In the latest news for DC’s Villain’s Month, it looks like evil has infested into the real world some more as it was revealed over on his blog early this morning that legendary artist JH Williams III and his co-writer on “Batwoman” W. Haden Blackman are leaving the book over disputes with editorial. Why? Because DC would not allow the lead heroines of the series Kate Kane and her girlfriend Maggie to get married.
As Williams and Blackman write on their respective blogs,
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.
Williams’ frustration about the Killer Croc decision — one ostensibly made for Villain’s Month — had been known in the past, but what I find interesting here is the language he uses: that they were prohibited from ever doing it. Which, to me, seems very strange and entirely anti-progressive for the company — not to mention a huge misstep in terms of marketability alone. After all, Marvel’s marriage in “Astonishing X-Men” between Northstar and his now-husband Kyle was a smashing success, and oversaw a real marriage in Midtown’s comic shop.
For a book that had been defined by its progressive nature — both literally on the comic pages and the structure of the books as well as internally in the story with its characters and themes — such a move to deny comic characters from DC who are in same-sex relationships to get married is honestly a bit surprising.
As such, there is clarification thanks to Andy Khouri from Comics Alliance:
@andykhouri Not wanting to be inflammatory, only factual- We fought to get them engaged, but were told emphatically no marriage can result.
— J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) September 5, 2013
@andykhouri But must clarify- was never put to us as being anti-gay marriage.
— J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) September 5, 2013
In this regard, it appears the company is just anti-marriage, which seems to make sense given their odd treatment of characters as a whole as broken individuals barely able of sustaining actual relationships with one another. DC seems obsessed with this idea of broken characters, and having a happy marriage seems to go wildly against that notion. I’ll admit that I’ve dropped out of reading DC so I can’t really speak with authority, but off the top of my head I can think of three characters in relationships — The Flash, and Superman and Wonder Woman — and one character who had a marriage that defined his life whose recently lost it: Animal Man.
So while editorial interference is certainly rampant and destructive and clearly unaware of good things that they’ve got going, this doesn’t seem to be an issue of DC or Warner Bros being against the right for same sex couples to be afforded the same privileges as heterosexuals. On the surface, anyway; I won’t comment as to other intentions with a company that has a bad history when it comes to being forward-thinking.
And of course it is worth mentioning that J3 is easily one of comics’ most talented artists, that DC had gold with him illustrating and co-writing “Batwoman” and more platitudes you’ll find on any website covering the news. All of which is true — Williams is a genius, and if you don’t believe so read “Promethea” — but DC’s treatment of him as a creator would be more shocking if there wasn’t a precedent set at DC for this kind of editorial interference; instead, this is just sad.
Continued belowI suppose the bright spot to all this is that Williams’ work on “Sandman” will not change, as confirmed by Steve Morris of the Beat:
@stevewmorris Absolutely yes. This problem has nothing to do with anything involving Sandman or Vertigo.
— J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) September 5, 2013
So you can still look forward to that.
The last issue of the Williams/Blackman run (assumedly still with McCarthy and Haun on art) will be #26 in December.
