In a letter posted to his website today, JH Williams III has announced that he and co-writer W. Haden Blackman have quit Batwoman due to editorial interference. He cites being blocked from telling several stories he wanted to tell as being the reason for leaving – most crucially that DC told him that he would not be allowed to show Batwoman’s wedding to her girlfriend.
Their last issue will be issue #26.
Blackman also has the statement on his website. In the statement, they write:
Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married.
All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end.
The claim about the gay wedding being shuttered is going to be a very controversial topic over the next few days, I would imagine. On twitter Williams has suggested DC were more worried about the word ‘wedding’ than about the word ‘gay’. The character has been openly gay since the start, and plans to wed her to her long-term partner Maggie Sawyer had been in place within the series for the last few months.
DC have had a fair-constant wave of creators leaving their titles over the last few years, many – like Rob Liefeld – citing editorial interference in their work. Batwoman was one of their more acclaimed series, however, and it’ll be interesting to see if DC continue the series onwards now neither of her original creative team are on the project, as Greg Rucka left DC for similar reasons just prior to the New 52 launching.
I asked if this will affect Williams’ imminent run on Sandman Overture for DC, and he offered this response:
You can follow the creators on Twitter – W. Haden Blackman and JH Williams III.
Source.