DC Comic’s has forbidden that Kate Kane, the Batwoman, and Maggie Sawyer, her secret girlfriend, be married in the popular comic reboot after six months of intense fighting co-authors J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman, causing both Williams and Blackman to quit the comic, and to go public.
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.
We’re both heartbroken over leaving, but we feel strongly that you all deserve stories that push the character and the series forward. We can’t reliably do our best work if our plans are scrapped at the last minute, so we’re stepping aside. We are committed to bringing our run to a satisfying conclusion and we think that Issue 26 will leave a lasting impression.
Williams went on Twitter shortly afterwards to give the 145 character, straight to the point version:
“Not wanting to be inflammatory, only factual- We fought to get them engaged, but were told emphatically no marriage can result”
Patrick Yacco of Geeks Out responds:
“DC’s track record over LGBT issues over the past few months has been radically hit or miss: they’ve published stories that included the first trans character from a major publisher, but also almost ran a Superman story written by now infamous homophobe Orson Scott Card Their competition is also on thin ice; a couple of books with LGBT characters from Marvel Comics are ending their run in the next couple of months, severely decreasing an already thin population (of LGBT characters)
DC’s resistance to publishing such a historic moment for queer women is nothing but disappointing and I hope this isn’t a downward trend in LGBT representation for the comic book industry. Nevertheless, I can’t thank JH Williams III and W Haden Blackman enough for their wonderful Batwoman stories and look forward to the next stages of their careers.”
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