This is admittedly a deep cut even for comic book lore nerds, but I recently learned that during this 1988 four-part arc in the Batman books called "A Death in the Family" the readers could vote, via a 1-900 number, on whether Jason Todd was going to be killed off by the Joker at the end of that story arc of not! I was shocked to learn that the vote was actually really close considering how popular Jason is nowadays -- 5,271 "Let Him Live" votes to *5,023 "Kill Him Off" ones. DC was totally serious about this. They actually had an ending ready for publication where Jason
did die:
So what do you all think would have happened if Jason had been killed off in 1988? The death of a Robin would probably have a huge impact on Batman's character and later storylines, unless the editors handwaved a speedy resurrection somehow. We could have even gotten a third Robin ten whole years ahead of schedule, and who knows what he or she would've been like.
* (OOC: The POD here is that one California caller, alleged by then DC editor Dennis O'Neil to have programmed his computer to repeatedly dial in votes to kill Jason, doesn't get to stuff the ballot with 320 automated "kill" votes. Let's say he has hardware troubles that day. In OTL, the "Kill" voters won by a margin of only 65 votes. The original totals, if you're curious, were 5,343 "Kill" votes to 5,271 "Don't Kill" votes. The backlash to Jason's death was pretty harsh, resulting in the speedy creation of Tim Drake the next year.)