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10 Things We Can Tell You About Batman #50 – The Batwedding Issue

Published Sun, 01 Jul 2018 07:45:24 -0500

Last updated Sun, 01 Jul 2018 07:45:49 -0500

That's right, I'm doing another listicle. But unlike other lists on other websites (or even on this one), you will not have heard any of these anywhere else before. Okay, okay, aside from on Bleeding Cool. And I'm doing it all on one page as well.

Okay, so by hook or by crook, I've read Wednesday's Batman #50 by Tom King and… well… everyone. Here are 10 things I learned, with possibly minor spoilers, but keeping the big ones safe. For now. It all gets released on midnight Tuesday night (BTW spoilerphobes, midnight in Forbidden Planet in London is 4 p.m. on Tuesday in Los Angeles, so watch out for people acting without sufficient spoiler warning).

There are some minor spoilers below. But, I hope, only those that intrigue and tease rather give it all away, But know that going in…

The comic takes a number of previous Tom King storylines on Batman and classic Batman storylines and integrates them together into the same world as we get another run through the relationship of the Bat and the Cat. But of all the storylines, the one I was amused to see at the beginning was the Batman/Elmer Fudd story by King and Lee Weeks to get a reprise.
There are a lot of splash pages, and we ran the art credits for everyone earlier today. But the text is dense enough so that you don't flick through them and gives the whole thing an Eisner-like feel. These pages interspersing the Tom King and Mikel Janin sequential storylines allow the story to flick from above and below, the micro compared to the macro, the details contrasting with the big themes. And having the story length so that the space used never feels wasted.
This is a comic about monologues behaving like dialogue. Of competing narratives not even aware of the other. That they are symmetrical, yet opposed makes it the closest thing I've seen to a stage musical in comic book form, And not a word is sung.
More than ever before (and yes, I know they do this a lot) but every location, every road mentioned is a reference to a classic Batman creator. Even the bloody bedrooms in Wayne Manor. Marv Wolfman even gets a character named after him. I mean, probably not in a flattering way, this is Gotham after all, but still.
Unlike mutant weddings, there are fist fights. Just like normal weddings too.
You'll discover when Catwoman first knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman — and who she shared that particular slice of information with.
They talk about eyes quite a lot. No really, quite a lot.
The venue is perfect. Couldn't be better.
The Joker only makes it in the background of a panel. Sorry, folks. And don't expect any clarity about what actually happened at the end of the last issue.
And the ending. Yes, the ending. It will make sense to those who have followed the Tom King storyline for the last two years. Those who have not, including the casual audiences attracted by the Batwedding publicity may be baffled. But it's not for them, it's for us. It seems to come from nowhere but has been intricately planned. But some people are going to hate the implications…