Her Name Was Jarmara

Animal Man: Why?
Why did you do this? You killed my family. You ruined everything.
Do you know what you've done to me?
Grant Morrison: Of course I know. I wrote your grief and your rage and your acceptance.
It added drama. All stories need drama and it's easy to get a cheap emotional shock by killing popular characters.
Animal Man: But that's not fair.
Grant Morrison: No, it's not.
One of my cats died last year. Something, maybe a bone, punctured her lung. Pus built up in her lungs so that she couldn't breathe. She suffered for four weeks and then died at the vet's, a couple weeks after her third birthday.
Her name was Jarmara.
That wasn't fair either, but who do I complain to?
See, your world is so much simpler than ours. It can be invaded by aliens or suffer catastrophes and nothing matters. It all just comes back, good as new.
There's no problem that can't be solved by some idiot in tights.
So don't come here complaining to me about what's fair and what's not.

- Animal Man #26

by Grant Morrison and Chas Truog