The shameful 1988 episode in which DC Comics set a 1-900 phone number up for people to call and decide the destiny of the second Robin, Jason Todd, has been considered as one of the most infamous marketing campaigns to attract new readers to comics ever. Considered as revolutionary on its time many believe this is the landmark for all events in which fans decide the outcome of a storyline.
Truth is, fans deciding the destiny of a character is not something that started with Robin but even earlier. Metamorpho (Vol. 1) #11 published in 1967 already made a "decide whether the character lives or dies" event. Perhaps they could not do the whole "call and decide" campaign due to the 1-900 numbers were not introduced in United States until 1971 or just because they did not think it was the big deal, they only used the the conventional way of the time: the snail mail.
The character to decide her destiny was Urania Blackwell a.k.a. Element Girl, another person altered by the meteor inside the Ahk-Ton pyramid who underwent similar changes to Metamorpho. She was introduced interrupting Rex and Sapphire's wedding to ask for Metamorpho's aid to defeat a criminal organization led by his ex-boyfriend, they travel together to Europa leaving Sapphire waiting dressed with her bride garments.
At the end of the adventure Urania dies and Metamorpho takes her with him and asks Simon Stagg to bring her back to life. The fans then had to decide whether Element Girl is resurrected or remains dead.
Urania Blackwell returned two issues later on issue 13 and one caption box on the story informs the readers that Element Girl is alive thanks to the majority of the fans who voted in favor of bring her back from death.
It is evident Rex has a crush on the girl and the attraction is mutual, this dichotomy in Rex's feelings and the rivalry between Sapphire and Element Girl will be a major plot in the issues to come until the end of this series run.
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