#kathemy

Honestly at this point this is less about batcat, which is long dead, and more about the piss poor ungrateful-ass way DC Comics treats its fans. I, like so many others, have been a very avid reader of DC Comics since childhood. If I saw an itemized bill of all of the money I’ve spent on comic books and other various DC paraphernalia over the years I’d probably faint. I’ve happily supported and promoted all of their projects. DC Comics has some of the most loyal and dedicated fans of anyone and we get nothing in return.

I didn’t quit New 52 ten issues in. If I had known then what I know today I definitely would’ve. I didn’t even really start to hate it until around two years ago. Even when it was at its absolute worst I was in my LCS almost every Wednesday buying their comic books really believing that eventually things would get better. I was forgiving, I was patient, I was understanding, I supported, I defended, I would spend $30, $50 in a week even though reading their books brought nothing but anger, sadness, and disappointment. I thought that if I was patient enough and loyal enough eventually I would be rewarded with this big emotional payout and all the things that I loved would return to me. I’m not a special case. This can be said about so many other fans. And how have we been rewarded for our loyalty? We’ve had to spend the last half a decade watching everything we know and love be destroyed. My ship, which was the main reason I even started reading comics, has been brutally annihilated and my favorite character has been eviscerated into an unrecognizable husk. When Batman was headlining in four or five titles all at once we couldn’t even get a half way decent issue of Catwoman.

At first I thought that this was just demonstrable incompetencey on behalf of company leadership. I mean they even broke up Superman and Lois Lane their most flagship ship which indicates there’s something seriously wrong with DC at the editorial level. Now we get to Rebirth and Geoff Johns promised that things would get better and they’d somewhat return to Pre 52 characterization. In many ways this was the case, just not for Catwoman or BatCat which somehow got so much worse.Every single legacy ship got back together in one issue except for batcat. Lois and Clark are married and have a child in the main Superman book, Diana and Steve are making a come back, Black Canary and Green Arrow are back together, Harley Quinn and Ivy are in a relationship, Aquaman and Mera got engaged, Midnighter and Apollo are back together. Hell even the original Wally West and Linda Park got together in his very first appearance in over five years. Batman and Catwoman? Nothing.

To make matters worse someone decided that making Catwoman an actual serial killer with an almost comedically high kill count that puts her on par with the Joker, despite the fact that that goes against everything she’s ever stood for as a character was appropriate storytelling and characterization. So now I’m taking this personally.

DC knows that Batman and Catwoman are a popular and marketable ship. There’s no question about that. They’ve been featured in every form of media for over 75 years. Just this past Valentine’s Day they were voted by the fans as one of DC’s favorite ships and that was via DC’s own Twitter survey. They know that people really want to see them together, they just don’t care.

There was no narrative value in destroying that relationship. It didn’t make the stories any better and it definitely didn’t make the characters any better and that’s the part that bothers me the most. If someone could come up with one good reason why they destroyed a relationship that took over 30 years to develop with the contributions of some of the best creators in industry, a relationship that is so loved by so many people maybe, just maybe I’d be able to accept it. The fact that Gotham gets it right and Telltale games gets it right and even Christopher Nolan gave them a happy ending in a billion dollar movie franchise just proves that it’s DC Comics’ issue. If literally everyone else sees the value and importance of the relationship why doesn’t the source material?