37 Years Ago Today DC Fans Sealed Jason Todd’s Fate & Set Up One of Batman’s Best Stories Years Later

DC Comics fans never really accepted Jason Todd as Robin. Jason was the second Robin, following Dick Grayson, after the first Robin chose to become Nightwing and move out of Batman’s shadow. However, unlike Dick, Jason was an unruly and arrogant teen, someone who didn’t like following Batman’s orders and often got himself into a lot of trouble. DC fans couldn’t stop comparing him to Dick, and many wanted him out of the Robin role. This led DC Comics to offer up a fan vote that was unlike any other. Readers had a chance to determine whether Jason lived or died, and 37 years ago today on September 16, 1988, fans did just that.

In the 1988 DC storyline, A Death in the Family, DC pulled the trigger and delivered on the fan vote, which saw fans call in to vote on Jason Todd’s fate. With the votes cast against him, the latest Robin did not survive. This was a heartbreaking story that made Jason more likable than he ever had been when he learned his birth mother might still be alive, only for Joker to murder him in cold blood. However, that wasn’t the end of his story.

A Controversial DC Fan Vote Killed Jason Todd’s Robin

DC realized fans hated Jason Todd as Robin, and the company decided they should either kill the character or revamp him into something different. What resulted was the choice to kill him, and then later bring him back as something different, and much improved. However, what led DC to kill him was a controversial fan vote. This was before the internet, and fans voted using two different 1-900 numbers: one for killing Jason and one for letting him live. The old 1-900 numbers were pay-per-call numbers, giving DC some income from the fan vote, while putting up a barrier for bad-faith actors to manipulate the voting. It didn’t work.

The fan vote was live for 35 hours and ended with 10,614 votes. When voting closed on September 16, 1988, at 8 pm EST, only 72 votes separated the two options, with 5,343 voting to kill Jason and 5,271 voting to let him live. What resulted was a touching story in which Jason finally found his mother and seemed to finally achieve the happiness he had lacked in life. However, Joker got there first and paid off Jason’s mother, who betrayed her son and watched as Joker beat Jason almost to death. Joker ended up betraying her and blowing up the building, killing her and Jason both. It seemed fans got their wish, but it wasn’t a fair vote.

DC didn’t do anything wrong. Mark Waid explained years later that, “the company actually had enough misplaced faith in the goodness of human nature to assume that most readers would vote for life rather than death.” However, when fans began to react, it appeared something was wrong. Some fans praised the move and believed Dick would return as Robin, which didn’t happen. Other fans turned on the story, blaming others for being bloodthirsty. There was even speculation that the vote had been manipulated, with Denny O’Neil having stated in various interviews that he heard rumors that one fan used a computer program to continuously dial the “kill” 900-number using auto-dial.

Jason Todd’s Death Made Him an Even Greater Character (and Led to a Great Batman Story)

While fans seemed divided over Jason Todd’s death, it ultimately led to great things. For one, A Death in the Family remains one of the best Batman stories ever told, with Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo sending Jason off in a respectable manner. For another, Jason Todd’s death allowed Tim Drake to take his place as Robin one year later, a character fans gravitated to much more easily than the cocky Jason Todd. This was something the executives at DC felt was important since kids who idolized Robin needed their hero back, and Dick reverting was not the right choice. Jason Todd’s death also led to another great and iconic Batman story, “Batman: Under the Hood” which kicked off in Batman in 2005, seeing Jason’s shocking return. The story has since gone on to be a major DC story and has been adapted several times, including in the 2010 animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood.

The death of Jason Todd also had a lasting impact on storytelling in DC writ large. It, along with the arguably overrated The Killing Joke, which saw Joker paralyze Batgirl, led DC to start to put out darker storylines over the next decade. Batman stopped being light-hearted, and between this and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, took the character in the dark direction that fans know of today, which includes his movie appearances. A Death in the Family was a huge part of this change in the character. It was also a precursor to the Death of Superman storyline in the 90s, since DC saw how much publicity they could get from killing a major hero.

As for Jason as a character, his return 16 years after being voted to death by fans actually marked major character development. His return, which saw him resurrected by Superboy-Prime and reintroduced him as someone seeking revenge against both the Joker and Batman who he also blamed for his death, actually made him a more interesting character. Jason has been more interesting as Red Hood than he ever was as Robin, and he has become a fan favorite decades after fans voted to kill him in the pages of Batman. It’s an interesting turn of events for a character so hated that decades ago, fans chose for him a grim fate.

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