Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about how Catwoman decided not to go through with her wedding to the Dark Knight well before Batman #50 saw release. Even so, there’s one huge detail that’d been left out of reports prior to the book hitting shelves.
But before we dive headlong into that, let’s look over what got us there, shall we?
By now, it’s been established that Selina Kyle backed out of the ceremony as to not give Bruce Wayne a happy ending, thus leading to the spiritual demise of Batman, but the situation is much deeper than that if you look closer. You see, throughout issue #50, the Cat’s close friend, Holly Robinson, kept asking her simple questions regarding whether she felt happy and if she viewed herself as being a hero.
Innocuous as it all seemed, it gave way to Selina reflecting on her place as a hero, thereby forcing her to conclude she’d have to make the sacrifice of jilting Bruce in order to preserve Batman. Suffice it to say, the person who tasked Holly with playing these head games was revealed on the final page.
As you can see, Holly kneels before her master, Bane, who’s no doubt a sore loser after his latest defeat at the hands of the Caped Crusader. This time, instead of breaking the Bat physically, he’s attacking him psychologically and emotionally. And if that weren’t enough, he’s somehow managed to unite a group of criminals that normally wouldn’t get along such as Joker, Riddler, Psycho-Pirate, the Ventriloquist and Hugo Strange. But most surprising of all were the final two rounding out the group: Gotham Girl and…Flashpoint Batman?!
Yeah, that last one is confusing me to no end as well. At first, I was wondering if someone made a coloring mistake, but that really does look like Thomas Wayne. Last we saw of him, he actually fought alongside his son during the events of The Button, so what made him switch sides? And what brought him to this timeline? Boy, does Tom King have a lot of tricks up his sleeve – and explaining to do.
Batman #50 is now available in comic shops. For more, be sure to check out our review.
