes Jason and Sheila's remains to Gotham and holds a burial with Alfred Pennyworth, Commissioner James Gordon, and Barbara Gordon. Batman blames himself for Jason's death and resolves to carry on alone, rejecting Alfred's suggestion to involve Dick Grayson, the first Robin. Ayatollah Khomeini approaches the Joker and offers him a role in the Iranian government. The Joker leaves a warehouse containing the corpses of his henchmen and the address of the UN Headquarters for Batman. As Batman waits outside the UN building, Superman appears and tries to convince Batman to leave. The Joker is Iran's representative to the UN and will be giving a speech on the floor of the General Assembly, and any confrontation between Batman and him could start a diplomatic incident. During his speech, the Joker attempts to poison the chamber with Joker venom, but Superman intercepts it. Batman pursues the Joker onto a helicopter sent by his sponsors. During the resulting struggle, one of the Joker's henchmen opens fire with a machine gun and shoots the pilot, crashing the helicopter into the sea. Superman saves Batman, but the Joker disappears. Batman laments that everything between him and the Joker ends unresolved. ==Reception==

Initial (pictured in 2012) proposed that DC allow fans to decide if Jason was to die.|alt=Dennis O'Neil, a bald man wearing sunglasses, a plaid blue shirt, and a gray vest, smiles at the camera. The first three chapters of "A Death in the Family" sold out quickly, The storyline drew coverage in news outlets including USA Today, Reuters, and the Deseret News. Many reports did not mention that Jason was not the original Robin. As an editor at Marvel Comics, O'Neil had received angry mail from fans when characters such as Phoenix and Elektra were killed, so he was prepared for reader backlash to Jason's death. However, "A Death in the Family" created much more controversy, as Robin was one of DC's most iconic characters and the Marvel deaths had occurred during a period of recession in comics. O'Neil spent the days following Batman #428's publication "doing nothing but talking on the radio. I thought it would get us some ink here and there and maybe a couple of radio interviews. I had no idea—nor did anyone else—it would have the effect it did". After three days, Peggy May, DC's publicity manager, ordered O'Neil to stop talking to the media. She also barred anyone from discussing the story on television. Though initially confused, O'Neil came to appreciate May's order because he did not want the public to see him as "the guy who killed Robin". Assistant editor Dan Raspler was chastised by DC's then-executive vice president Paul Levitz for referring to "A Death in the Family" as a "stunt" in an interview. O'Neil and the Batman team received hate mail and angry phone calls; according to O'Neil, the calls ranged from You bastard', to tearful grandmothers saying, 'My grandchild loved Robin and I don't know what to tell him. Frank Miller was critical, calling the story "the most cynical thing [DC] has ever done ... fans can call in to put the axe to a little boy's head. To me the whole killing of Robin thing was probably the ugliest thing I've seen in comics". NPR cultural critic Glen Weldon found the criticism ironic, as it was Miller who came up with the idea of the Joker killing Jason in The Dark Knight Returns. Retrospective Critics have agreed with the decision to kill Jason in retrospect. Sims wrote that killing Jason was "unquestionably the right decision" and made for a far better story. Retrospective reviewers have faulted "A Death in the Family" for its plot. Hailstone described "A Death in the Family" as "the ultimate 80s epic": "brasher than Top Gun, louder than Hulk Hogan and more implausible than The A-Team". and GamesRadar+ and Screen Rant in 2021. Sean T. Collins of Rolling Stone ranked it among the 15 Batman stories he considered "essential" to understanding the character, praising Aparo's art and how Starlin characterizes the Joker. ==Analysis==

Despite Robin's status as one of the most famous sidekicks in comic book history, there has been little literary analysis of "A Death in the Family". According to literary critic Kwasu Tembo, it is generally only discussed "as either a case study within a broader discussion of Batman's ethics, or as a case study of DC's editorial decisions and socio-historical engagement with its readership". The story's message is that Batman cannot save everyone, Starlin writes Batman as speaking Farsi, the Persian language, in Beirut (where Arabic is actually the commonly spoken language), and the Joker dons a traditional Arab headdress and robes as the Iranian ambassador, although Iran is not an Arab country. Chrishaun Baker of Inverse described the Joker's alliance with Khomeini as "the culmination of an embarrassing series of storytelling gaffs that flattens the complexities of Middle Eastern turmoil into a homogenous caricature of racial stereotypes". Several writers have described the portrayal of Arab terrorists as Islamophobic. They are depicted as anti-American, anti-Israel fanatics who seek to violently take over the Western world. They are referred to as "bandits-in-bedsheets" and depicted as unshaved and always holding weapons, while Jamal, the terrorist leader, is overweight and perpetually sneering. In a 1991 study of Arab terrorist depictions in comic books, Jack Shaheen wrote that "A Death in the Family" conflates Arabs, Muslims, and terrorists, and equates them to the Joker, an insane supervillain. Jehanzeb Dar and Shaheen cited the Joker's speech to the General Assembly as particularly Islamophobic. Before he attempts to poison the chamber, the Joker gloats: Dar described the Joker's speech as blatant Islamophobia disguised as humor. Shaheen and Dar argued "A Death in the Family" promotes the idea of "Them vs. Us", pitting the Arab and Western worlds against each other as diametrically opposed in values. Dar said that and [DC]'s disregard for cultural, religious, and political accuracy simply points to a crude and racist generalization: Arabs, Iranians, and Muslims are all the 'same' and 'hate' the West". ==Legacy==

