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A Death In The Family? Maybe Not.
Our scheduled column, "Dwayne Gets Worked Up Over Some Arcane Bit of Trivia No-One Cares About But Him," will not be published this week. Instead, we bring you his special report on the fast-breaking election story that may well turn out to be the most controversial in history…
"Death Of Jason Todd" Vote: Too Close To Call
In the 1988 Batman story "A Death In The Family," comic book fans were invited to call in and vote on whether the Joker would be successful in his attempt to kill Jason Todd, the remarkably irritating replacement for Dick Grayson, the original Robin the Boy Wonder.
In a hard fought and very close election, the fans made their decision. By a total of 5271 to 5343, a paper-thin seventy-two vote margin, Jason Todd was to die in a fiery explosion. And so in the pages of Batman #428, Robin II departed this mortal coil.
Or did he?
Brought To You By has learned that a spokesman for the estate of Jason Todd alleges "serious irregularities" in the telephone voting process that led to his demise.
"A lot of the calls didn't go through. There were a disproportionate number of mysterious busy signals, especially from heavily pro-Jason Todd area codes," said a source close to the Todd Estate. Other would-be voters complained that they were unable to register their desire for Todd to live because, "Mommy said I'm too little to use the phone." Analysts agree that the pro-Robin support base skews much younger than the average "No Robin" fan, characterized as "40 year-olds who live in their parents' basement and think the adventures of Batman (a multimillionaire vigilante who is the world's greatest detective and martial artist and dresses in a bat costume to fight villains like the Penguin, Clay Face, Killer Croc and the aforementioned self-designated "Clown Prince of Crime," the Joker) would be more "realistic" without a teen sidekick.
Many older voters also voiced complaints, claiming to be frustrated by the complexity of modern telephones. "There are all these weird buttons on them, and I don't know what they're for," complained one voter, who chose to remain anonymous. "What's the difference between 'talk,' 'flash' and 'clear'? How come when I pick up call waiting and try and hang up, it won't let me? Of course I don't know who I voted for!" As unlikely as this argument seems on the surface, it is perhaps more plausible in light of the fact that 163 ballots were invalidated because they called for the death of Lobo, whose continued existence was unfortunately not at issue in the election.
The most troubling irregularity is the as yet unconfirmed report that over 1900 of the votes to kill Jason Todd came from the same caller, a Mr. Tim Drake of Gotham City.
These and similar issues have forced DC Comics to de-certify the election results until after the recount has been tabulated. The original voting records, 10,614 yellow Post-it notes, have been retrieved from ex-Batman czar Denny O'Neill's old desk. Until the recount is completed, Jason Todd's continuity has been relegated to what insiders call "Hawkman status."
While some wait patiently for the results of the hand count, others are less sanguine. "He's dead, dead, dead! Why doesn't he just lie down and decompose with dignity? The people have spoken," says Tim Drake, who has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent the proposed hand count of the yellow post-it notes. "Look, I'm Robin now! I've even got my own book, which is more than I can say for those other losers. For the good of the system, Jason Todd should concede. He'll still get an occasional Elseworlds story, which is way more than he deserves. We've got a perfectly good Robin now: me. Why does anyone need to know the actual results of the vote?"
Jason Todd, in a statement delivered through friend Boston Brand, disagrees. "If we go down this road, people will lose faith in their new Robin. Neither of us would be able to properly perform our sidekick duties with this cloud hanging over our head. I'm not asking for anything more than a fair vote count, unless it turns out that I really am dead, in which case I'm pretty sure I've got some more problems with the process."
Although the controversy is far from settled, some observers argue that in post-Hypertime DCU, the outcome is irrelevant. Using the current US presidential election as example, a leading Hypertime expert explained, "As best as I can work it out, Bush and Gore both won the election, so that means they're both the President. If it makes a better story, what the hell?"
Dwayne McDuffie is the co-creator of Static Shock and Damage Control. New episodes of his latest project, the Flash animation comedy series Super Models, are available for viewing at Icebox.com.As always, Dwayne encourages you to visit his website.
