Warning: contains spoilers for Batman/Catwoman #4!
DC Comics' Catwoman just accused Batman from taking sexual pleasure in assaulting criminals, and specifically from the power he exercises against those he targets in his crime-fighting adventures. While Bruce and Selina recently entered into a committed relationship, there were a lot of bumps in the road, including Catwoman ditching Batman at the altar and a pseudo-honeymoon during which Bruce's father figure, Alfred Pennyworth, was murdered by one of his villains.
The accusation comes in Tom King and Clay Mann's Batman/Catwoman #4, a series which continues King's mainstream-continuity Batman run in a potential future where Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle's relationship lasts into their old age, with Catwoman beginning a brutal revenge campaign against Batman's villains once the Dark Knight finally dies. Chronicling three different time periods in Batman and Catwoman's relationship, this series and its predecessor have focused on how Batman's unshakable commitment to his war on crime stands in the way of him truly committing to Selina.
In Batman/Catwoman #4, Catwoman admits to Batman that she knows Joker has placed a bomb under Gotham ice rink. Previously, Selina had been hiding the extent of her relationship with the Joker, knowing Batman would disapprove of her ongoing criminality. After Batman deals with the bomb at the ice rink, he returns to Catwoman and demands to know Joker's location, now treating her not as a lover, but as another costumed criminal to be intimidated into compliance. Catwoman responds, "You need to know where he is? Come and get me and beat me and hang me and threaten me. Scare me to death and tell me how low I am and how high you are. Like you do to all your other lovers."
It's not the first time DC Comics has implied there's a sexual element to Batman's crusade. Jud Winick and Guillem March's Catwoman #1 famously includes a scene in which Batman attempts to take Catwoman in for her crimes but is instead seduced - something Selina says happens often, and in which she asserts the costumes play a part. Likewise, Tom King's earlier work on Batman implied sexual elements to some of his villains, specifically to the Penguin's avian obsession, and his larger Batman saga positions Joker as a symbol of Batman's compulsive need to fight crime and Catwoman's abiding desire to live outside the law, positioning him as an invisible third party in their relationship (even going so far as to hide him in the cover for the couple's wedding issue.)
DC's "Black Label" imprint allows creators to delve even further into adult topics - even if their attempts are sometimes retroactively censored - and this issue sees King take an idea that's largely been subtext up to this point and have the characters address it directly. Tom King's Batman is not an engine of justice, but an unwell man who has channeled his trauma into helping others, and his humanity affects his judgment. In King and Lee Weeks' "Cold Days," Bruce's rage leads him to beat Mr. Freeze so badly that the villain confesses to a crime he didn't commit - an injustice Bruce Wayne then has to address by swaying the jury at his trial. In the same way, Catwoman points out that there's a sexual element to Batman's macho crusade that will always influence his behavior, whether he's aware of it or not.
While the idea of Batman as a sexual being is nothing new, and Batman/Catwoman has some salacious elements that seem more focused on titillation than storytelling, King's dissection of Batman's psyche remains a fascinating reading that's likely to influence the character's comics for years to come, as writers both run with and push back against this idea of Batman. In the meantime, Batman and Catwoman's legacy as a couple is still playing out in this series, as the pair's daughter - the new Batwoman - investigates her mother's role in the deaths of prominent Gotham villains, and inches closer to a dark truth with roots in these early days of Bruce and Selina's relationship.
