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One of the results of the continuity-driven nature of superhero comics is that there are a number of comics known better for what happened in them than how it happened. A Death in the Family is one of those stories. Chronicling the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd (who's only been in the role for two years, poor fellow), A Death in the Family is just not a good story. It lurches along weirdly and depends on coincidence way too much, and even for a superhero comic, it's contrived: the idea that Iran would appoint the Joker its UN ambassador is untenable, a completely bizarre merging of comic goofiness with real-world politics that is tonally misjudged.

But let's start at the beginning with this one. A Death in the Family seems to have been originally designed as a six-issue story but released as a four-part one, as its first and second issues both consist of two 22-page chapters. The first has Jason acting particularly like a jerk, and Batman benching him as a result. Their relationship hasn't particularly been consistent in the Jason stories I've read: Jason is very bloodthirsty in the the beginning of Second Chances, pretty chummy with Batman later on in the same book (except for learning that Batman hid who killed his father from him), and they got along perfectly in Ten Nights of the Beast and The Cult. But now Jason is a jerk again, and Batman doesn't handle it well at all.

I really don't get why this approach was taken. A character's last story should show them at their best, to make you really regret it when they're gone; for all their flaws, later DC shock killings like Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis got this exactly right, sending Sue Dibny and Blue Beetle out on career highs. This story should show Jason Todd as his heroic best as Robin. But A Death in the Family, bizarrely, wants to make you glad he's dead.

Batman discovers that the Joker is trying to sell a cruise missile to terrorists in Lebanon at the exact same time Jason realizes that the woman he thought was his mother actually isn't, and that a woman who might be his birth mother is-- completely coincidentally-- also in Lebanon. So while Batman shuns his runaway sidekick to chase the Joker (apparently there's no one Batman can ask for help; if only he wasn't always such a jerk to Nightwing), the two end up in the same place anyway and team up.

That turns out to be a false lead on Jason's mother, so soon they're chasing down another potential candidate, who's-- completely coincidentally-- also in Lebanon: to my shock it's Shiva Woosan, better known as Sandra Woo-san or Lady Shiva. I first came to know her as a recurring character in Birds of Prey, usually an enemy but occasionally a reluctant ally, with an especially complicated relationship with Black Canary. At this point in DC history, though, she was a much less prolific character; I think this was her first appearance not scripted by Dennis O'Neil, who had originated her in Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter, and gone on to use her in The Question as well as a Detective Comics/Green Arrow/Question crossover called "Fables." So it was weird to see her used here, when she was much more obscure. Through a truth drug, Batman and Robin discover she's not Jason's mother, and in fact, she says that she's never been a mother at all, which is pretty amusing given that she would later be revealed as the mother of the second Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, who must have been born at this point.

Anyway, Batman and Robin follow up their final lead, which leads them to Ethiopia (for some reason all three of Jason's potential moms are vaguely close to one another). She turns out to be a doctor who is-- completely coincidentally-- being blackmailed by the Joker in some wacky scheme of his. Jason dies when he and Batman try to stop this, and it's just completely underwhelming. Batman losing a kid should hit you like a ton of bricks, but this... doesn't. Batman doesn't seem mournful, or angry; it's just an excuse to act like a big jerk again (this time to Superman). Part of the blame has to rest, I'm afraid, with Jim Aparo, who despite being an excellent artist is just not the right artist for this story: imagine Bernie Wrightson doing this again. Aparo's square-jawed, heroic lines are just not right for the dark macabre tone this story calls for. (Adrienne Roy's colors don't really fit, either.)

The last chapter is just odd, focusing on Batman's attempts to stop Ambassador Joker from poisoning the United Nations. Nothing about any of this feels particularly Joker-ish to me; he's just a loon with wacky plans. The end of the story fails to have any emotional resonance; it feels like Starlin's attempt to ape what Alan Moore did in The Killing Joke: "That's the way things always end with the Joker and me. Unresolved." Moore and Brian Bolland turned that never-ending struggle into something striking; here, it feels lame for the Joker to kill Batman's (ostensible) best friend and for Batman to declare their relationship will never change. Like, did you love Jason so little, Bruce?

Thankfully, the DC Comics Classics Library edition of A Death in the Family also contains A Lonely Place of Dying, a Batman/New Titans crossover that's co-plotted by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, scripted by Wolfman, and has art by Tom Grummett & Bob McLeod (from breakdowns by Pérez) and Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo. That's a lot of hands, but it really works: just as The Cult showed how Starlin did better work when not paired with Aparo, this hows how Aparo does better work when not paired by Starlin. Wolfman's emotional melodrama is much better suited to Aparo's strengths as an illustrator.

The basic premise of A Lonely Place of Dying is that a kid named Tim Drake has noticed that Robin is dead and that Batman is sad. Tim was at the circus the night the Flying Graysons died, and he later recognized a move Robin made as one Dick Grayson made, letting him put together Robin's and thus Batman's secret identity. But Tim knows Batman needs a Robin, and tracks down Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to convince them of this, trying to persuade Dick to give up his Nightwing identity and return to being Robin. Meanwhile, Dick Grayson goes back to the circus in a way not particularly consistent with Nightwing: Year One, and Two-Face, who apparently got sane at some point, is sliding into insanity once again.

It's a fun story: Tim's desire to make Batman happy makes him the reader stand-in that Dick Grayson was but Jason Todd never managed, and it's no surprise-- in a good way-- when he becomes the new Robin at the end of the story. The story deals with Bruce's grief over Jason's death much more effectively than A Death in the Family did, with Bruce throwing himself deeper and deeper into Batman in unhealthy ways.

Like Robin: Year One and Second Chances/Nightwing:Year One, Two-Face is for some reason the test of a new Robin; one of the real highlights of this story is an issue where Two-Face and Batman each wants to trap the other, and in their efforts to think like one another, end up overthinking their plans. Wolfman and his art team do some great stuff with the parallels between the two characters. Two-Face, more than any other Batman villain, is a tragic figure, and Wolfman captures that very well here as he slides back into his old ways.

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Absolutely amazing. Both stories explore the psychology of the characters (both villains and heroes) without making changes or ruining everything. The villains are scary, and the heroes are real. It breaks your heart to see them in pain, because they're right there.

Tim Drake makes a fantastic Robin. He's the kind of kid sidekick I actually like: smarter and faster and better-off than me, but with the one goal of totally adoring Batman. He's not a whiner.

The art is great, the details of the facial expressions add a separate dimension to the stories that wouldn't be there otherwise. It's really intense.

Also, this DC Comics Classics Library edition is really gorgeous and a joy to read. (Plus, it collects both A Death in the Family,, the death of Jason Todd, and A Lonely Place of Dying, Tim Drake's first storyline.) ( )