Even though Batwoman has proposed to long-time partner Maggie Sawyer twice, DC refused to allow the pair to finally marry in the comic in an upcoming issue. The writers behind Batwoman J.H. Williams III and W. Hayden Blackman announced that December’s Issue 26 would be the last they would work on due to DC’s refusal to allow the marriage to happen.
The decision was never put to the pair as Williams said as “anti-gay marriage.” However, that didn’t stop from internet speculation that DC’s decision to not allow Batwoman to marry was steeped in homophobia. Williams and Blackman released a statement in regards to not allowing Batwoman to marry and other last minute editorial changes the publisher had been giving them.
Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character
and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have
defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of
these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end.
We’ve always understood that, as much as we love the character, Batwoman ultimately belongs to DC. However, the eleventh-hour nature of these changes left
us frustrated and angry — because they prevent us from telling the best stories we can. So, after a lot of soul-searching, we’ve decided to leave the book
after Issue 26.
After Williams and Blackman’s announcement late last week, earlier this week DC announced a replacement for the pair, in Marc Andreyko, a fan favorite and openly gay man which could be seen as a move to squash any further speculation about DC’s homophobia.
At last weekend’s Baltimore Comic-Con, DC’s co-publisher Dan Didio explained that the problem wasn’t gay marriage that it was marriage as a whole–specifically that Batman affiliated-superheroes shouldn’t be happy in their personal lives.
They put on a cape and cowl for a reason. They’re committed to defending others — at the sacrifice of all their own personal instincts. That’s something
we reinforce. If you look at every one of the characters in the Batman family, their personal lives kind of suck.
Tim Drake [Red Robin], Barbara Gordon [Batgirl], and Kathy Kane [Batwoman] — it’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s also just
as important that they put it aside as they know what they are accomplishing as the hero takes precedence over everything else. That is our mandate, that
is our edict, that is our stand with our characters.
It’ll be interesting to see if Didio’s hugely depressing statement regarding marriage will stick to future iterations of the Batman family or was only the excuse when it came to gay characters marrying.
In this same panel, Andreyko was announced as the new writer for the series. However, in a rather upsetting twist, he will start writing on the 25th issue, which is 2 issues earlier than Williams and Blackman were supposed to leave. In a tweet, Williams expected this news means that the “issue 25 we wrote already isn’t coming out…”
