Tom King calls the upcoming maxiseries Batman/Catwoman the "culmination" of his two-year run on DC's Batman title, but also the "beginning" of something he hopes "breaks a barrier" inside DC.
"This is the end I always wanted to write for Batman and Catwoman: The culmination of not only what we did leading up to the wedding and afterwards, but of 80 years and counting of this relationship between hero and a criminal," King said in a DC Connect #5 interview.
"But it's also the beginning of something; it's a standalone series, which is much more ambitious than anything I tried in Batman - my attempt to tell one story that says everything I have to say about these characters and how they affect each other and us."
This is but the latest in a series of ambitious standalone 12-issue series King has done for DC, following Omega Men, Mister Miracle, and the current Strange Adventures. In Batman/Catwoman, he's dealing with romance - but also multiple timelines.
"For people who have read my [Batman run], the basic premise here is we have three timelines that take off from Batman Annual #2 (the first and last kiss issue)," King explains. "We see Batman and Catwoman at the beginning of their relationship after that first kiss, we see them now, and we see the end, after that last kiss. That allows for us to see her evolution - how Catwoman went from being a rogue to a partner, and what that transition cost her."
Now, Catwoman has gone from rogue to partner, and even wife and mother of Batman's children… but those changes were subsequently sidelined or retconned by DC. But now with Batman/Catwoman, King is attempting to "break that barrier" and give genuine "growth" to Batman and Catwoman's relationship.
"In comics the one thing we don't have a lot of is growth. we're sort of stuck in the one story," King says. "In Batman/Catwoman we try to break that barrier, and give you a history and a moment you haven't seen before."
James Tynion IV, who took over DC's Batman title after King, previously told Newsarama that Batman/Catwoman was "sort of moving outside the bounds of continuity, as far as I understand..."
Batman/Catwoman #1 (of 12) goes on sale on December 1.
Check out our growing list of the new Batman comics coming later this year and into 2021.
