User blog:Hatebunny/Some thoughts on Batwoman and DC's embargo on marriage

-

When I woke up this morning, one of the first things I read was that DC editorial had barred J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman from ever showing Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer get married, after a year of planning, and after previously okay-ing their engagement, as seen in.

Williams and Blackman, having planned out all of their story arcs before they even started writing their first issue together (one of the reasons the book has been so good, I’m sure), naturally decided to quit the book with issue #26 - which is three issues away. Anyone who plans a lot of things in advance knows that if you change something late in the game, when groundwork has already been laid, it tends to totally screw up all of the plans that follow that event.

So, I don’t blame them for leaving.

Of course, I haven’t yet addressed the question, “Why aren’t they allowed to get married?” Sensationalist media will tell you that it’s because Kate and Maggie’s wedding would constitute a gay marriage. I can tell you that while that is a very important issue, it is not the reason.

For some time, DC has had an edict against marriage in comics. They think it makes characters boring, and unappealing to teens.

Very few characters in the DCU are currently married (Aquaman and Animal Man are married - but the latter is separated from his wife at the moment).

I attribute this position to a few cases:

Superman and Lois Lane. They were married in 1996. That marriage lasted all the way until 2011, when the marriage was undone by the New 52 relaunch. A number of writers and editors have claimed that they didn’t like writing Superman as a husband, because it detracted from the action. By 2011, the built up continuity suggested that the couple might need to start having children soon, and that would have bogged down those action-oriented writers even more.

-- Wally West and Linda Park.These two as a couple was a source of all kinds of very good stories courtesy of Mark Waid and Geoff Johns. Unfortunately, once the couple had super-powered flash-kids, it seemed like Wally had jumped the shark - especially when Geoff Johns started talking about bringing Barry Allen back. So, Wally’s book went to Barry, and he and his family faded into obscurity.

-- Green Arrow and Black Canary. I’ve read Gail Simone say that she never thought they should have got married. As a fan of the Mike Grell Green Arrow run, I beg to differ. They practically were married in that series. That said, Mike Grell’s run ended something like 16 years earlier, which is a pretty long time in comics - plenty of time for both characters to be derailed in between. I don’t think the fact that DC gave them a couple’s title in Green Arrow & Black Canary did their pairing any favours. Then… Cry for Justice. Fall of Green Arrow. Their marriage became a casualty of an event.

-

All the same, I’d like to think that whether a married superhero book rises or falls is based entirely on the strength of the stories that are written for them. I see no reason why Williams and Blackman, who had done a fine job to this point, wouldn’t be able to tell an amazing story with these two characters married.

Besides, if DC hated the idea so much, they could, eventually, retcon it. The problem with that kind of thing being retconned, though, is that once you have the wife and kids, the only way to get rid of them is to “fridge” them in some way.

Speaking of the above “no way out but fridging” issue - this is why I wanted Batwoman and Sawyer to get married. I could tell from the way the book was structured that they intended it to be a long-term thing.

And, for Batwoman, it’s too late to turn back. They’re engaged. The only way to get around their inevitable wedding is to inject some kind of conflict into their relationship - or kill Maggie. And that would be a huge disservice to anyone who was following the book until this point. Especially since whoever does the injecting of that conflict will have to be some writer who has no experience whatsoever with writing the character. (The only other person who has handled the character for any great amount of time was Greg Rucka, who has already parted ways with the company - for similar reasons).

I’m not saying it’s an inevitability, but it is very often the case that when a new writer joins a book, they toss out all of the supporting cast, create their own, and then play with only their toys, instead of the second-hand ones. Jeff Lemire just did that with Green Arrow (with positive results!). Christy Marx actually bucked that trend when she took over Birds of Prey, and - apart from Starling getting shelved - it was as though nothing had changed.

If a character like Batwoman is handled badly by its new team, it will almost certainly dip in sales.

Anyway…

I don’t want to let this go without addressing the sexuality issue.

Kate and Maggie are lesbians. This never factored into my appreciation of the book. I like good art, good characters, good stories. But, for many fans, they needed to see lesbian sexuality handled in a mature and realistic way in comics, and Batwoman finally did that. Her character’s sexuality and the good writing behind it won the book a GLAAD Media award.

Whatever DC’s intention - and I know it’s not because of an anti-gay stance - preventing the wedding of a lesbian couple is a lost opportunity, and a disappointment to everyone who had read the engagement story, and had a reasonable expectation of seeing it happen. Outrage is warranted, and the blame is squarely on DC editorial.

It doesn’t matter whether DC has a beef with homosexuality or gay marriage - they don’t. Headlines reading that “DC stands in the way of gay marriage” are still true, even if there is a false implication that the obstruction had something to do with the homosexuality. The marriage would have been an important step forward in diversity representation and DC is standing in the way of that step’s being taken.

The decision has everything to do with this ridiculous edict that superheroes cannot get married, but the result is more than just the loss of an amazing writing and art team. It is the loss of a good story. It is the loss of momentum for a real life gay rights issue to be represented, finally and well, in comics.

As a lover of good writing, what matters most to me is the derailment of the plot that was planned and hinted at for a year. And, I can’t help but feel that the loss of Williams and Blackman spells death for Batwoman’s book - or at least death for the character as we know it.

- Hatebunny (talk) 01:24, September 6, 2013 (UTC)