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This should read “2015 Eisner award-winning” J.H. Williams III shows off Sandman panel artwork (grin)!

[...] Source [...]

DC is in the business of selling fantasies. DiDio clarified this that they only wish to sell fantasies to 45-year-old males.

Put 2+2 together, and DiDio needs his resident lipstick lesbian promiscuous rather than monogamous.

Really, it’s just another step in their pandering life that is their current Batwoman.

Heaven forbid they dare show her in a normal progression of lesbian romance.

But, this is a company that ghettoizes its gays to bit characters because of traditional norms, and an industry that would rather have the devil — of all people — undo a perfectly fine marriage for its major ones.

The Two H’s series has garnered awards in the gay & lesbian community. Things that the company that made her homosexual to begin with should presumably be proud about. With these revelations, they’re showing that Batwoman’s sexuality was about nothing to enrich her character, but only to market the most sensational aspects of it.

HW and WH show themselves to be even better professionals than I already considered them to be. They’ll continue to have me follow their projects. Batwoman without them, and DC? Not so much.

Of my thirteen or so monthly New52 books, including Batwoman, DC has taken me down to three. Image, Dark Horse Comics, and Marvel thanks their decisions.

Silly but True

“Serial characters that aren’t developed are toys.”

So the only way to truly develop the character is to marry her off?

Assuming JL3000 is a Legion Of Superheroes relaunching miniseries, my dropping Batwoman after issue 26 leaves me with ONE ongoing DC book: The Unwritten.
This 44 year old male finds the post-Levitz DC completely uninteresting.
It will also means that I order as many Marvel books as I do DC, and that I order MORE Image books than I do DC! Way to go Didio/Harras! Marvel and Image love your work!
Before the Nu52, my monthly orders were 60-80% DC.

If DC editorial wanted to step in and cut these writers’ plans short, they should have done it a year ago, because the second and third storylines of this Batwoman series were extremely bad and boring.

But the writing has really picked up these last four issues or so. Totally ridiculous for editorial to interfere like this right now.

So the only way to truly develop the character is to marry her off?

If your reasoning is based on the principle that the character is more important than the story, then practically any development is bad. Development only defines the character and prevents a succeeding writer from doing what he wants with her–prevents him from starting out with an outline. Marriage isn’t necessarily better than some other development, but there’s no way to argue that it’s worse in general terms. Characters are created to be developed–unless they’re being written for readers who don’t want development.

SRS

[...] JH Williams III and W. Haden Blackman Quit Batwoman over Editorial Interference (comicsbeat.com) [...]

Bravo, DC . Turns out they are less progressive than Archie comics or even their own Wildstorm imprint ten damn years ago when Apollo and Midnghter got married.

For all their talk about the New 52 being about diversity, which was highlighted in the first sentence or two of the first article about the reboot in USA today, they sure seem to be a bunch of filthy hypocrites. Batwoman was an award winning title and this is the second damn creator they drove off the book. Wait.. no.. third. Reeder seemed bumped off too. Never mind Johns and his little sandbox obliterating Renee Montoya from existance so he can turn Question into some cosmic Phantom Stranger 2.0. Batwoman was one of their best books. It was one of yhe last ones I got before I got sick of DC as a whole. I almost picked it up again when I heard about Kate and Maggie getting engaged. Yet I had reservations and distrusted the company too much. Seems my paranoia was not unfounded.

This is disgusting. They can soak up press about a lupstick lesbian but won’t allow the character to get married? Didio and company are as much actually for diversity as Rick Perry speaking at a DoMA panel at an RNC rally.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think serious relationships work well with heros. Why? Because such serious relationships, and especially marriage, take a lot of commitment and responsibility.

At the core of a hero’s quest is either self-fulfillment or the relationship between a hero and their city. That’s the point of the story and everything else is going to be filler. Now of course we love it when the heroes have to make a choice between their personal lives and their morals, but that’s because its the struggle between who they are as a person vs. who they are as a symbol. Again, this falls under the broader heading of their relationship with heroism and their self-actualization.

The problem with a serious relationship is that suddenly it’s a huge and vastly important part of the hero’s life. They’re not just committed to their city and their cause, but also to another person. The problem is that when the conflict between person and hero comes up again and again. Either they have to chose their spouse which weakens the heroic aspect or the spouse gets shoved aside again and again, and what person is going to put up with that?

