be written out of Batman. Around that time, DC was planning to publish a comic promoting HIV/AIDS education, and requested that writers submit suggestions for characters to kill off from AIDS. Starlin filled the suggestion box with proposals to kill off Jason, but DC staff rejected the idea after realizing all the papers had Starlin's handwriting. DC president Jenette Kahn wanted to address Jason's unpopularity. O'Neil and Kahn attended an editorial retreat, where O'Neil recalled a 1982 Saturday Night Live sketch in which Eddie Murphy encouraged viewers to call one of two 900 numbers if they wanted him to boil a lobster on air. The sketch garnered widespread publicity and nearly 500,000 viewers called in. O'Neil proposed a similar stunt involving one of the DC characters, which Kahn found intriguing. O'Neil decided that Jason was "the logical candidate to be in peril", as he was unpopular and placing him in such a situation would have massive ramifications. "We didn't want to waste it on anything minor", he said. "Whether Firestorm's boots should be red or yellow ... This had to be important. Life or death stuff." Kahn added that they wanted to allow fans to have input in what to do with Jason, rather than "autocratically" writing him out and replacing him. The idea of having fans call to influence the creative process was a novel concept at the time, and DC's sales and marketing vice president Bruce Bristow described setting up the numbers as the most difficult part of the project. Sales manager John Pope began calling AT&T to secure the two 900 numbers on October 1, 1987; it took him until March 1988 to reserve them. Six months after Starlin proposed killing Jason, O'Neil asked him to start working on a potential story. Starlin decided to have the Joker murder Jason, inspired by The Dark Knight Returns (1986), a limited series by Frank Miller that featured Batman retiring after the Joker kills Robin. Starlin wrote scripts for a six-issue story, and the decision was made to combine the first four across two issues to speed up the story because fans were participating. Aparo, inker Mike DeCarlo, and colorist Adrienne Roy provided the art, and assistant editor Dan Raspler suggested Mike Mignola as the storyline's cover artist. Batman #427 features Batman arriving at a warehouse where Jason is imprisoned just as it explodes. On the back cover, an advertisement