video games. An animated interactive film adaptation, Batman: Death in the Family, was released in 2020. Publication history Background Robin, the adolescent sidekick of the DC Comics superhero Batman, first appeared in Detective Comics #38 in April 1940. He was introduced by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson to give Batman a companion and increase his appeal to children. The original Robin, Dick Grayson, made regular appearances in Batman publications from 1940 until the early 1980s, when Marv Wolfman and George Pérez began including him in the New Teen Titans comics. As this made Dick unavailable to the Batman comics, Batman writer Gerry Conway and artist Don Newton introduced Jason Todd in Batman #357 (March 1983). Wolfman and Pérez had Dick set aside the Robin identity and become the independent superhero Nightwing in Teen Titans, while Jason became Robin in the Batman family of comics. Originally, Jason's origin story was virtually identical to Dick's; like Dick, Jason was depicted as the son of circus acrobats, who became Batman's sidekick after his parents were murdered. Dennis O'Neil, who wrote Batman and Detective Comics throughout the 1970s and became the Batman group editor in 1986, said that Conway and Newton worried about creating a new character. I think they thought, 'We've got to have a Robin in the series so let's go with the tried and true. This Robin has worked for so many years, so let's do him again. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986) crossover event, which rebooted the DC Universe, Batman writer Max Allan Collins was asked to reintroduce Jason. Batman #408 (June 1987) began a four-issue story by Collins and artist Chris Warner that reimagined Jason as a street delinquent whom Batman attempts to reform. The revamped Jason was unpopular among readers, who disliked his rebellious, impulsive nature. A scene in Batman #424 (June 1988) in which Jason seemingly breaks Batman's no-kill rule and lies about it was particularly controversial. After Collins quit over creative differences, writer Jim Starlin and penciler Jim Aparo took over Batman. Starlin did not like Jason and initially avoided featuring him, but began to use him in stories at the request of O'Neil. Starlin "decided to play on that dislike" in his stories. By 1988, the Batman creative team knew Todd presented a problem that needed to be resolved. Development O'Neil decided that Jason either needed another personality revamp or to