10 Comic Books Where Evil Won

5. Batman: A Death In The Family

A death in the family
DC Comics

Batman: A Death in the Family is one of the most iconic comics in the Caped Crusader's history, but not because it was good.

The tale is weirdly plotted and features a frankly embarrassing plot as the Joker becomes an ambassador for Iran at the United Nations (and you thought Riggs and Murtaugh had it bad in Lethal Weapon 2), and derives significance mostly because it marks the sole occasion where readers voted to kill off a comic book character.

Death in the Family is steeped in controversy both on and off the page, but it also cannot be denied that it marks an occasion where evil came out on top. Readers voted by a narrow margin to kill Jason Todd, the second Robin (although allegations of vote tampering abound), and it represents to this day Batman's greatest failure.

Sure Jason himself may have returned, but there's no getting away from the fact that the Clown Prince brutally beat and then exploded a child to death in a comic, and that it was what the readers wanted. That's just straight up cold no matter how you cut it.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.