10 Comic Book Heroes Who Died Horrible Deaths

Jason Todd was always a reckless Robin. He was always a bit too careless, a bit too violent, and a bit too eager to break Batman’s rules. Bruce threatened to bench the young hero to give him time to properly mourn his parents' death but Jason stormed out and returned to his old neighborhood. An old woman had kept some of the family's personal papers and they were enough to make Jason realize that the woman he knew as “Mom” was a stepmother - and he needed to find his birth mom.

Working his way through three suspects - one being martial artist master Lady Shiva - Jason found Sheila Haywood, an aid worker in Ethiopia. The pair had a tearful reunion but it was short-lived. Haywood had performed illegal operations while living in Gotham and was embezzling money from the aid organization that she worked for. She turned her son, dressed as Robin, over to the Joker. The Clown Prince was blackmailing Sheila and selling her medical supplies on the black market.

In Batman # 428 - as part of the famed A Death in the Family story - Joker mercilessly beats Robin with a crowbar, taking years of frustration with Batman out on the young boy’s body. Stopping just short of killing Jason, Joker left the unconscious hero and his mother tied up in a warehouse with a time bomb. Batman arrived just seconds too late as the explosion destroyed the structure. Bruce carried the lifeless body of his partner from the rubble and buried him in the family cemetery in Gotham.