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io9: I want to talk about Batman #50 a little bit. I’ve seen reports that it sold well, despite all the outcry. Do you feel like there’s anything you would have done differently about the messaging? Because people were expecting an actual wedding...

DiDio: I never expected an actual wedding.

Lee: But you knew what was going to happen!

io9: There was a sense of betrayal or bait-and-switch, on the part of some readers. How can you address that in a way that doesn’t necessarily make people feel like they’re taken for granted?

Lee: I can’t remember if they got married or not, but remember the Fantastic Four? The wedding of Reed and Sue Richards? I don’t know if they got married at the end of it, but—

DiDio: They did.

Lee: They did? Whenever I read wedding issues as a kid, it was always framed as a question of “will it happen or not?” Like, “villains allowing our heroes to live in happiness? Is that something that could possibly happen?” And that was some of the feedback we were getting from the fans before the issue even printed. Either “oh my god, it’s going to kill me if [Batman and Catwoman] don’t get married,” or “there’s no way it will happen.” So, I felt like other people shared that same “would it happen or not” sensibility. It’s like an issue [where] we say two characters are “fighting to the death,” right? You’re setting up this expectation, hyping up this story, and then the purpose of reading it is to find out what happens. Right?

I think we could have done a better job of parsing the words better. But, at the end of the day, we heard what the retailers said and we made the books returnable. Most of the commentary we got back from the retailers was, “we appreciate the support, we sold out.” We recognize that we can separate the two. We can separate the sales from the information that was given, and whether they felt like they were given all the information they needed to make the proper choices. It’s almost immaterial whether they sold out or not; I understand that’s where they’re coming from. From that standpoint, we’re happy to make the books returnable and do an internal review going forward. The questions are “how do we message things like this?” and “are there ways to make it clearer?”

I’ll tell you, I drew one of the variant covers and it’s Batman touching Catwoman in the rain. They’re clearly crying. It’s a sad image. And I even thought, “Oh my God, am I giving it away? Is it giving away too much?” I actually ran it by Tom and said, “Hey, do you think this is tipping our hand too much?” He was cool with it, but I felt for sure after that went out I was giving away the story. And so, again, it kind of shows you perhaps—for me, personally speaking—we had a blind spot towards what was written and what I expected out of a story like that, and I understand that people don’t share that same point of view…

DiDio: Yeah, I mean, I have a couple opinions on that. You asked about us taking the audience for granted; actually, if you want to be perfectly honest, I think the audience took the story for granted. For me, it’s about the journey. To explore the issues in the story.

We’re not as interested in a married Batman. We’re interested in a story about a Batman who is anticipating being married, trying to live a normal life. We constantly go back to the Batman family, the level of tragedy that’s been thrown at them and what drives them. The most interesting thing that I heard was that, [some fans] wanted the wedding to happen because they wanted Batman to be happy. I understand that but, to me, a happy Batman is the end of Batman. Our story is about the drama and the challenges he’s facing, and I think there’s no greater story about a hero—about someone who puts his own personal interests aside in order to move on and help others. That’s the hero’s journey. Batman’s our greatest hero in so many ways. And it’s important for him to understand that, and he’s constantly putting the tragedy of his parents’ deaths as a motivating force and a driving force, where he puts the life of Bruce Wayne aside. We got a glimpse of his [future] life for a moment and a chance to see what it might look like.

But the reality is, married Batman is an Elseworlds Batman, to me. You know? They did that in Earth-2. We’ve done these stories. And people who anticipated that all said the same thing. Did you really think Superman was going to stay dead after Superman #75? Where’s the challenge there? So, my standpoint is that, I think that Tom has a really long plan for Batman, he really does have a hundred issues figured out. And this is just part of that journey. And it’s a turning point. That’s what’s important. And a story is judged, not by how that story is told, but how it effects future stories. And the future stories because of this moment I think are going to be much stronger because of how this issue played out rather than any other way it was going to be told.

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