10 Biggest DC Comics Controversies
More character deaths, reboots and refigurings than you can shake a Bucky at.
DC has become the punching bag of the comic book world as of late, and not without good reason. The company has a long history - whether in pursuit of publicity or from complete stupidity - of making incredibly controversial decisions. There have been storylines that got fanboys' chins wagging in all the wrong ways, editorial decisions that live on in infamy, and more character deaths, reboots and refigurings than you can shake a Bucky at.
Not more than you can rank and order into an entertaining list, however. Delving into the company's murky history, both on and off the page, has brought up ten of the most controversial decisions that Detective Comics Comics (that is their actual name) have made during their over eighty years in the business. It so easily could have been 20. Or 30. Or 40...
10. Batwoman Can't Get Married
One of the most boneheaded editorial decrees Dan DiDio has passed down (so far) was his recent decision that Batwoman, one of DC's first openly gay characters - good! - couldn't get married to Maggie Sawyer, her long-time girlfriend - less good! When this editorial meddling came out, there was a lot of speculation on why DC was so intent on blocking the storyline. Naturally, people's first instinct was that DC was...maybe kinda homophobic? It turned out their reasoning was actually even more stupid than that.
Batwoman's marriage wasn't denied on grounds of her sexuality, no; it's because no DC superhero is allowed to be married. Apparently, heroes shouldn't have happy personal lives, because that would somehow make for a less dramatic story, because there are never any tensions or emotional stakes in marriage. The editors also said they wanted to keep the focus on the superheroics, rather than nuptials, but by that logic, no DC character should have any sort of relationships at all.
Regardless of the strange reasoning behind it, celebrated Batwoman co-writers J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman immediately left the book because of the scandal. A lot of that going around these days...