Random Argument Man said:
So.... one Robin got killed after being tortured by *the joker*. The reason for this was *fans let him to die after DC asked them*. (Fans loved it)
Another Robin got killed after being tortured by "the black mask*. The reason for this was *died of torture but could've been saved by somebody when the choice was presented*. (Fans hated it).
After this *sort of* irony, I can safely assume that the gaming community is not the only weird community in geek culture.
Well, there is a lot of politics behind what goes on at DC, the same is true of Marvel as well actually. In a lot of cases it's not just "people hated it" arbitrarly but because of the reasons why something was done, especially when it flies in the face of common sense and continuity. Yes continuity is fluid but there are certain aspects of characters that need to remain constant for them to remain the same basic character.
Stephanie/Spoiler was popular with some people in the comics, but people objected to her death largely because of what it did to Leslie Thomkins who basically acts as one of Batman's major "foils" in the scope of the stories. In more than one occasions her "I'm going to save everyone" attitude has literally had her preventing Batman from taking down villains, and seen her doing things like protecting Mr. Zsaz and helping them recover from injuries. For Leslie to let Stephanie (who is a genuinely good person) die to make some kind of point about teenage crime fighting, is incredibly out of character given that she's someone who won't let an irredeemable mass murderer die.
Needless to say when your dealing with something that pretty much plays such ridiculous havoc with established characterizations, there are other things going on behind the scenes. I never saw a huge breakdown of this one, but from the beginning there were people talking about upper management at DC really hating Batman and a lot of the associated characters and doing all of this as part of the start of a housecleaning where they wanted to pretty much cut his corner of the DC universe down no matter the cost. I don't entirely understand the arguement but the basic point was that Batman's adventures generally work on a lower power level than the rest of DC, and that Gotham might as well be an entirely seperate universe from the rest of DC, the time spent maintaining it for Batman fans (their #1 character apparently) hurting other franchises, and of course the recordkeeping for that many characters especially with them crossing into other titles becoming a pain in the arse to the point where even a "Crisis" wasn't going to do it. Stephanie and Leslie being a sort of test run for what they wanted to do that went badly since we're talking popular characters that weren't mega-popular and also had their detractors. I don't even bother to try and make sense out of the theories, but the bottom line is that these rumors probably started for a reason, and it wouldn't be the first time similar things happened... read some of the reasons people put behind "One More Day" (Spider Man, Marvel) on the other side of the fence, the stories are similar though this is on a lower scale.
At any rate as far as the point your making goes, the big differance was that at the time he died people hated Jason Todd, where people generally liked "Spoiler" at least as a supporting character though she surely wasn't without her critics. What's more it's in character for The Joker to kill someone like this, it's NOT in character for Leslie Thomkins to let someone die. What's more the fans DID have input on the death of Jason Todd, where The Spoiler's death was pretty much something they did out of hand. To be honest I suspect they originally decided to kill her because they figured she was a character people liked, so the death would have meaning and get attention, without realizing how popular she actually was and that it would go beyond people simply being a little bummed out.
What may be behind it or not, think of it ultimatly as a smaller scale version of "One More Day" albiet one where DC clumsily backpedaled when they realized how badly they screwed up. Truthfully I think this is a key example of why comic companies need to occasionally relent and remove things from continuity outright, without it being part of some major "Crisis" type event. After all the outcome of this basically has Leslie arguably being Gotham's biggest troll, doubtlessly in hopes people will forget about that.
As far as bringing Stephanie back... that's kind of tricky since half of her appeal is sort of a shared sidekick for some of the lesser characters. I don't know what they have decided at this point, but the bottom line is that with the continuity changes I'm not sure where she'd fit in. She kind of belongs playing rooftop tag with Cassandra Cain (who honestly was my favorite Batgirl) and helping out Robin. I suppose they could have her become Red Robin's sidekick, or perhaps if they haven't found a replacement already have her take Oracle's place and provide "spoilers" for villain plans or whatever. I haven't been following comics much for a while due to RL issues (finances among them).
