8 Classic Comics Hated By Their Creators

Picture this: you're a successful comic creator in the eighties. Your work is well-received, and you're respected among your peers - so respected that, when you suggest killing off a major superhero's sidekick in a vote, people agree to do it.

Sounds great, right? Well, here's the kicker - you then decide that, actually, that's probably a bad idea, because it could lead to major fan outrage and could sabotage the superhero himself. Only, it's too late, because the vote is already live, and it's starting to look like you're going to have to kill a character that you actually now don't want to.

This was the very real scenario for comic book writer Dennis O'Neil, who organised a vote to kill Jason Todd in the Death in the Family series, before having an understandable crisis at how fans would react to them brutally murdering a pubescent child. O'Neil's concerns reached the extent that he actually voted against Todd's death in the poll, as would later be reported in comic history books like The Caped Crusader, in a desperate attempt to ensure that the young Robin would survive - only for more fans to vote for him to instead die.

Now that Death in the Family is as renowned as it is, it's likely O'Neil has recovered from his concerns over killing Jason Todd off. With his reputation and Batman's success on the line, though, it's sure that there was a good portion of time where the famed Batman scribe regretted having ever suggested the idea in the first place.