In a recent Variety article about recent TV subversions of superhero storytelling, journalist Joe Otterson exposed a curious detail about Batman's cunnilingus habits — or rather, lack thereof (emphasis added):
"Harley Quinn" is also unique among the current crop of comic content in that its main character and all of her closest allies are villains rather than heroes in the DC canon. That allows the show to do different things with the characters that heroes simply cannot do — at least according to DC.
"It's incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway," says [Justin] Halpern, [co-creator and executive producer of Harley Quinn on HBO Max]. "A perfect example of that is in this third season of 'Harley' [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, 'You can't do that. You absolutely cannot do that.' They're like, 'Heroes don't do that.' So, we said, 'Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers?' They were like, 'No, it's that we sell consumer toys for heroes. It's hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.'"
"Heroes don't do that." That being reciprocate oral sex on women. "It's hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone." Nevermind that Batman was engaged to Catwoman. Kids don't want action figures that perform oral sex on women!
This is certainly not the first time that fictional billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne's sex life has caused a stir here on Earth-Prime. In the original printing of 2018's Batman: Damned, artist Lee Bermejo added a lightly shadowed but highly detailed shot of Master Wayne's Bat-cock. The 2016 animated adaptation of The Killing Joke — the classic and classically controversial Alan Moore-penned story in which the Joker takes lewd photographs of Batgirl after shooting her in a spine and putting her in a wheelchair for several decades — also added a completely superfluous prologue in which Batman has sex with a young Batgirl aka Barbara Gordon aka the daughter of his pal Commissioner Gordon, and then proceeds to totally ghost her, thereby making the Joker's later assault even more insulting. Batman similarly enjoyed an impulsive tryst with Talia al Ghul, which resulted in a child born out of wedlock. Rather than allow the Caped Crusader to reckon with a reputation as a deadbeat dad, DC later retconned this story by insisting that oh, actually, Talia had just non-consensually stolen Batman's sperm in order to produce young Damian Wayne (which somehow makes it better, I guess? Cuz she's a villain?).
To be fair, this is also a game of telephone in which someone is relaying a story in summarized hyperbolic dialogue. Will we ever find out the truth about DC's official internal policy on Bat-cunnilingus? The world may never know.
How 'WandaVision,' 'The Umbrella Academy,' 'Harley Quinn' Subvert the Superhero Genre [Joe Otterson / Variety]
