Lesbian Marriage Too Tough For Batwoman, Authors Leave

[Lilani]

As long as we take no risks and push no boundaries, maybe comics will stop their slow decline into obscurity!

After all, nothing ropes in the kids and new readers like avoiding issues they deal with in their everyday life.

The sad thing is, gay marriage is becoming less and less of a "risk." In a few more decades, it'll be about as controversial as interracial marriage is today. As it becomes the norm, steps to minimize or even eliminate it when the plans were in production such as this is more a step backward than a lack of a step forward. DC made a terrible decision, here. They're going to get more condescension for refusing to let this story continue than if they had let it go in the first place, and from all the wrong people. If anything, lesbian relationships are less discomforting than male gay relationships, at least to most males. So if they're worried about offending their primary reader-base, they're sorely mistaken. The group that would have been the most grossly offended by Batwoman being gay would have been conservatives, and mostly older ones, a group which also isn't known for overlapping with their primary reader-base.

They shouldn't be worried about disgusting the people who watch FOX news. If anything, DC doing something to upset FOX would earn cheers from most of the geek universe.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Peter Parker, Mary Jane, One More Day

That is all.

Exactly. I barely even read comic, but EVERYONE knows the awfulness of One More Day. Even if Batwoman having a gay marriage was a big controversial thing (which in any sane world it wouldn't be) I think OMD would still take the crown for awful handling of relationships in comic books.

OT: Yet another story handicapped in the name of trying to keep the WASP demographic. Sigh. I get really annoyed by this kinda stuff. No work should be trying to take Fox News' or the GOP's audience.

 

[Chessrook44]

So did DC say no to it because they didn't want controversy, or did they say no to it because they didn't want to screw around with the status quo?

 

[Thaluikhain]

That seems like an odd move, given that they presumably ok'd Batwoman proposing and getting engaged to her girlfriend, given that it happened.

Actually getting married was too much though?

 

[Lilani]

Once again, it might have nothing to do with her being a lesbian. Marrying off a character is a big deal that can mess with the status quo of the character and their books. That's why comic book characters getting married is always a big deal. There are plenty of comic book romances who aren't married and who won't be anytime soon. Seriously, if you can't see why her being a lesbian would discourage them from marrying her off then maybe that's not what's discouraging them.

There's a quote in there that makes me think otherwise.

It was the marriage, Williams Tweets, which was the final straw; "we fought to get them engaged," says Williams, "but were told emphatically that no marriage can result."

If they didn't want Batwoman to get married, then why did they concede to an engagement in the first place? Were they just going to have her be perpetually engaged? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Remus]

Marvel did it first and they did a good job of dealing with the whole "superhero marriage" dilemma. The next 2 storyarcs in some way involved the new spouse getting into danger and then reconciling that fact afterward. It was not a temporary thing, the characters did not split up or divorce afterward. They are still married and sharing an apartment. DC, grow up and join us in the 21st century. We have cake.

 

[Mahoshonen]

This reminds me of the end of "The Mole People" (MST3K 1003) where the female lead is inexplicably and laughably killed at the end. The commentary on the DVD revealed that despite looking as WASPy as they get, the producers were worried people would be angry that an implied Assyrian was getting hitched to a white guy.

 

[Gali]

I haven't read any New 52 books the past months due to money reasons, but Batwoman has always been one of my favorites.
I was really hoping for their relationship to get more serious and set another example for the more mainstream part of this medium, that exploring romantic relationships can go beyond the usual crushes, one night stands and stuff. The fact that we are talking about a gay marriage would set another example, too. But if I recall correctly, Marvel already "shocked" the public with a gay marriage between two male characters. So it isn't really a new thing, but it would have been an improvement.

And besides, Kate and Maggie are just lovely written characters. When I was still reading, I wished for them badly that they would get married and have a happily ever after. T.T The fact that it indeed was planned and now stopped by the publisher is so sad. Much respect for the writers to stand up for their creation and leave the project instead of changing it. DC really needs to treat their writers better, anyone remember the Gail Simone thing?

Maybe it's time for me to get into Marvel stuff, despite being big fan of anything Batman related.

 

[Grimh]

I'm willing to bet that this has less to do with it being a gay marriage (and thus controversial to intolerant people) and more to do with the company's crippling fear to disrupt the status quo when they've got a successful book going.

I'm not really into superhero comics and don't know much about DC as a company so I might be wrong.

 

[rofltehcat]

Wait, if I understand this right it isn't actually about Batwoman marrying or not marrying. It is more about DC changing their intentions all the time and at shortest notice, completely ruining the plans the authors had made and even blocking their plans to later change their direction on this again.

I think they should probably fire/demote/whatever the one(s) responsible for that chaos. It is just an issue of bad management.

 

[Ickorus]

Seriously people?

Everyone knows controversy sells and the people in charge of DC probably know it better than most, I'd bet anything that this is a little less black and white than DC being a bunch of homophobes.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Typical damn executive meddling... then again, I have little interest in the New 52 as it is... so for me, it's no real loss.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm going to guess they didn't want to jeopardise their no 1 spot by doing anything remotely controversial and completely failed as the writers, rightfully, gave up.

It's time for stupid apparently.

Aren't they a couple years late on avoiding commentary?

Wow, that's a major dick move. I mean seriously D.C.? Ah well, if AT4W is anything to go by, they've been a bit of a mess for awhile now.

Linkara's had a bunch of nice things to say about quite a few of the comics in the line. I believe, though I can't remember for sure, Batwoman was one of them. Gah.

I never thought DC had a problem judging who its customers are and what's best to keep them.

The company that writes comics for 45 year olds?

Batgirl got paralysed decades ago and became Oracle. That was before the New 52 reboot. Still completely different people, Batgirl and Batwoman. Also they replaced Barbara Gordon's Batgirl with others in that time as well.

A couple of which were actually pretty good.

Still, I can hardly blame people for being confused between Batgirl and Batwoman. The two words have been used pretty interchangeably in the biz for decades and there's usually only one female "version" of a character.

If they didn't want Batwoman to get married, then why did they concede to an engagement in the first place? Were they just going to have her be perpetually engaged? That doesn't make any sense.

It makes perfect sense from an American media perspective, as serial media tends to do this all the time.

 

[Wilco86]

There's a funny coincidence in Finnish language that's related to this:

Finnish slang word for "lesbian" is "lepakko", the same word that means a bat. So Batwoman, or Lepakkonainen, could be interpret as a lesbian woman in Finnish language.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Erm... having a prominent, admirable, lesbian character wasn't controversial?

Anyway...

We live in the era of Ellen DeGeneres on one side of the Atlantic and Claire Balding on the other, so no, that's not controversial at all.

It's weird though that DC has become so risk averse, this is the company that let Alan 'completely fucking crazy' Moore write for their flagship characters and has an openly gay Green Lantern. It's not as if comic book continuity is set in stone anyway, there are so many retcons and counter-retcons you need a flow chart just to track one character.

I suspect there's more to this than just cold feet upstairs about plot arcs, although I doubt it has anything to do with the writers and everything to do with the egos of higher ups.