10 Reasons Why The New 52 Was Doomed To Fail

5. Editorial Interference

Batwoman Marriage
DC Comics

DC editorial was utterly dreadful during this period. Terrible, even.

In fact, we can directly attribute various writing and artistic departures to shoddy editorial practice, including George Perez, Gail Simone, Andy Diggle and, most notoriously, J. H. Williams III and Haden Blackman, who had been working on Batwoman for the better half of a year when they resigned.

The reason for the resignation lay in the fact that DC wouldn't let the writer/artist duo proceed with a storyline that would see title character Kate Kane marry long-term love interest, Maggie Sawyer. Numerous other instances of editorial interference ensured that Blackman and Williams would depart the project, but this particular offence certainly hurt the most.

In a particularly brilliant 'f*ck you' to the move, Rocksteady included an easter egg in Arkham Knight that showed that the pair had most definitely married in their universe, which is as brilliant a reply as any, really.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.