The highly-anticipated Batman #50 debuted today, revealing the fate of the Caped Crusader’s pending nuptials with Catwoman. With readers having now discovered how the ceremony unfolded, author Tom King revealed what fans can expect in the second half of his planned 100-issue run.
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WARNING: Spoilers below for Batman #50
The stage was set for Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne to finally tie the knot, up until she realized that giving him happiness would negate what motivated his superheroic nature. Batman regularly channeled his pain and guilt into a driving force, leading Catwoman to believe that, by finally giving him happiness, he could no longer be Batman, yet knew how desperately the world needed him.
King teased that readers will see Batman grapple with this pain and it won’t be a quick recovery.
“My job as a Batman writer is to show you something you’ve never seen before. A Batman who has been left at the altar, who was that close to happiness, and then to have it yanked away from him, that’s something you haven’t seen before,” the author shared with Entertainment Weekly. “The next bunch of issues are exploring that pain and exploring him trying to get back from that pain. That’s the emotional part of it. You’re gonna see the original Robin comes back, sort of like your best friend living on your couch when your girlfriend leaves you.”
Catwoman might have made the decision ultimately, though the final panels of the landmark issue confirmed that Bane had a hand in orchestrating the incident.
“The plot part of it is that it’s revealed at the end of the issue that this marriage and happiness that Batman had achieved was being manipulated by Bane, and it was all in some way a setup to break him,” King noted. “That’s going to play out over the next 50 issues. So we’re halfway through what I hope to be an epic story of the Batman’s heart being broken and perhaps rebuilt and perhaps broken again.”
King pointed out that his entire 100-issue run toys with the idea of Batman ever finding happiness and how the hero defines that. He has clearly suffered a romantic setback, yet there could still be hope for the Dark Knight.
“If you look back at the very first issue [of the run], it looks like Batman’s going to die and he asks Alfred, ‘Would my parents be proud of me?’ This sort of idea that he was living his life for his parents, for their pride, I liked to think that him finding happiness is him [learning] how to live his life for himself,” King recalled. “We’re halfway through that journey. It’s a long story, a long journey. It could have a happy ending or a sad ending. You’re halfway through the movie now. You’re in the middle of Empire Strikes Back and Vader just showed up and took Han’s gun.”
Batman #50 is available now.
Do you think Batman could ever find “happiness”? Would that prevent him from realizing his full potential as a superhero? Let us know in the comments below!
[H/T Entertainment Weekly]
