10 Most Tragic Deaths In The History Of DC Comics

3. Various Robins

At this point does anyone really understand how Bruce Wayne keeps being allowed to adopt kids. Orphanages across Gotham City - we assume there's a fair few, considering what a horrible crime-ridden cesspool the place is - should have WARNING posters with the smug billionaire playboy's face on them, reminding staff that this guy isn't allowed any more children.

People still haven't clocked on that this guy is secretly Batman, but they should probably have wondered by this point what keeps happening to all these youngsters he spirits away, never to be seen again. Even if they don't clock that they're becoming Robins, they should notice that something fishy is going on.

The first sidekick to fall in the line of duty was Jason Todd. Now some might argue that this one wasn't particularly tragic; in fact, 5,343 readers made that argument. That was the total number of people who rang in to vote that the second Robin meet a sticky end at the hands of The Joker in the pages of A Death In The Family.

Jason was almost universally reviled by fans at the time, but let's still counting the death of a child (even a slightly overzealous and annoying one) as pretty tragic. What is inarguable, however, is that the death of Damian Wayne was a total tragedy. Uncontested. Indisputable. And this kid was, if anything, even more overzealous and annoying than his predecessor.

Yet over time we all warmed to this long lost son of Batman, the result of a past dalliance with the assassin Talia al Ghul. The fact that we'd been so won over made it all the more crushing when he was murdered in cold blood by his own clone, under orders of his own mother. Man, that is cold.