NS: New York Times Article Spoils Batman #50

[history79]

"The answers to the questions are found in letters the couple have written to each other before their wedding day. Mr. Wayne’s correspondence reveals an acceptance of Ms. Kyle, who in her time has been a jewel thief, a villain, an antihero and a mob boss. “You’re not someone who can be figured out. Or solved. And never will be,” he declares. He also writes that he can be “more than a boy whose parents are dead,” that he can be “the man who loves you. Who will always try to love you better.”

Ms. Kyle’s letter lays out the truth as she sees it: “You’re still a child, Bruce. A hurt child.” Their happiness, she speculates, would kill Batman, who rescues everyone and turns pain into hope. “How can I do that,” she writes. “To save the world, heroes make sacrifices.”

In order to keep countless innocents safe, she concludes that she cannot marry Mr. Wayne. “My sacrifice is my life. It’s you.”

In the final moments of their story, the bride and groom end up at different locations in the early morning hours. In a silent page, Ms. Kyle sits on a rooftop, contemplating. She discards her veil and leaps toward the street. At the Finger Tower skyscraper, after an hour of waiting for his bride, Mr. Wayne realizes she is not coming. He throws off his tie and takes a similar leap, but in the opposite direction. Theirs is a story that is forever to be continued."

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/fashion/weddings/it-just-wasnt-meant-to-be-batman.html

Comments

[mesmiranda]

Okay seriously, why do comic creators hate marriage so fucking much?

a) Happily married people don't create ~drama~.

b) Character growth and development--major life changes that stick--erase the characters we all know and love, and more importantly, the characters that make us pots of money. Can't have that.

(Please note that I hate both these tropes with a hate that is everlasting.)

[lizard_of_aus]

Happily married people don't have these writers ever seen a sitcom in their lives!?

[icon_uk]

Except most (not all, but most) sitcoms seem based around families which are at best, to all intents and purposes, dysfunctional.

The "probably well-meaning, but slobbish, set in his ways and indolent husband" and the "why did someone this smart and good looking settle on THIS chump for a significant other, never mind enable half their crap for them" wife is a staple of too many sitcoms to list.

The only reason these couples are viewed as "happy" is narrative necessity and them repeating it, rather than any visible evidence.

[thezmage]

They probably watched Home Improvement, that also spent a long time building towards a marriage that never happened

[alicemacher]

c) Publishers continue to stereotype their readers as pathetic, creepy losers who want to have a relationship but never will, and who would resent characters getting into a happy, committed relationship before they do.