Why does DC like killing off characters so much?

[JasonTodd428]

When Jason was Robin, the writers and editors didn't seem quite sure what to do with him. One camp seemed bent on making him Dick Grayson-lite, while the other camp wanted to go in the complete opposite direction (a street punk who wasn't above cold-blooded murder when it suited him).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I think their first mistake was trying to make him Grayson-lite instead of trying to make him his own unique character. Fans who had read Dick as Robin weren't going to be satisfied with a new character coming into the role to start with and making him an exact duplicate of their favorite only made them dislike him more. They should have gone for broke before the Crisis and made him a different type of character with a completely different skill set and a different background from Dick instead and seen how that played out.

[Agent Z]

That's because now it seems that being a proper good guy is no longer fashionable. Brutal heroics is so chic.

Tell that to the people complaining that movie Superman isn't enough like movie Captain America. Or all those complaining about the Titans trailer.

[Lee Stone]

Tell that to the people complaining that movie Superman isn't enough like movie Captain America. Or all those complaining about the Titans trailer.

Yeah... I think I'd add "... to the people in charge" to the end of Byrd's comment.
That sounds about right, as they've been trying as hard as possible to avoid having 'boy (or girl) scouts'. Everyone has to have 'an edge' or they 'won't sell'.

[Buried Alien]

I think their first mistake was trying to make him Grayson-lite instead of trying to make him his own unique character. Fans who had read Dick as Robin weren't going to be satisfied with a new character coming into the role to start with and making him an exact duplicate of their favorite only made them dislike him more. They should have gone for broke before the Crisis and made him a different type of character with a completely different skill set and a different background from Dick instead and seen how that played out.

Jason Todd's reputation as the "bad Robin" really only came to play during the final months of his time as the second Boy Wonder. Even Post-COIE, until the point when he might or might not have murdered that one scumbag son of a diplomat who was abusing women, Jason was more-or-less Dick-lite. The killing of the diplomat's son was really the first hint that Jason was beyond the pale, and DEATH IN THE FAMILY followed almost immediately after that story.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[byrd156]

Tell that to the people complaining that movie Superman isn't enough like movie Captain America. Or all those complaining about the Titans trailer.

And there are plenty of fans defending those things.

[byrd156]

I disagree with the gimmick being "fine" and with the pass some fans always seem to give it when they decry nearly every gimmick that comes along these days. Why does this particular one get a free pass every time? Hating on a character hardly makes this type of asinine gimmick right. Its hardly different than any of the others and in some aspects it is far, far worse, in the same vein using a character for cannon fodder and nothing else. I was a reader at the time and all this gimmicky death did was cause me to drop comics altogether for well over a decade not because of the death itself but because I found the 1-900 vote gimmick attached to it to be in very bad taste. All it showed me was that the writers were willing to let fans take the blame for a character's death and that the writers just didn't have the stones to kill him off without covering their butts first. That's how I felt at the time and its still how I feel about the whole thing.

Also to me he was a fully fleshed out character with his own personality and quirks and personally I enjoyed that he was a different type of character than Dick was Post-Crisis. Made for a nice contrast in my opinion that helped to highlight Dick's character as well. He had that "bad boy" image back then but he really wasn't that at all. Even fairly early on after his death his death was treated as if it meant something and his character was treated respectfully. The problem though was that later writers twisted that bad boy image into his being the "Bad (as in not good enough to be) Robin" the farther we got from his death so in all honesty the whole 'cautionary tale" aspect of it fell completely flat. It shifted from being about dying while on duty being a real possibility and to respect that danger involved to being "don't be like Jason because his mistakes/dis-regard for our rules/inability to think things through/his anger got him killed.

Gimmicks are generally fine the first time or first few times, once they become overused it becomes annoying. This gets a free pass because 1) I think it's actually well done. 2) Everything that came out of it for the bat-family. 3) Letting fans choose is smart as hell plus they got to make some money out of it.

Eh it's still a cautionary tale even if it focuses more on his personality. Would you want to act more or less like the guy before you who got killed? I don't see how it falls flat at all. Having fans choose means they had a story planned out for two different directions, DC barely plans like that anymore. I don't see how that's lazy in the slightest.

If Jason lived, would he still have been Robin? Wouldn't Bruce force him to retire or would he have become an Oracle type? I see the same outcome whether he lived or died, Jason would no longer be Robin. Bruce forced Dick to quit when he was shot, Jason got so much worse. But we'll never know because he died.

[byrd156]

Yeah... I think I'd add "... to the people in charge" to the end of Byrd's comment.
That sounds about right, as they've been trying as hard as possible to avoid having 'boy (or girl) scouts'. Everyone has to have 'an edge' or they 'won't sell'.

Thanks for the addition.

