The actual answer to Bruce's Proposal

The interview with King is found here. My thoughts on this.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Will we actually get to see him telling the rest of the Trinity about this engagement? 

I’ve never told anyone this before, but we pulled a little trick. In comic books, they do something called the solicitations, which means we have to release the title of our next arc months before they come out, and we lied. We told everyone the next arc is “A Dream of Me.” The next arc is actually called “The Rules of Engagement,” and it’s about Batman going back to his family, going back to Dick Grayson, the original Robin, Damian, his biological son, Superman, [and] Green Lantern. It’s him going back into his comfort zone and them reacting to this, because the honest reaction is, people are going to look at Batman proposing to Catwoman as something insane. They’re not going to understand it. As crazy as it is to the audience, it’s even crazier to the people in the fictional world. So, that’s going to cause both tension and happiness throughout DC comic books, and that’s what we’re going to record in our next books.


A while ago someone on tumblr that claimed to be in the know said Selina would say yes and that there would be a bunch of tie ins. I'm still not sure how much of that is true. Did King just trick people or does he mean "we" as the bat family writers? Because I'd rather have other writers handle other characters reacting than King. Sure I don't want arcs to be interrupted but at least I could trust some of the other writers to get the characters right. Kings' characterizations have been off, his writing is usually stiff and unnatural and his execution leaves a lot to be desired. I'd love to have Selina and Bruce get married but I don't think he's the right writer to do it. I'm also not sure if DC would go through with the marriage.

As for the characters thinking it's crazy...which ones? Most of the extended family in DET ? Sure. Barbara could potentially blow up over it but since she's acted like a new character since the relaunch who knows for sure. Duke ? Has he even met her? Is Tim back yet? Alfred and Dick are usually pro-Selina but I could see them being shocked. Jason only really objected to her pre-crisis when he wanted both his adopted parents (Bruce and Nocturna) together. I don't think he'd object to her but I'm already dreading how King will write it.

The only one in the family that would really raise hell would be Damian. They might think it's crazy due to her currently being a wanted criminal and not being able to stay in a committed relationship in the past. It depends on how it's done and I don't trust King to do it well.



So, does that mean we’ll still get Batman on a horse? 

Yeah, it’s going to be Batman on a horse. His first mission is: If you’ve been following the Batman mythos, Catwoman’s wanted for 237 murders, and she’s covering for her best friend Holly Robinson, who actually did the murders. Holly Robinson is now on the run, so now we’re going to try and find her and try to sort the whole thing out. They run into Talia al Ghul. So the next issue is Batman going on a quest and running into the mother of his child, who is not his fiancé.


That Holly thing felt like it was just forced in. I admit I didn't read the whole thing but has Holly ever struck anyone as someone with anger issues that would snap like this? I always saw Selina as the angrier of the two. At least it's finally getting resolved. Hopefully Talia won't go the Morrison way after hearing about the engagement.



The other big development in this issue is that Joker stopped Batman from killing the Riddler. What made that an interesting addition to the character’s backstory? 

I think it would’ve been an easier story to write where Batman tries to kill someone — that’s weird — but the fact that Batman tried to kill someone and the Joker saved him, I think that’s what I like about it. This is a story that happened to him when he was young, when he didn’t understand the job as much, so he was in a different emotional place than he is now. To me, to have that concession in your heart to have hidden that for all these years, “I pretend I’m better than these people, but I’m not. At the end of the day, I did something as bad as they did, and the only reason I didn’t succeed is because the worst human that has ever occupied this Earth, the worst person anyone has ever imagined in fiction, stopped me. I owe my goodness to his evil. He stopped me to make himself laugh.” 

That sets up a Batman I want to read. That sets up a Batman whose pain comes from guilt, not just from inaction. I think a lot of us, when we think about the worst parts of our life, we think about ourselves being involved in them. It’s not just the pain that was done to us but [also] the pain we caused ourselves. In looking at Batman and making him more human and raising the stakes of the series, I wanted to bring out that guilt.


Many others have tried to write Barman trying to kill someone. I could usually feel the raw emotion and I didn't with his pages. I'll admit having the Joker stop him is a neat twist but judging from the pages I read it wasn't earned. This story takes place around year zero when Bruce is younger and not as grim as he later becomes. I couldn't tell that and was surprises to hear it's the same time period. Others have written why this doesn't work better than I can. All I can say is what I said above.