Batgirl walks, Jason lives....

[DrSimonHurt]

I'm finding that it is difficult to really enjoy Death of the Family due to the fact that Batgirl walks, swings, jumps and enjoys her full hero career again while Jason is also alive and well.

Batgirl walking is a miracle. Jason being alive is impossible. What are the odds of this actually happening to any person in a realistic setting? Death of the Family is supposed to be gritty and real...

These two elements alone completely discredit the Joker's career, for me. They've basically erased his greatest achievements, which really sucks the impact from the story. He seems now less successful than your average Riddler and Mad Hatter types. At least their kills stay dead.

It would be like seeing Batman finally face Joe Chill, but with his father and mother helping him out because they came back from the dead. Do you see how it loses its impact for me? Joe is now discredited.

And I know Jason has been alive for awhile, but to have him live a normal human life with no real consequence of returning from the dead really robs the Joker of his kill in this situation. If we still had the crazy ass suffering Jason Todd with his hair falling out, bent on revenge, it might still work. As it stands, Jason is just too neat and pretty to be seen as any kind of victim. He isn't even as damaged as Bruce, now.

Does this bother any of you guys? I can't help but feel this story would have worked so much better with an Oracle and a crazed barely-returned Jason Todd. I think the choices in the reboot(Batgirl, humanized Jason) have hurt the story.

It makes it seem as if Joker's actions don't matter, because magic or science or something will just undo the damage if you're a friend of Batman. We'll just dunk Tim in a pit or Alfred can have spinal surgery or Nightwing's circus will just recover and not remember the laughing gas attack.

I'm not afraid of what the Joker will do, I'm just dreading the motions of having to wait until some editor resurrects the person he decides to kill this time around.

[sunofdarkchild]

I knew the batfamily was large, but to think there's a bat-grill now, one that walks even. Sorry. Couldn't resist.

The problem of 'where does the Joker go from here?' has existed pretty much since Jason was first killed. He can't keep on killing or permanently members of the family himself without it being a case of 'been there, done that.' Taking those 2 triumphs away makes the problem worse, but it doesn't create it.

Bane had the same problem after Knightfall, even before Bruce got his miracle cure.

[Don Yoyo]

Batgirl walking is a miracle. Jason being alive is impossible. What are the odds of this actually happening to any person in a realistic setting? Death of the Family is supposed to be gritty and real...

I believe it's time for you to stop reading company-owned comics in general, and super-hero comics in particular. You've obviously had enough of the usual tropes of the genre. Try creator-owned comics, switch to mangas or european comics.

Also, how in the world did you come to the conclusion that Death of the Family was supposed to be 'real'? Dark, gory, unfunny, hopeless, I agree, but real?

[The_Greatest_Username]

If every character was kept crippled and dead would we have any characters left?

[The Lucky One]

It's a comic book where a man dresses as a bat and fights crime in the same universe as a man who runs at lightspeed and a space cop with a magic ring. It will never be "real." I know you have to kind of filter out the rest of the DCU at times when reading Batman, but even so- Lazarus pits, crocodile monsters, killer clowns, freeze rays, man-bats, 10-year-old ninjas. It's never going to be particularly realistic.

I'm not a fan of either the decision to un-cripple Babs or to revive Jason Todd, but in neither case is it because they aren't realistic.

-D

[Namtab]

At first, I hated the idea of Jason coming back, because yeah, that was one of the Joker's "wins." But I really liked Under the Hood, and most of Jason's Red Hood appearances since, so I'm glad he's back.

Regarding Babs; I'm just sorry we lost Oracle for Batgirl. She's not as interesting or important in the New 52, compared to where she was previously.

So yeah, now Joker's kills are mainly no-names. I might have been more upset with this earlier, but it doesn't bother me much now.

[DrSimonHurt]

I guess 'unappealing' is the right word for this story? It has no grounds to stand on. The Joker has also matured past this, and now he gets his face pulled off and thrown into a role he was always too saavy and creative to fall into.

[stk]

These two elements alone completely discredit the Joker's career, for me. They've basically erased his greatest achievements,

Funny that you call them the character's "greatest achievements" because those are the two stories that made me stop caring about the Joker, probably forever.

If we still had the crazy ass suffering Jason Todd with his hair falling out, bent on revenge, it might still work. As it stands, Jason is just too neat and pretty to be seen as any kind of victim. He isn't even as damaged as Bruce, now.

You and I really want different things from our comics.

[Wild_Child]

Even Nolan's Batman was unreal.The movie had sci-fi vehicles.

[majormcmeat]

If every character was kept crippled and dead would we have any characters left?

Thousands. We just wouldn't be stuck with the same old ones.

[The Brad Wonder]

I don't really have a problem with Jason being alive and Babs walking. What I do have a problem with (and this might get to the root of your aggravation), is the way the two characters have "jumped" ahead in their re-mainstreaming of the bat family. I can't speak too much for Jason as I walked away after a couple of issues of Lobdell's Red Hood, but for Barbara, I really wanted that arc in which she comes to terms with her returned mobility and begins her journey back to Batgirl. Gail has given us hints of this, and I think she probably would have told that story long-term if she hadn't been booted, but I don't feel that we got that time for her to earn the confidence and skill that she now possesses. If we would've had a Babs still struggling with these issues, this storyline would be a lot more poignant for her.

[Vil_Dee]

Well he's going to be ganking at least one batfamily member in this story so I guess it'll even itself out.

[melkorjunior]

Superhero comics like pulling stunts and ignoring the consequences. Often it's an editorial mandate to either kill or revive a character but sometimes it's the idea of a bad writer. Blame Winick for Jason Todd coming back. He had a story he wanted to tell with Jason and he didn't care how he was brought back from the dead, as long as he was brought back somehow. He also didn't care that it would cheapen a previous landmark Batman story, or contribute to the ongoing disintegration of trust between superhero comics creators and their audience. We all know now that "death" is a stunt in comics, a tired way to temporarily increase sales, and it will be less effective each time. Does anyone really believe that "no-face Joker" and whoever he "kills" this time won't be reversed within a few years?

The solution, as another poster mentioned, is to generally avoid non-creator owned superhero comics. Either that, or focus on one specific run of an established superhero title (say, Johnathan Hickman FF or Grant Morrison Justice League) and don't read anything outside of that run. Spider-Man's convoluted history, for example, is no problem at all to manage if you simply stop reading once Stan Lee leaves.

Goon, Hellboy, BPRD, Madman, Bulletproof Coffin...read those. Then go back to Batman and Spider-Man and just giggle at the desperation of the creators deseprately trying to top the last stunt that they reversed.

[Mr. Holmes]

Since the landmark story was basically trash and inferior to Under the Hood, no harm was done.

[ispacehead]

Since the landmark story was basically trash and inferior to Under the Hood, no harm was done.

Coming back from the dead is the best thing that ever happened to Jason for me.

Before that he was a mostly boring Robin, whose greatest acheivment was getting killed by the Joker.

He's a much better character post resurrection.