Batman A Death In The Family Graphic Novel Review (Canon Read Through #27)

[Deffinition]

Following on from the highest score i've ever given with Batman The Cult is my review for A Death In The Family.

This definitely is one of my favourite books from when I was a kid and im really excited to read through it again to see how I rate it now.

It ofcourse centres around the death of Jason Todd and is a huge moment in comic book history so I'm really interested to see how it holds up.

What do you think of the run and do you, like me, wish that Jason had stayed dead in order to add more impact to the characters death overall?

Read my full review below

Batman A Death In The Family Review

Cheers

[Aioros22]

The death had impact well over a decade. It`s more than enough.

As for the review, you point things generally well, but I think you take a sligthly biased stance (that you never hide, granted, but in terms of a review..) in the beginning by saying he was higly unpopular when we know that the vote was more than potentially rigged (O`Neil`s own words) and even without it, it was less than 80 votes that marked the difference. We know he had split favorism among the audiences, no different than Damian. But how disliked he was we can only be accounted on what the Office said and given how they wanted to test the stunt..welll, let`s say I feel justified to not count on much of what they were saying at the time. Was he that disliked? How often "ghostJason" popped up? Which is it?

One of the reasons I don`t care about lasting impact is because in-story they simply didn`t follow throught in the major points. Bruce doesn`t really take much responsability of anything and less than two months ahead you had Tim showing up, making it clear that the Office totally backed down on their desire of Batman flying solo like in the popular movie releases at the time. What more, with the fallout of his death, some writers, at large, embarked on a victim blaming campaign that tainted the whole experience. Good ridance.

The impact on the presentation, narratives and tone of the books, thought? You gained it and....that`s all there is to it. It changes with the times, regardless of who dies and comes back.

The diplomatic immunity for Joker is certainly the dated aspect of the book (and the reference is clear, even if at my first reading I didn`t thought about it!) but given the era, you`re totally on.

[Aahz]

Imo the plot of this story is actually quite weak and relies to much on very implausible coincidences.

[MajorHoy]

The way Jason may-or-may-not have been viewed back then is a bit problematic to me.
For those not following the Batman comic books at the time, Jason was a character with a confused back story.
When he was first introduced pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, he was truly a Dick-clone, right down to the circus background and parents (aerialists, like Dick's folks) killed by criminals (in the Todds' case, because of crime boss Killer Croc). Oh, and Jason was originally a red-head, but when Bruce took him in and he became the new Robin, he had to dye his hair black so it would be a bit less obvious (aside from that age difference) that he was really a different Robin.
But after CoIE, they changed Jason's origin/background to clearly make him different from Dick, so he was now a street punk who stole the wheels off of the Batmobile.

I'm not sure how many fans may have really liked the whiplash change in Jason, and I don't know how many writers at the time really knew what to do with the poor kid.

[sakuyamons]

To be honest, I haven't read much of Robin!Jason era, but other than pushing off a rapist (which is not confirmed) he seemed to be like an alright Robin.

[Deffinition]

Really good points tbf, I just feel like people reacted badly to Jason which is why he was put up for the vote in the first place. If he had've been universally well received then his head wouldn't have been placed on the chopping block.

Yeah the lasting impact is true, Tim becomes the new Robin within 4 issues of coming into a Lonely Place of dying and it's a shame that they didn't stick with a solo, broodier batman for a lot longer.