In the summer of 2018, the comics world was thrown into uproar as the New York Times spoiled the twist ending of Batman and Catwoman’s wedding three days before the issue hit stands. The twist, of course, was that they didn’t get married at all: Catwoman left him at the rooftop altar. But all was not lost! Writer Tom King had always described his infamous Batman #50 as the midpoint of his story — and in late June he and artist Clay Mann finally got Batman and Catwoman together to tie the knot in Batman/Catwoman #12.
Of course it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing from there to here. In 2019 King decided to wrap his run early and finish the story in a 12-issue miniseries, which wound up being delayed multiple times, including due to the COVID 19-related Diamond Comics shutdown, and slowly hitting shelves. But now we have finally seen how Batman and Catwoman tied the knot:
They did it Vegas-style, but instead of Elvis, the bored employee was impersonating Batman.
What else is happening in the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of the books that our comics editor enjoyed this past week. It’s part society pages of superhero lives, part reading recommendations, part “look at this cool art.” There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the last edition, read this.)
Image: Tom King, Clay Mann/DC Comics
Yes, according to King and Mann’s Batman/Catwoman #12, in Gotham City you can get married by a guy dressed as Batman, Vegas-style. And in a callback to one of the best issues of King’s run, also drawn by Clay Mann, Bruce asks Superman and Lois Lane to be their last minute witnesses, and the delighted couple arrives by super speed.
Is this canonical? Not in the strictest sense — Batman and Catwoman are not married in Chip Zdarsky’s new Batman run, which just kicked off. But in the extensive potential future history of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship, as seen in flash forwards throughout King’s Batman run, this is how the two Gotham City royals tied the knot.
Image: Chip Zdarsky/Image Comics
You may have heard that Substack did a big push into comics last year, handing creators a bucket of money in exchange for doing whatever they wanted with the platform, no intellectual property strings attached. Chip Zdarsky’s Public Domain, a family story about the intellectual property rights to a multi-billion dollar international film franchise based on a hokey superhero, is one of the first to be available physically after being first published through his Substack newsletter.
Image: Chip Zdarsky, Belén Ortega/DC Comics
OK, yes, yes, Chip Zdarsky also started his run of writing Batman this week and sure, a bunch of stuff with the Penguin and a new villain named Failsafe and Tim Drake happened. But more importantly Zdarsky and artist Belén Ortega created my new favorite DC Comics character ever, the Executor, an impervious robot lawyer who manages the wills and estates of supervillains. This is the best thing to ever happen.
Image: Andrew Wheeler, Travis Moore/Image Comics
Andrew Wheeler and Travis Moore’s new series is about the Black Flamingo, a sexy gay international cat-burglar of magical artifacts — seen here returning a golem to the descendants of that golem’s mortal lover — who definitely doesn’t have feelings for any one or anything and will definitely be forced to deal with that. I can’t wait to read more.
Image: Al Ewing, Juan Cabal, Andrés Genolet, Michael Sta. Maria/Marvel Comics
Just when you think that the writers in the X-Men bullpen have explored all the different ways mutants interact with death now that they don’t have to stay dead, Al Ewing — with beautiful acting from his collaborators — uses Otherworld’s scrambling effect on mutant resurrection to give a way to recycle themselves if they ever tire of endless immortality.
Image: Tom King, David Marquez/DC Comics
Reader, I’m furious. Tom King and David Marquez have been making a comic called Batman: Killing Time for five months now, telling a story about Catwoman and the Riddler trying to extricate themselves from a botched heist. It’s called “Killing Time.” It’s got a mysterious narrator who lays out every event in the comic, big or small, in specific timestamps and intervals. And yet somehow, I did not see the retrospectively obvious twist coming: The real villain is the motherfucking Clock King.
I’m so mad.
