Not too long ago, during Tom King’s run of DC’s Batman comics, a story was put into place that set up Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle finally getting married. However, when their wedding day arrived in issue 50, they ended up not tying the knot. After all the set up, comic readers everywhere were rather upset to not get the payoff that they wanted or the characters deserved. Needless to say, with one of the best love interests in comics, they should have actually gotten married. 

It seems as though King or whomever else makes the big decisions with DC’s characters want to keep Batman sad, angry, and brooding. Perhaps they were afraid they would make less money on the title if he was anything but that. It’s what he’s become known for, after all. That being said, it still may have been the wrong move, at least for that story. 

Writers for comics books, TV showas, movie series, and any other ongoing stories need to realize that it’s okay to let characters grow, develop, and be happy. Yes, characters need to experience conflicts and obstacles in order for an interesting story to exist, but they can still face new obstacles after experiencing a positive change. Batman and Catwoman could have had a happy and loving marriage, but they’d still need to take on supervillains like Ra’s Al Ghul, Joker, and Clayface. They’d still be living through all the crime and darkness in Gotham. Them being married doesn’t stop the fact they need to fight crime and protect citizens from extreme danger. 

If anything, Bruce and Selina being a married couple could lead to stories that they haven’t done before, and after eight Batman-filled decades, new stories aren’t exactly a bad thing. Conflicting ideas as to how to stop a certain baddie, Catwoman worrying for Batman while he’s up in space fighting Darkseid with the Justice League while she’s stuck in Gotham taking on Two-Face, and Selina growing into a motherly role for Damien or the other members of the Bat Family could all lead to genuinely interesting stories. Unfortunately, they decided to play it safe and regress into giving readers more of what they’ve already experienced. 

Even if they wanted to have Batman go back to being a darker, more depressed character, they could always just do that with the next story. There are infinite stories for comic book superheroes. Every couple years, they introduce entirely new stories for them to keep the titles going. They could have had this one where Batman was happily married. There is even an alternate universe in the comics that features them as married. In that universe, they are extremely happy with each other and have a daughter named Helena who is that universe’s Robin. That universe is a glimpse at the exciting stories we could have gotten if they just let these two actually get married. 

Selina’s reason for not marrying Bruce is honestly kind of dumb. She states that Batman needs darkness in order to thrive. That’s not necessarily true, though. He uses that darkness to fuel his vigilante career at first. He becomes Batman for vengeance. Over time, he learns to fight crime and protect others because it’s the right thing to do. We see that he can love. He has his Bat Family, and he’s become close friends with Superman and the rest of the Justice League. Once he let’s others get close to him, it’s those he cares about that give him strength. He thrives because of the Bat Family and because of the League. 

There was a lot of build-up to that wedding. There’s an emotional father-son moment between Alfred and Bruce, and Bruce asks Clark to be his best man (which Dick was very understanding of). To have such little pay off where everything just ended up where they started is massively disappointing. They should have absolutely been married, at least for that one story. Hopefully we one day see more of that one universe where they are married and their daughter is Robin.