In Batman:DITF, Jason Todd is caught in a blast of a bomb planted by the Joker. Readres were asked if he should live or die: the results of a phone poll sent the new Robin to the grave. I’ve read interviews that state DC had both endings ready to hit the press when the poll was in, I was just curious if the “It was only a flesh wound” issue ever saw the light of day, and how did the writers see Batman evolving without Jason’s (pivitol) death?
If rumors are to be believed there was never an alternative version ready for the presses.
Marc
Is the rumor mill suggesting that the powers that be were going to kill off Jason Todd regardless of what the results of the poll were?
I’ve actually seen the alternate ending. It was printed in one of the big coffeetable books about the history of DC Comics. It’s basically the same as the death ending except when Batman cradles Jason’s battered body, he discovers that Jason is somehow still alive.
It’s only uncolored (but inked) line art, though, which implies that there was never a finished version.
That would be the basic idea behind the rumor. I’m certainly no authority and I’m only going by what I’ve heard on another thread on this very site. Apparantly Jason Todd was hated by most fans but there were a lot of phone calls from people who still associated Robin with Dick Grayson and thought he was being killed off. People at DC ended up calling the “kill” number in a panic because they didn’t have another ending prepared. True or not? You decide.
Marc
Yeah, I’ve seen that (uncolored and inked) line art as well – Batman is holding a battered Robin in his arms, but Batman’s head jerks up as he cheerfully yells, “He’s alive!”
Seems like it’d have been easy to drop that into the last page of the issue if the vote went the other way.
Based on interviews I’ve seen with Denny O’Neil, it’s more that DC had faith the poll would go towards death, so they didn’t bother finishing the version where he lived. ISTR him saying (probably on Prisoners of Gravity) that he thinks the only reason it was as close as it was, was people who hadn’t read Batman in forever who’d heard about it and didn’t realise it was a different Robin than the one they grew up with.