"A Death in the Family" was part of the American comic book industry's trend towards "grim and gritty" comics in the late 1980s, Chris Snellgrove of Looper described the scenes depicting Jason's torture and death—with the Joker covered in his blood— as "one of the most disturbing moments in the publisher's long history". DC editors took the lessons they learned from the controversy and used media coverage for publicity when killing off major characters in the future, such as Superman in "The Death of Superman" (1992–1993). Although "A Death in the Family" sold well, it harmed Starlin's standing at DC. DC's licensing department was infuriated over the death because of the amount of merchandise—such as lunchboxes and pajamas—that bore Robin's likeness. According to Starlin, "everybody got mad, and they needed somebody to blame—so I got blamed". The story altered the DC Universe: instead of killing anonymous bystanders, the Joker murdered a core character in the Batman fiction. Alongside The Killing Joke (which featured Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, being shot in the stomach and paralyzed) and the success of the 1989 Batman film, "A Death in the Family" pushed the Batman mythos in a darker direction. When the DC Universe continuity was rebooted during DC's 2011 New 52 initiative, the events of "A Death in the Family" were left intact because DC editors deemed it too important. Jason was likely to be replaced as Robin regardless of his survival. O'Neil wanted to wait a year for a successor, but DC management demanded a new Robin immediately. O'Neil and Wolfman began developing the character of Tim Drake, who debuted in the 1989 storyline "A Lonely Place of Dying" by Wolfman, Pérez, and Aparo. O'Neil arranged for a nuanced introduction that explained why Batman would need a new sidekick after Jason's death, and Tim was designed to appeal to both Jason's fans and detractors. Tim proved popular and starred in several limited series and a 1993–2009 ongoing series, until he was replaced by Damian Wayne in 2009. Damian shared Jason's willingness to go against Batman's wishes and use lethal force; Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving's Batman and Robin #13 (2010) featured a scene in which Damian beat the Joker with a crowbar, paralleling Jason's murder. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Jason's death was one of the few comic book deaths that remained unreversed. Unlike traditional comic book deaths, Jason's was intended to stay permanent; at the time of "A Death in the Familys publication, O'Neil said that "it would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back". A popular aphorism among comic book fans was that in comics, no characters stayed dead except Bucky Barnes, Uncle Ben, and Jason. Jason's revival was first teased in the "Hush" (2002–2003) storyline by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, which features Clayface impersonating an undead Jason to taunt Batman. Jason eventually re-joined Batman's supporting cast as an "on-again, off-again ally", Despite his resurrection, in 2020 journalist Susana Polo noted Jason was still most famous for dying in "A Death in the Family". ==In other media==

Bruce Timm and Paul Dini considered adapting "A Death in the Family" for Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), but decided it was too violent. Instead, they omitted the Jason character and incorporated some of his characteristics in Tim when the series was rebranded as The New Batman Adventures (1997–1999). The story was eventually adapted in the comic book sequel Batman: The Adventures Continue (2020), written by Dini and Alan Burnett and penciled by Ty Templeton. In The Adventures Continue, the Joker and Harley Quinn kidnap Jason, and the Joker beats him with a crowbar with intent to kill him. Harley objects to killing a child and finds Batman, who arrives as the warehouse is engulfed in flames due to hydrogen tanks. A wounded Jason begs for Batman to kill the Joker, but Batman instead tries to save him; Jason attempts to stop Batman but knocks over more hydrogen tanks, causing the explosion and his apparent death. Elements of Jason Todd's torture at the Joker's hands are later incorporated into Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, with Tim Drake taking Jason's place. Elements from "A Death in the Family" were incorporated in the 2010 DC Universe Animated Original Movies film Batman: Under the Red Hood, an adaptation of "Under the Hood" directed by Brandon Vietti. In the film, Ra's al Ghul (Jason Isaacs) hires the Joker (John DiMaggio) to distract Batman (Bruce Greenwood) and Jason (Jensen Ackles) while he destroys Europe's financial districts. They follow the Joker to Bosnia, where he kills Jason in similar fashion to "A Death in the Family". An interactive film adaptation, Batman: Death in the Family, was released in 2020. The film is a sequel to Under the Red Hood, Vietti again directing. The cast of Red Hood returned to reprise their roles, with the exception of Vincent Martella, who replaced Ackles. Similar to the voting system from the comic, the film allows viewers to determine if Jason lives or dies, leading to different scenarios that see him become Red Hood, Hush, or Red Robin. In "Emperor Joker!", a 2010 episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008–2011), a fourth wall-breaking Bat-Mite (Paul Reubens) references "A Death in the Family" and the 900 number, and Batman is briefly seen cradling a dead Robin. Jason's portrayal in the video game Batman: Arkham Knight (2015) was inspired by "A Death in the Family". but elements from "A Death in the Family" were incorporated in the third season of Titans, which premiered in 2021. "A Death in the Family" is referenced in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), a shared universe of superhero films based on DC characters. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) features a damaged Robin suit on display in the Batcave, while Suicide Squad (2016) reveals that Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) helped the Joker (Jared Leto) murder him. ''Zack Snyder's Justice League'' (the 2021 director's cut of Justice League (2017)) features a scene in which the Joker mocks Batman (Ben Affleck) for Robin's death. Though Warner Bros. and Suicide Squad director David Ayer stated that the dead Robin was Jason, Snyder had planned to explore Robin's death in detail in his Justice League sequels before their cancellation. Before the release of ''Zack Snyder's Justice League, Snyder proposed a comic book prequel to Batman v Superman'' that depicted Robin's death, but DC turned it down. "A Death in the Family" is parodied and mocked in the Harley Quinn episode "The 83rd Annual Villy Awards", where Joker's opening number as host of the 83rd Annual Villy Awards starts with a parody of the death of Jason Todd. ==Notes==