Simply put, when you have a character that’s a young and driven go-getter, marriage doesn’t work well in the storyline: either it dissolves or it dampens them for the drive you loved in their go-getting.

Now there are good ways to do a married character who is also a hero, but it’s difficult, especially when it’s an addition to an existing character or a character who had drive at their core.

The problem with a serious relationship is that suddenly it’s a huge and vastly important part of the hero’s life. They’re not just committed to their city and their cause, but also to another person. The problem is that when the conflict between person and hero comes up again and again. Either they have to chose their spouse which weakens the heroic aspect or the spouse gets shoved aside again and again, and what person is going to put up with that?

Real-life heroes are often married. They also have kids, get into arguments, age, change their views on subjects, and make mistakes, sometimes even stupid mistakes, when they venture outside their areas of expertise.

The simplicity and narrow focuses that comic book superheroes have don’t justify avoiding serious relationships. Treating one well in a story is merely a matter of allocating enough space in a storyline, and having readers who value exploration and development of a relationship. If all the readers want are hero-villain conflicts that end with the hero proving that Good will triumph, and short-term concerns about other people, then that’s what they’ll get, but the number of people who’ll buy those stories is limited.

How is Peter Parker worrying about Aunt May different from Parker worrying about his wife, his fiancee, or a brother who constantly gets himself into trouble? The major difference is that Aunt May is just an object who can be tossed into a story when it’s convenient, to provide some moments of angst, but the other people present real-life concerns that have to be dealt with well, and in some detail, or the writer will look inept.

SRS

The major difference between Aunt May and Mary Jane is that Aunt May is eventually looking for Peter Parker to leave her and become his own person, Mary Jane is looking to form a partnership of equals with him.

I also agreed that married heros or heros with families can work well, but work best in fiction when it’s an initial part of their story. The Incredibles did this well – while there is backstory, one of the major conflicts is balancing family and heroism. To a certain extent, you could do this with heros with a “5 years later” jump, but again, difficult for a smooth transition.

You’ve missed the core of what I said. Heros can be married, but it’s very difficult to take a hero initially on a quest for self-actualization or where the focus is on the hero-city relationship and add a happy marriage to it while maintaining hero status.

You’ve missed the core of what I said. Heros can be married, but it’s very difficult to take a hero initially on a quest for self-actualization or where the focus is on the hero-city relationship and add a happy marriage to it while maintaining hero status.

No, I didn’t miss the core. The relationship between the hero and his city–______ and NYC, notably–is based on the fantasy that if he abandons his role as a hero to serve his own needs, a disaster will ensue. In the real world, disasters happen which no one stops. If Superman existed, he couldn’t prevent more than a tiny fraction of the deaths and disasters which happen in the U.S. every day, much less the world. “With great power comes great responsibility” is a theme which has no connection to personal reality.

SRS

You still haven’t addressed the core.

We’re talking about superheroes as a whole, and while Peter Parker is a great boilerplate, you’re getting too deep into specifics. Spiderman is still a coming of age story.

I’d also disagree with you that the theme has no bearing on our world. That is a choice that many, many people face every day. While it certainly isn’t done with superpowers, do you crush your opponent, do you rely on your spouse to watch the kids, do you make the world a better place or use the power structures to further your own goals.

Love how people think that DC should even think twice about their temper tantrums. Go ahead and boycott and whatever other ineffectual form of protest that you can think of. DC markets to a demographic that doesn’t give a shit about marriage. Sure, they might toss you a Batwoman or a Hawkeye or Young Avengers or some shit from Brian Wood now and then. But ultimately, those who would lose their shit over something as ridiculous as whether or not a COMIC BOOK CHARACTER is married or not, or whether Superman dates Wonder Woman or Lois or not, are not the demographic that DC is selling to. I mean, why are you people even reading DC/Marvel at all? You are SO much better than this! So much more enlightened and progressive! Get beyond it and just buy a fucking Image Comic or one of the pretentious pieces of BS that Heidi or Spurgeon recommends. M’kay?

We’re talking about superheroes as a whole, and while Peter Parker is a great boilerplate, you’re getting too deep into specifics. Spiderman is still a coming of age story.

In the real world, people age and die, and personal responsibilities shift accordingly. It’s fine to write a “coming of age” story, but the story has to end when the guy matures, or fails to mature. A story that has no point to it isn’t worth writing.

Abuse of power happens everywhere, in many, many different ways. It’s not a useful theme, unless it’s shaped to specific circumstances.

SRS