SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Batman #50 by Tom King, Mikel Janín, June Chung, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Trish Mulvihill, Becky Cloonan, Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson, Frank Miller, Alex Sinclair, Lee Bermejo, Neal Adams, Hi-Fi, Tony S. Daniel, Tomeu Morey, Amanda Conner, Paul Mounts, Rafael Albuquerque, Andy Kubert, Tom Sale, Jose Villarrubia, Paul Pope, Mitch Gerads, Clay Mann, Jordie Bellaire, Ty Templeton, Keiren Smith, Joëlle Jones, David Finch, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Greg Capullo, FCO Plascencia, Lee Weeks and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.


So, DC Comics spoiled Batman #50 last weekend, and that understandably sucks. It’s a problem the comic industry has had for at least as long as I’ve been reading comics; I remember reading about Captain America’s death post-Civil War in the free UK newspaper The Metro, a day before the comic hit the shelves. Whether it’s the death of a fan-favorite character, the return of another, or the will they/won’t they of a wedding, superhero comic publishers like to take the chance for a bit of a mainstream news bump by spoiling the events of the comic early with the intention of maybe getting a few more people to pick up a copy of the landmark issue.

Only this time, there seemed to be more backlash than usual. Perhaps it’s because two weeks before DC allowed The New York Times to spoil the Batman/Catwoman wedding, Marvel allowed the same outlet to spoil the Kitty Pryde/Colossus wedding in X-Men Gold #30.

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Understandably, fans don’t want to feel like they’ve had their time wasted, and many do feel like DC has done just that, not just with the reveal of the spoiler, but with the events of the spoiler itself. What was the point of a year’s worth of Batman stories leading to his wedding to Catwoman if it wasn’t going to happen in the end? Why should people read the issue if DC feels comfortable spoiling it ahead of time? And perhaps the biggest question posed by a spoiler like this, why should we ever trust DC again?

Spoilsports

DC messed up by revealing the events of Batman #50 ahead of time, but it doesn’t ruin the issue itself. It's one of Tom King’s best in his two years of writing the character’s titular ongoing, a title with such strong sales that it’s known to be an industry benchmark that all other comics are compared to. There’s few bigger gigs in superhero comic writing than the eponymous Batman ongoing comic, and it’s important to remember that keyword: Ongoing. As in, the story isn’t over. You can be mad at DC for spoiling the events of a single issue all you want, but to be mad that Batman and Catwoman didn’t get married misses the point of the story King has been telling since he took over the title.

Batman Catwoman Wedding Mark Brooks

The core of Tom King’s run has been based around almost a mid-life crisis for Bruce Wayne. Bruce has been Batman since he was eight years old. As soon as those bullets ripped his parents away from him, he became Batman; what that means is, Batman is a child’s understanding of how to cope with such a devastating loss. When faced with the death of his parents, Bruce decided he was going to dedicate his life to attempting to make sure it never happened to anyone again. We talk about superheroes as people who fight crime, but Batman is different -- Batman’s goal isn’t just to fight crime but to fight Crime, and his mission won’t ever truly be complete until the very concept is eradicated.

RELATED: The Shocking Last Page Of Batman #50, Explained

To that end, Bruce Wayne has been generally quite miserable for the last twenty-five years of his life. Recently, however, he’s been wondering if he can be happy instead. More, can he be happy and be Batman at the same time? He was already facing this existential crisis when he met his father from the alternate Flashpoint timeline, a man who urged his son to give up being Batman and find a way to be happy. In an effort to find a balance between the two, Bruce proposed to Selina Kyle, hoping to find some semblance of happiness in the arms of the only woman who has ever truly understood him.

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Wait and See

Bruce’s rush to propose is the entire problem, though, and that’s why Selina was right to cancel the wedding. Her stated motivation for giving up happiness with Bruce was so the world could still have him as Batman. Their engagement was built on Bruce’s fears and insecurities about his own happiness, and instead of taking some time to deal with his many, many psychological issues, he rushed out and proposed to Catwoman.

Again, that’s a child’s understanding of the hero’s story; it ends with the hero getting the girl and living happily ever after. It’s understandable that fans want Batman to be happy, but this story was always heading to this point. And more importantly, we’re only at the halfway point.

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Now you may be saying “Isn’t a little hypocritical to give Batman the benefit of the doubt and the wait-and-see approach when you argued against Marvel’s pleas for readers to give Secret Empire a chance to tell its story?” To this I’d say, “You’re just a strawman I’ve created within the confines of this article, and also yes, it is a little hypocritical."

However, the difference between the backlash over Batman not marrying Catwoman and Steve Rogers joining Hydra is that King and company aren't playing with politically sensitive imagery or completely upending the apple cart to tell this story. Everything about King’s story follows a natural through line. If in Batman #51 he picks up a gun and starts killing criminals, then yeah, I’m less likely to give it the benefit of the doubt going forward.

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Batman Beyond

It’s okay to be annoyed at DC for spoiling the comic ahead of release, but did the publisher ruin Batman #50 by doing so? Did it ruin the touching father-son moments between Alfred and Bruce, or the two-page back-and-forth Batman and Catwoman fight with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, or the shocking last page which sets up the next fifty issues of this run?

I don’t think it did. Batman #50 is a landmark issue for the character not just in terms of it being a big round number halfway to 100, but in the maturity and reverence it pays to its lead while rewarding fans for paying attention over the last two years of double-shipped books.

RELATED: Batman/Catwoman Fan Reaction Proves the Time Is Right for a Married Dark Knight

You might look at Tom King’s Batman run and say “Well it’s all downhill from here,” but think about it like a rollercoaster. The first forty-nine issues were the slow climb to the highest peak and Batman #50 was that brief pause at the top. The next fifty issues are poised to be the adrenaline-fueled rush to the finish, and that’s always the best part.

Batman #50 is a tipping point in the lives of both Batman and Catwoman — who is more popular than she’s been in a long time, and has her own ongoing again for the first time in two years, although that’s probably a whole other article in itself — and I for one can’t wait for the next fifty issues.

KEEP READING: Catwoman #1 Sees Selina Kyle Slip Into a New Costume for an Important Reason