10 Fascinating Comic Moments That Almost Happened
8. Jason Todd Almost Survived
One of the most famous "sliding doors" moments in comics is the death of Jason Todd. At the end of Batman #427, the second Robin was caught in an explosion and readers were asked to vote via a call-line on whether he lived or died.
It was a close vote (and later a lot of issues would be raised over reader confusion over what they were actually voting for and deliberate vote rigging), but the death votes managed a slim win and Batman was left holding Jason's corpse at the start of the next issue. Of course, due to the vote, a plan was also in place for if Jason survived.
Had he lived, Jason would still have been severely injured and would have spent the next few months recovering before deciding to hang up his tights and then travel around the DC Universe as a sort of everyman reader surrogate.
Jason might not have done much, but the impact him living could have been huge on the Batman comics. Jason's death is what sent Batman spiralling down a dark path and turned him into a grim and brooding vigilante which has influenced many of his outside portrayals such as the Nolan movies. Who knows if it would have worked so well without such a strong motivation as the death of his surrogate son?