[The following contains massive spoilers for Batman and Catwoman’s wedding from Tom King and Mikel Janin’s Batman #50. Turn back now if you’d rather wait for the issue to come out on July 4.]
Current Batman writer Tom King has spent virtually his entire run on the book so far leading up to Batman and Catwoman getting married. An early issue featured a legitimately touching scene where the two said “I love you,” and after Bruce Wayne formally proposed to Selina Kyle (using a diamond she tried to steal the first time they met), there was a fantastic two-parter where he decided to celebrate the engagement by going on a double-date with Superman and Lois Lane—an openly wacky event that is one of the most entertaining adventures in the history of DC’s super friends.
There were issues where Batman and Catwoman had to face off against Talia al Ghul (the mother of Batman’s son and an infamous supervillain), issues where Catwoman bonded with the Bat-family, and a Joker story where he questioned why he wasn’t the best man and tried to kill Catwoman for trying to make Batman happy. The wedding itself is set for Batman #50, in stores on July 4, and DC has been promoting it in the comics with faux-invites and countless special covers.
Today, The New York Times has spoiled the whole thing, and it turns out that the resolution to this arc is going to be frustratingly familiar to comic book fans. According to the Times story, Selina spends her big day reflecting on whether or not she’s making the right choice by marrying Bruce, and in the end she decides that she’s not. She decides that happiness will mean the end of Batman, and the good that Batman does for Gotham City is more important than either of them, so she doesn’t go through with it.
The New York Times says the story ends with the two of them leaping off of different buildings, as they often do, with Selina throwing off her veil and Bruce throwing off his tie after waiting an hour and realizing she’s not coming. Their adventures, and the comic books about them, will continue on as they have since the ‘40s.
This all seems very reminiscent of the failed wedding between Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer from back in 2013, when DC’s sudden refusal to allow for a high-profile marriage between two women resulted in J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman abandoning the series. There’s no reason to believe that this isn’t how King envisioned the arc playing out from the beginning, but for a Batman run that was defined by the way it was evolving the decades-long relationship between Bruce and Selina, this seems like a far-too-predictable way to get back to the superhero status quo. Granted, this is just going off of the Times’ article, so there’s probably some nuance being left out, but nobody likes seeing a wedding go off the rails—especially one that ultimately seems to be implying that the Joker was right about something.