I just finished watching a TiVoed episode of Justice League where a character died in battle. The character had been a moderately recurring one who was given some depth in the preceding episode before being killed in the following one.  Coupled with Disney's Brother Bear in which  a major character that's just been introduced ends up dying and another whose significance we learn later dies as well it seems like death in children's cartoons is no longer taboo. 

I remember  watching cartoons like Voltron & Thunder Cats as a kid and thinking that the fact that the major characters were never at risk of death made rooting for the good guys or against the bad guys a waste of time. Of course, I was one of the kids who was deeply affected when Optimus Prime bought it in Transformers: The Movie. That death was a solitary event in the cartoon landscape which didn't lead to the start of a trend as I expected and itself was diluted by the fact that they kept bringing Optimus Prime back in one shape or form every other episode.

This trip down memory lane makes me feel nostalgia for old episodes of my favorite cartoons. Time to go bargain hunting on Amazon.