Batman, Catwoman, and the Marriage Plot in Comics

This article contains spoilers through Batman No. 50.

Standing up for truth, justice, and the American way is apparently hell on relationships.

Superheroes, comics tell readers, make sacrifices in the name of the mission. And often that means no time for love—that if you have attachments, they’ll only become targets for your enemies. Peter Parker’s first girlfriend famously got snatched up by the Green Goblin and wound up dead, a cautionary tale for anyone who puts on a mask and thinks they have time to date.

And yet, after nearly 80 years of largely unfulfilled workplace flirtation, Batman and Catwoman finally got engaged, with a wedding planned for the pages of No. 50. Up until now, their will-they-or-won’t-they relationship was based on an assumption at the core of comic books: A hero and a villain can’t be together, because they live on opposite sides of the law. But in drafting a wedding plot over the last year, the writer Tom King has upended tradition by trying to pursue