Warner Bros. Needs to Make a A Batman/Catwoman Romcom

If you’re a Batman/Catwoman “‘shipper,” you’re having your moment in the sun, as Batman writer Tom King has set his sights on the on-again, off-again love affair that began all the way back in 1940. If you haven’t been keeping up, let me bring you up to speed: Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are engaged. Gotham’s billionaire playboy has called it a day, and his bride-to-be is the city’s most notorious jewel thief. It’s a match made in heaven -- or hell, depending on your perspective.

Tom King's Batman and the Love of His Life

King has taken the Dark Knight to some very dark places. Since taking over Batman at the beginning of DC Comics' Rebirth relaunch, he’s revealed a Bruce Wayne who tried to commit suicide at age 10, and who failed to contain the murderous impulses of the Joker and the Riddler during first year as the Caped Crusader. King has also shown a broken Catwoman who took the fall for 237 murders to protect a protégé whom she believes she has failed.

Along the way, King has poked fun at the billionaire as well: Bruce Wayne eating a hamburger with a knife and fork in a Batman-themed restaurant (Batman #16) was priceless, and his obliviousness to Alfred’s Christmas gift of a fully trained Bathound (Batman Annual #1) showed that even the world's greatest detective can miss obvious clues.

Perhaps the most enjoyable running gag is how Bruce and Selena have been shown multiple times, bickering about the way they met. The Bat insists it was on a boat, as shown in 1940s Batman #1; The Cat insists they met on the street, like in 1987’s Batman: Year One. This playful nod to ever-changing continuity is one of the many delights in a run that has taken the pair to new highs and lows.

The rooftop trysts of Batman #15-16 led to the proposal in Issue 24, and Selina’s acceptance in Issue 30 (at the conclusion of "The War of Jokes and Riddles"), but King didn’t take the relationship to the gut-punch level until Batman Annual #2. This imaginary story set in the Fuddverse recounted Bruce and Selina’s lives into old age, and concluded with the gray-haired Wayne succumbing to cancer.

As he’s done time and again, King then threw readers a curve ball. After the touching tale of a couple growing old together, he played Batman #36-37 for laughs. The story gave us a neurotic Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent obsessing about what their friendship means to each other as they sped toward at double date that ended up at superhero-themed night at the Hamilton County Fair. The background banter came to the fore in a screwball comedy that had Lois and Selina meeting each other for the first time, and swapping costumes so they could gain admission to the fair without giving away their secret identities

The witty repartee, the goofy premise, the constant game of one-upmanship, and the underlying darkness are reminiscent of the comedies of legendary Hollywood screenwriter/director Billy Wilder: our protagonists wearing each others’ drag recall his classic Some Like It Hot. King’s deft characterization has mined the tragic lives of Bruce and Selina for comedic gold in the pages of DC Comics, but can this approach translate to the big screen?

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As the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the late Heath Ledger asked, “Why so serious?” Batman has been played for everything but laughs in recent years. Nolan’s trilogy, and Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League have given us portrayals of Bruce Wayne bereft of humor. Other than the occasional quip to lighten the mood, there is precious little to laugh about in 21st-century Batman movies. The inherent silliness of a man dressing up as a bat is brushed aside, especially in Nolan’s quest for realism.

Once upon a time Batman was played with a lighter touch. There was inherent humor in the Gothic weirdness of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). Comedian Michael Keaton was a neurotic Bruce Wayne with a dry wit. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman had an S&M edge, and who can forget the iconic scene that shows her falling into a dumpster full of gravel, and purring “Kitty litter?”

And who doesn’t love Adam West as the Caped Crusader? The 1966 Batman television series gave us a hopelessly square Bruce Wayne who was pitted against the Technicolor villains of the swinging '60s. The 1966 series was a pop-art wonder that playfully skewered the family-friendly aesthetic of the Comics Code Authority-era Batman books. It was lovingly littered with double entendres and pop culture in-jokes that whizzed by faster than Batarangs.

The series proved so successful that a feature film was theatrically released between the first two seasons. Leslie H. Martinson’s insane romp gave us Shark Repellent Bat Spray and the classic line, “Some days you can’t get rid of a bomb.” We were also presented with a hapless Bruce attempting to seduce Catwoman, who was disguised as Miss Kitka (short for Katanya Iranya Tatiana Karansky Alexoff) of the Moscow Bugle. That all happened for the sake of international relations, of course. And could any woman resist the charms of a Gotham socialite quoting Edgar Allan Poe at her?

But you don’t have to go back to the 1960s to see comic books being played for on-screen laughs. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been lighter in tone from the get-go. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies certainly ramped up the laughs, but their cast of characters—including the talking, gun-toting Rocket Raccoon, and Groot, the sentient tree—comprises adventurers rather than caped heroes. It was Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok that fully embraced the silliness and color of superhero comics in the recent cinematic release, leading to a box office bonanza of $850 million.

The comedic touch has certainly worked for Marvel. Perhaps it’s time for DC and Warner Bros. to recognize that silly is not stupid, and to explore the possibility of some lighter superhero fare (outside of the realm of LEGO films, that is).

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Given the under-performing Justice League movie, the box office success of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, and the on again/off again Batman solo film, the future of DC’s theatrical releases is a bit of a mess right now. It is unlikely but possible that the company may opt out of a unified Cinematic Universe to rival Marvel’s. It has already announced plans to augment its DCEU films with a slate of unrelated films, leaving the door open for an alternative approach to some of its cinematic properties.

Both of these possibilities open the door for a Batman/Catwoman romance. But could such a movie satisfy anybody other than Bruce/Selena “shippers?” The answer may be found in some of the greatest romcoms ever made.

One such sterling example is James L. Brooks’ 1997 As Good as it Gets, starring Tim Burton’s Joker, Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic author; Greg Kinnear as his gay neighbor, and Helen Hunt as the server who falls for the much older author.

Brooks hit some serious notes in the Oscar-winning comedy. Kinnear’s Simon Bishop was gay-bashed; Nicholson’s Melvin Udall had to overcome crippling OCD, and his own racism and homophobia, to become capable of loving and being loved; Hunt’s Carol Connelly had to balance her job and her romantic life with the needs of her severely asthmatic son. These personal tragedies are mined for comedy. The laughs are earned precisely because these three characters’ lives are profoundly sad.

The same mechanisms are at play in Tom King’s current Batman run. We laugh because we know that underneath the silliness, Bruce and Selina are severely messed up. Pain is at the root of the best comedies. Laughter is cathartic because it allows us to face our own wounds.

Of course, the strongest argument for a Bat/Cat romcom is Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. The emotional core of the R-rated movie was the relationship between the Merc with a Mouth and his sex-worker girlfriend Vanessa. It’s a hyper-violent, foul-mouthed take on romance, but it is a love story, nevertheless.

But Deadpool is a B-list character, at best. Can DC risk breaking from the superhero formula with one of its Big Three? Perhaps the real question is, can DC and Warner Bros. afford not to take the chance?

The Batman/Catwoman romcom is precisely the superhero movie we want because it can help us laugh at our own pain. It may never happen, but wouldn't it be great see a DC movie that breaks the mold?