I clicked on the review link from Matt’s pasg, thought they were all his reviews

-pp

Pedantic: You might want to check your authors. While Matthew does contribute a lot of reviews for this site, he didn’t write this one. ;)

Cheers
Stephen Schleicher
Executive Producer
http://www.majospoilers.com

There was something I wanted to say after reading Flash 13 and the following Countdown issue, but I was away and had not read the issues. So I’m going to take the opportunity here:

I am an occasional Flash reader at best, so this doesn’t have the emotional impact for me that it does for you. I agree in general with your analysis, and I hate the fact that Marvel and DC both have embraced “reality” in comics to mean more brutality and deaths of heroes and those close to them (often random and pointless deaths).

Now regarding Bart, you have said (again)
“ think DC had the ultimate screw-you-fan boy-moment when it decided to kill Bart Allen. Fans (myself included) had been screaming for the return of Wally West and the ousting of Bart Allen as the Scarlet Speedster. They answered by killing Bart, much to the shock of Bart supporters, causing fans (myself included) to scream, “Why’d you do that!?” This lead DC to respond the only way it could, “Because you said you wanted Bart out and Wally back, you didn’t say not to kill Bart.” ”

I agree it was thoughtless, crude and stupid. But it is not their “ultimate” moment. That, I submit, continues to be their treatment of Jason Todd.

I think you’ve stated here that Todd is not one of your favorite characters. That’s as may be, but I’d like to take one minute to remind you of the “true origin” of Jason Todd.

Back pre-crisis, Jason Todd was the son of circus performers whose parents were killed by Killer Croc. Dick Grayson — still in his Robin outfit and in his early 20s — takes him to Bruce, who takes him in. Jason wanders around Wayne Manor, having difficulty with grief. Then one day, home alone, Jason finds a hidden catch in a closet and discovers one of Dick’s old Boy Wonder costumes and Jason puts it on and hauls Batman’s ashes out of the fire at the last minute.

Bruce tells him he can’t be Robin, cause that’s Dick’s identity. He puts together a different costume, but they can’t decide on a name. That issue, when Batman needs help, he calls for Robin.

That same month, Dick quits being Robin, to become Nightwing 3-6 months later, and gives Jason the costume.

Jason is a great Robin for a couple years, and then with the Crisis, DC retro-fits Jason to fit with their darker more serious world. And so Jason Todd becomes a street kid who tries to steal the wheels off the Batmobile — and Batman decides he’s “cute” and adopts him. PLEASE!!!!

Fans hated the new Jason — the writers didn’t help any, changing the young, shiny, impulsive Jason into a dark, sulky, know-it-all. And so you eventually got DC’s cowardly “Dial in to kill Robin” campaign.

Just like your comments on Bart, they cowardly decided to kill the character rather than fix their mistakes.

While these are very similar, I believe the treatment of Jason is (slightly) worse because they didn’t kill him because he had been one character and switched costumes. They killed him because they changed his story and person and people didn’t like it. He was (so far as I recall) a generally well-liked character before they lobotomized him and changed his history.

I do feel for Bart — hopefully we are correct in the cluse of the JLA/JSA crossover and Bart and XS will be working together in the future in the future.

Thanks for letting me get on my soapbox.

Keep up the good work!