Here’s an interesting piece of business that DC put out last year; the alternate version of Batman #428 from 1988 that served as the third chapter of the much controversial storyline “A Death In The Family,” that saw readers call in to vote for the demise of the second Robin, Jason Todd. Now, we’ve already seen that story and we’ve also seen that story’s importance minimized with the subsequent resurrection of Jason Todd back in the mid-2000s.
However, if callers had voted for Robin to live, this would have been the issue that would continue the story. And if you were expecting any drastic divergence from what was already published, you’re probably going to come away disappointed. Part 3 of A Death In The Family – The Robin Lives Edition plays out in pretty much the same way as the version we got, except this time, Robin… well, you know, lives. Beyond that, he doesn’t play much of a role afterwards and the story continues as it had before.
Batman #428 – The Robin Lives Edition could easily be slotted into the rest of the story without compromise if you want to imagine this story in a world where readers voted to let Jason Todd live. It’s not much of a big deal from a story standpoint, but being able to see what could have been after all this time is still a pretty sweet deal and something that I’m sure would be included in future TPB editions of this particular storyline. I’m rather pleased to see that this exists.
Now, the follow-up miniseries that DC begat afterwards… that, I could do without…
dtm666 