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thekillingvote · 8 months

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It's almost time for Tʜᴇ Kɪʟʟɪɴɢ Vᴏᴛᴇ.

September 15th marks the 35th anniversary of the poll to kill Batman's sidekick, Robin.

Thirty-five years ago, on September 9th 1988, Batman #427 "A Death in the Family - Chapters III & IV" went on sale. This issue announced a vote-by-phone poll to allow fans to determine whether Robin would live or die in the next issue, Batman #428. There were two premium-rate phone numbers—a call to 1-900-720-2660 was a vote for Robin's survival, and a call to 1-900-720-2666 was a vote for Robin's death. Each call cost $0.50 (approximately $1.30 in 2023 dollars, after adjusting for inflation since 1988), and a caller could call multiple times. The poll was only open to paying callers in the U.S. and Canada for a window of 35 hours, starting on 15 September 1988 at 9AM EST.

Tʜᴇ Kɪʟʟɪɴɢ Vᴏᴛᴇ marks the 35th anniversary of the 35-hour poll to kill Robin. The aim of this mini-project is to discuss the phone poll to decide Robin's fate—the who and the how and the why. This blog will create and share media that may cover: the history of Robin; audiences' attitudes toward Robin; the creative and corporate forces' attitudes toward Robin; the rise of the Dark Age of Comics; comparing and contrasting the various Robins; etc.

From September 15th at 9 AM EST to September 16th at 9 AM EST, Tʜᴇ Kɪʟʟɪɴɢ Vᴏᴛᴇ will host a 24-hour poll asking voters whether Robin should live or die, as a rough reenactment of the original 1988 poll. Starting now, submissions of anonymous propaganda making the case for Robin's survival and/or death are welcome—arguments from both sides will be included with the poll as a "voter guide".

Asks and submissions are welcome. If you'd like to recommend a post to be reblogged to this blog, then please tag original posts with #thekillingvote, or ping any post with @thekillingvote. Stay tuned for the possible opening of an Archive Of Our Own collection.

The time of this announcement is 09/09 at 9 AM EST. Just like in 1988, we have less than a week's notice until the big day.

@dc-fandom-events @dc-event-calendar @dcfandomevents @dailyjasontodd @40-years-of-robin-ii

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browsethestacks · 3 months

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Aquaman (1978)

Art by Jim Aparo

#Comics #DC Comics #Aquaman #Batman #Jim Aparo #Vintage #Art #Mera #Aquababy #Vulko #Kobra #DC #1978 #1970s #70s

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cantsayidont · 6 months

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October 1966. You can't keep a dead butler down. About two years after killing off Alfred the butler in 1964, editor Julius Schwartz was faced with a problem: William Dozier, the producer of the forthcoming Batman TV show, wanted to include Alfred in the show, and wanted him reintroduced into the comics as well! Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox struggled with this challenge and finally came up with the utterly preposterous story presented in the issue above.

Even for a Silver Age Gardner Fox comic book, this story is exceptionally convoluted, so it's best considered chronologically. We begin with a flashback sequence involving iconoclastic "all-around scientific genius" Brandon "Plot Device" Crawford:

This is already straining credulity a little because the story in DETECTIVE COMICS #328 in which Alfred died (helpfully recapped elsewhere in this issue) showed that he had been crushed to death by a giant boulder. That did not seem survivable at all, and even if it were, this would imply that neither Batman and Robin nor whatever doctor who filled out Alfred's death certificate nor the mortician noticed that he wasn't actually dead! Anyway …

So, Alfred wasn't actually dead, he wasn't embalmed, and he was buried in a refrigerated coffin (that's what the purple cylinders in the last panel previous page were for). A stretch, but we'll allow it. However, upon discovering this, Crawford, instead of calling an ambulance like a normal person, seizes on the opportunity to do some Frankenstein shit with Alfred's maimed, broken, mostly dead body, as one does (if one is a reclusive "radical individualist" who dropped out of college to pursue unorthodox, dubiously ethical scientific experiments, I guess).

One of the initial objects of Schwartz's tenure had been to rid the Batman books of the fantastical aliens, monsters, and bizarre transformations of the 1957–1963 period in favor of something a little more grounded. All that goes out the window here, despite the rather defensive editorial footnote, which says:

EDITOR'S NOTE: Physics professor Robert Ettinger, author of "The Prospect of Immortality," has said that death can only be defined in relative terms. He points to the hundreds of persons revived after drowning, asphyxiation, electrocution, and heart attack. "Biological death depends not only on the state of the body," Ettinger says, "but also on the state of medical art!"

Okay, then. On to the Frankenstein shit:

So, Crawford's experimental cell regeneration machine has restored Alfred's broken body, but in the process transformed him into an unrecognizable, rather hideous-looking being who is also evil. Check! The regeneration effect we see Crawford panicking about then transforms him so that he looks like Alfred, while leaving him in "a catatonic trance." The Outsider, rather ungratefully, puts Crawford's unconscious body back in Alfred's coffin to cover his tracks, and uses Crawford's various machines and his own "increased mental power" in his new quest to destroy Batman and Robin.

This was not the first appearance of the Outsider, who had actually been hounding the Dynamic Duo on and off since DETECTIVE COMICS #334 two years earlier, although he had never appeared on-panel, and his identity had been a mystery. Where Schwartz originally intended to take that plotline is not clear (Schwartz's own account doesn't say, and Gardner Fox said later that he didn't think Schwartz had a solution in mind at the outset), but it doesn't seem likely that revealing the Outsider as Alfred was the plan, particularly since subsequent Outsider stories had shown that the villain had superhuman powers, including the ability to bring inanimate objects to life! In this story, the Outsider really does transform Robin into a wooden coffin, as the cover indicates — it's not a hypnotic illusion or some other such dodge. Fortunately, the effect is reversed after the villain is defeated:

Batman's determination to keep these events secret from Alfred is bizarre, since Alfred's death is a matter of public record: As seen in DETECTIVE COMICS #328, Bruce Wayne started a charitable foundation in Alfred's name, with its own building in Gotham City! Batman suggests that they can rename the charity the Wayne Foundation (as of course they subsequently did), but how he expects to resolve the various problems created by Alfred having been legally dead for months without his finding out is unclear. They do take the time to retrieve Crawford (who has miraculously not suffocated or starved to death in Alfred's coffin) and use his machine to return him to normal, after which Batman suggests that Bruce Wayne will give Crawford a job at the renamed foundation.

If you're wondering, "Wait, does this mean Alfred now had super-powers?" the answer is yes! Since he didn't retain any conscious memory of his death and resurrection, he was normally unaware of this, but Alfred's evil Outsider personality resurfaced several times, and he sometimes spontaneously reverted to the Outsider's form, in which he once again had supernatural abilities:

Notice the background, with the buildings burning like candles? The Outsider did that with his mental powers, along with a bunch of less grandiose but equally impossible feats. Fortunately, they reverted to normal after he split into separate good (Alfred) and evil (Outsider) selves and defeated himself. The Outsider resurfaced once more in 1985, battling the Outsiders and nearly killing Superman by transforming the Batcave's giant penny into Green Kryptonite.

I guess this whole saga did resolve the problem of resurrecting Alfred for the TV show, but in what I think can fairly be called the most ludicrous way possible. (And you thought the PENNYWORTH show spun out of GOTHAM was silly …)