There are some exceptions to the comic book death thing; or, at least, there were. Even when characters were being resurrected right and left, readers clung onto the belief that there were three characters nobody would ever consider bringing back, because their deaths meant so much and had stuck for so long - namely, Captain America's sidekick Bucky, Spider-Man's doomed girlfriend Gwen Stacy, and second Robin Jason Todd. Anybody who's seen The Winter Soldier know the former's happened, it looks like Gwen's coming back (albeit in alternate reality form), and Jason...well. So, there was this thing called Infinite Crisis where Superboy-Prime - a character from another dimension - punched reality so hard it broke. You read that right. Amongst the changes to DC continuity this made (like rebooting a load of characters and tidying up some origin stories), Jason Todd was brought back to life. The second Robin whom readers hated so much, they actually voted for him to die. He stayed dead for a good thirty years, and Batman was forever haunted by this one failure. DC said at the time "it would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back". Then an evil alternate dimension punched the fabric of reality with his fists, and here we are.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
