News: Batwoman's Marriage and Harley Quinn's Suicide, "The DC Twofer"

DC. Oh, DC. I like DC. I want DC to be so awesome, and when they're good, they're great! But on the other side of the coin...

Please stop doing things that make people angry at you, DC.

DC…  Dang it, I’ve been defending the New 52. I’ve been trying to convince people that your company is worth investing time and money in. Now, I've waited a few days to talk about this because I don't to fire off an angry overblown rant. I want to present the issues and analyze them as impartially as possible.

Here’s a full article.
Here’s the summary:
•    Batwoman is gay.
•    She has a girlfriend.
•    They want to get married.
•    DC editorial is fine with every aspect of this union, except portraying the marriage on panel.

It’s not like DC has backed off on the other aspects of lesbianism. Here’s a page from their miniseries 52.

So, the aftermath of gay sex is okay to show on panel, but a marriage between two loving people of the same gender isn’t?

So… lesbian marriage is fine... as long as people don’t see it? I’m pretty sure the Pro-Gay Marriage and Anti-Gay Marriage groups are going to both disagree. Actually, that’s an interesting way to "resolve" the issue: Make both sides angry at you.

I just wish that I had more insight into their reasoning. DC has always tried to be fairly progressive; I mean, look back at the 52 page up there. Do they not want kids to see gay marriage for fear of backlash from homophobic parents?

But you said you don't publish comics for kids.

Only time will tell if the backlash makes them change their mind, but… let’s change the subject.

Here’s story number two. 

To summarize: 
"Hey, wanna get your art in a comic?  Draw Harley Quinn’s failed sequence of cartoonish suicide attempts, culminating with her trying to off herself in the bath."

So, what the internet has taken note of is that we get a final panel where a naked woman tries to commit suicide.

The problem is that the sequence is meant to be comedic, and written on paper (and possibly even if drawn by Paul Dini) it can be. The problem comes when the scene is visualized. Harley Quinn can be a goofy, cartoony character who can be used to do the dark humor, but at the same time, DC as a whole is getting more realistic, so a 1940s-Looney-Tunes-eqsue attempted suicide just feels… uncomfortable.

To compound that, National Suicide Prevention Week is NEXT WEEK.

“Our bad” isn’t going to cover this, DC.

Look…  I really don’t know what to tell you, internet. There’s nothing I can say about these stories, other than different ways of verbalizing, “Why did you think this would be a good idea?”