There are several ways that Christians have tried to reconcile evolution with the Biblical narrative of creation. Theistic evolution is one option. Another is C.S. Lewis's way of how while the bodies undergo evolution, there was one historic couple Adam and Eve to whom God breathed "a new kind of consciousness" making the couple to be the one truly made in the "image of God" and that we all biologically descended from that couple thus sharing in their Fall consequences (see this article referencing The Problem of Pain).
Regardless, evolution over hundreds of thousands of years necessitated many deaths before the first species (or before 2 special members of a humanoid species) whom God stamped his image, and from whom we descended biologically, which young earth proponents adduce as one of the KEY theological obstacles if we take seriously Gen 1 where God pronounced his pre-Fall creation as "good".
One Young Earth proponent said:
God can make use of death, but for it to be one of his primary creative tools paints the character of God in a very different light.
with these as Biblical support:
Death itself is described as "enemy" (1 Cor 15:26):
The last enemy to be abolished is death.
so how could God use death as a means of creation?
In the restoration (presumably to the condition before the Fall), there is no death per Isa 11:6-9:
The wolf will dwell with the lamb,and the leopard will lie down with the goat. ... An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den. ... They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain, ...
In Rom 8:19-23 we read
... For the creation was subjected to futility -- not willingly, but because of him who subjected it -- in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God's children. ...
But groaning, suffering and decay is usually seen by YECs as referring to the consequences of the fall wrought by God's curse ("because of him who subjected it", see answer to the question "Who subjected the creation to futility in Rom 8:20-21"). If death is part of the creative process then it's not decay.
Thus, my question is: How do Christians holding some role of evolution defend against Young Earth proponents' charge that the many deaths required by evolution is adding blemish to God's character, or is counter to God's pronouncing creation as "good"?