J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman Quit ‘Batwoman’

[frigidmagi]

Craveonline

Once again, it seems DC's editorial meddling has driven away some of their best talent. On Wednesday evening, J.H. Williams III, the jaw-droppingly good artist and writer on Batwoman alongside co-writer W. Haden Blackman, has announced they are leaving the title as of issue #26, citing last-minute editorial edicts torpedoing months of careful story planning.

"From the moment DC asked us to write Batwoman — a dream project for both of us — we were committed to the unofficial tagline “No Status Quo.” We felt that the series and characters should always be moving forward, to keep changing and evolving," Williams said on his blog. "In order to live up to our mantra and ensure that each arc took Batwoman in new directions, we carefully planned plotlines and story beats for at least the first five arcs well before we ever wrote a single issue. We’ve been executing on that plan ever since, making changes whenever we’ve come up with a better idea, but in general remaining consistent to our core vision.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end."

"We’ve always understood that, as much as we love the character, Batwoman ultimately belongs to DC," he noted. "However, the eleventh-hour nature of these changes left us frustrated and angry — because they prevent us from telling the best stories we can. So, after a lot of soul-searching, we’ve decided to leave the book after Issue 26."

This is very saddening, because Williams is absolutely amazing with his artwork, and the team's approach made for some very bold and interesting story choices. Williams will still be working on the new Sandman stuff with Neil Gaiman, but his Batwoman will be sorely missed. One hopes that DC can eventually figure out a way to hammer out their editorial shenanigans and keep their creators happy, though, so we don't lose talent like this on books we love. Of course, eventually, that won't be a problem if they run out of both of those things.

Good Lord, another one?

[Cynical Cat]

Yes, and Batwoman again since they already drove away Greg Rucka who did much of the early writing on the character. Throw this in with the Gail Simone shenanigans, and the Catwoman and Starfire idiocy and it appears that DC doesn't to have good female characters.

[Hotfoot]

What's that? DC can't do female characters justice? Well perhaps they should throw together a talent search to get people to draw Harley Quinn naked in a bathtub committing suicide.

Nah, DC wouldn't do that, that'd be way too far...

Oh, wait...

[Batman]

Maybe they're deliberately trying to lower the fanbase's expectations? 'Yeah, we can be that bad, and unless you want us to get even worse (and we can do that too) you better be willing to accept 'okay, this majorly sucks, but it could be a hell of a lot worse' as our new standard.'

[rhoenix]

Maybe they're deliberately trying to lower the fanbase's expectations? 'Yeah, we can be that bad, and unless you want us to get even worse (and we can do that too) you better be willing to accept 'okay, this majorly sucks, but it could be a hell of a lot worse' as our new standard.'

So DC is trying out the "lowered expectations" marketing approach? Should we start counting days until DC's intellectual property rights are sold off, one by one?

At this point, I'd be okay with knowing that Marvel would now be handling DC's superheroes. They could even welcome them in with a few marriage ceremonies, just for that extra touch of class.

[Batman]

At this point DC is either doing it on purpose for whatever reason or has completely lost touch with what made it one of the two biggest superhero comics companies in this world.
Marvel has hardly been immune to making stupid decisions (Civil War or them torpedoing Pete's marriage for example) but at this point it almost seems like DC is deliberately going out of their way to antagonize the existing fanbase.

As for Marvel taking over DC, given the undeniable and massive edge they have in live action movies (both quantity and quality) at least for that aspect of the DCU, I'd be surprised if they ended up doing worse than DC did.

[frigidmagi]

At this point, I'd be okay with knowing that Marvel would now be handling DC's superheroes. They could even welcome them in with a few marriage ceremonies, just for that extra touch of class.

You might want to ask Peter Parker how Marvel views marriage.

[rhoenix]

You might want to ask Peter Parker how Marvel views marriage.

...Yeah, Parker's not really the posterboy for happily-ever-after holy matrimony. Even so though, he's more the exception than the rule in Marvel, from what I understand.

[frigidmagi]

Dan Didio responses. "We hope the new team will bring more energy to the comic"

[frigidmagi]

Oh It gets better!