BRIAN AUGUSTYN responds

One half of the team that made Flash fun again, Brian is also known for his work on "Trollords," "JLA: Year One," and "Gotham by Gaslight." Currently he's writing the mega-successful "Crimson" for Cliffhanger Comics. By all accounts, he's a talented, funny guy. Why he's responding to a letter on this subject I have no idea. (GS)

I am not surprised at the size of your assembled list, though I doubt there is any conscious intent on the part of creators. Try assembling a list of secondary male heroes who've died, and it might be just as long, maybe longer.

I suspect that the wholesale nature of this seeming slaughter of innocents is more a case of the characters being secondary to more famous male leading characters. That is, the female characters on your list are mostly supporting players, and thus both familiar and expendable. They were well known enough for their deaths to have impact, but peripheral enough not to incur too much reader ire.

Don't completely rule out unwitting misogyny, however. Most of us comic creators are male, and, sadly, long exposed to outmoded sexual stereotypes.

We need to be more sensitive to this issue, to be sure.

Good Luck,
Brian Augustyn
(who helped whack Ice!)