[Güicho]

Cause of the 90's Dark-Age/Tinfoil-Age/Shock & Awe era, it's what sold the most creating the Speculator market boon: People not buying for characters, but for events, and particularly around "Death-Events".

Mid 80's Bronze Age ended with Crisis (death of Allen) 1985, and the Bronze-Age "Relevancy" taken to it's dramatic end - Watchmen, Dark Knight, where comics were now commentary on Superhero themselves, vs. Vigilantism.

What followed was the Dark Age or Shock & Awe age, the most shallow aping of those ^ books, with none of the "Relevance".
Instead replaced by banal, shallow, cynical glorification of violence, mindlessly aping those two books with eXtreme deaths! And events.
Death of Todd (complete with torture, a gruesome 1-(1900 #money generating number, so the "fans" could participate, and vote in the Death), Death of Superman (where it was solidified as a money generating Event), Breaking Batman, blowing up Green Arrow so Conner can take over, crippling Batgirl, Insane Jordan Killing the Corps etc... drove the industry and the creation of the speculator or tinfoil-age, as speculators started buying for supposed "key-issues" meaning anything with shocking crippling, character heal-turns, deaths, and events, they bought multiple of copies of.




Pitched marketed and sold as "Key-Issues" = "in this issue _____ is Crippled, goes Insane, Dies! ...etc! " The character or their history didn't mater, what mattered was now any mindless shocking violent, easy hook, which they bought in droves.
As long as the same people still buzz and buy into the same crap, they will continue try to market to that same mentality, whenever they can.

And here we go again....



This is nothing new...
If you are still buying into these shock events.
Telling them it's what you want, guess what these events need ...someone to die!
Physically
Mentally (do a shocking heal-turn personality switch- to be broken-insane or become a villain)
Character "assassination"
Or crippled physically and/or mentally , so the character as you knew them "dies".
Feeding into and celebrating since the 90's as one generation of characters got disgustingly replaced by the next, by being tortured, mutilated, crippled, character assassinated, and killed, it was celebrated in the grim-dark 90's, letting them know you loved it! And they've been milking it ever sense, let's not pretend this is something new.

This time fill in the blank with Wally West

"in this issue _____ is Crippled, goes Insane, Dies! ...etc! " The character or their history d[on't] mater, what mattere[s] was now any mindless shocking violent, easy hook, which they b[uy] in droves.
As long as the same people still buzz and buy into the same crap, they will continue try to market to that same mentality, whenever they can.

But don't worry, it's a cyclical gimmick, ...until he comes back!

It's become so commonplace and mundane, they can actually sell you an event built on just the anxiety of it happening, in a simulation and yo'll buy it.
It's almost self parody.

[Güicho]

Why does DC like killing off characters so much?

The an$wer is as long as they can milk it.

LOL! As long as people keep falling for this .... still buying, and telling them it's what you want. lOL!
They will continue to build events around it for you.

[CaptCleghorn]

And here we go again....

This is nothing new...
If you are still buying into these shock events.
Telling them it's what you want, guess what these events need ...someone to die!
Physically
Mentally (do a shocking heal-turn personality switch- to be broken-insane or become a villain)
Character "assassination"
Or crippled physically and/or mentally , so the character as you knew them "dies".
Feeding into and celebrating since the 90's as one generation of characters got disgustingly replaced by the next, by being tortured, mutilated, crippled, character assassinated, and killed, it was celebrated in the grim-dark 90's, letting them know you loved it! And they've been milking it ever sense, let's not pretend this is something new.

But don't worry, it's a cyclical gimmick, ...until he comes back!

It's become so commonplace and mundane, they can actually sell you an event built on just the anxiety of it happening, in a simulation and yo'll buy it.
It's almost self parody.

True this.

[Güicho]

Pretty sure they didn't build a sprawling event around that. was a done in one, he's fine by the stories end.
Robin obviously never dies is fine by a few pages in.

Ironically (not unlike Flash above) the whole thing is not even real, but a simulation in Batman's mind.

[CaptCleghorn]

Pretty sure they didn't build a sprawling event around that. was a done in one, he's fine by the stories end.

Aren't they all, though?

[king81992]

Because writers are hacks and think that killing characters is the best way to raise stakes and create drama.

[Anthony Shaw]

Pretty sure they didn't build a sprawling event around that. was a done in one, he's fine by the stories end.
Robin obviously never even dies.

Ironically (not unlike Flash above) the whole thing is a simulation in his mind.

That Grant Morrison....

[Güicho]

That Grant Morrison....

Might as well be, I'm surprised he didn't tap this story for a re-imagining.
The story although purely plot driven, underlying it all hinges on not the act of Robin dying, but Batman's constant fear of Robin dying.
It's that a clever writer would tap into.


Although, even more interesting the issue debuts DC's Ant-Man, little guy in a red costume, came out about the same (maybe a few months after) Marvel's did. LOL!