A few months ago, Mark Waid stated, “Writing evil and writing violence, if you’re clever and do it right, can be two entirely different sets of visuals.” At the same time, Waid said he was sorry he had killed some of the characters he had created (DC Comics: Allegations of Editorial Strong-Arming in the Old 52, Russ Burlingame, comicbook.com, August 26, 2012). Without making excuses, we see different levels in the deaths of characters. At the lowest level of the pyramid, there is cannon fodder: interchangeable henchmen who are regularly eliminated or captured and who are totally anonymous. Their anonymity means that their death has no repercussions, since they were never truly alive for the reader. A little higher up are the villains whose death is the ultimate punishment for their misdeeds. We find this type of sacrificed lambs more problematic, since they are brought into the story to trigger a reaction from the hero, and their death aims to produce a dramatic effect. In some stories, like the James Bond movies, to give only one example, these characters are so predictable that we as viewers choose not to get attached to them. And lastly, there is the level at which a character’s death, whether or not it is natural, represents that character’s culmination. Violence is one thing, and having a character evolve is another, even if that requires the death of someone from his or her entourage.