So yesterday, Kid Chris comes out of the store’s back room where he had been putting away some backstock, and he’s holding a copy of the first printing of the Batman: A Death in The Family trade paperback. That’s the book, for the two of you who don’t know, that DC rushed out to reprint the then-hot four issue series featuring the death of the Jason Todd Robin, as voted on by the fans. Anyway, Kid Chris figured we could probably use it out front and he hands it to pal Dorian to process…when Dor notices the list of quotes on the back cover.
Now, Dor wanted to put this on his own site, but he’s burning through his bandwidth like it’s goin’ out of style, so I offered to put it up here.* Now, the first thing Dor noticed is how unflattering those quotes are, considering that they’re being used to sell the book. Particularly the “but the real murderers are the Batman readers” one — it all feels very negative (unsurprisingly so, given the story’s content), presenting the fans as a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs. Whether that’s a fair assessment of the people who voted for Robin’s death I’ll let others discuss, but I’m sure at least a few people voted for his demise just to see if DC would go through with it.
The best quote**, though, has got to be the last one from then-editor Denny O’Neil: “It would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back.”
By a complete coincidence, as Dor and I were discussing this book, a customer brought a copy of the current printing of this book up to the register to purchase. And, sure enough, the quotes are still on the back cover of this most recent edition (the twelfth printing, I believe). Given recent events in Batman, DC might want to consider quietly dropping at least O’Neil’s quote from the back cover.
Now, don’t get us wrong…both Dor and I think the return of Mr. Todd is a perfectly acceptable turn of events in the Batman comics, and actually not a bad idea for a Batman villain. Though, after the disappointing tease in Hush, it’s no longer the shocking surprise it could have been. Ah, well.
EDIT: A quick Google search on O’Neil’s quote shows that Dor and I aren’t the only ones to notice…though we’re probably the only ones to be amused by the whole situation!
* I’m already over my free bandwidth allotment for the month, so what’s a few more gigabytes of transfer?
** Though the “Holy Ayatollah, Batman” one is pretty good, too.
