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Tom King may have finished his run on Batman, but he’s not done with the character by a long shot, as the writer teased on Twitter today. King tweeted a loving image of Catwoman and Batman embracing on a Gotham City gargoyle, but there’s just one thing: Catwoman is, uh, super pregnant.
All signs point to this image being art either from King’s upcoming series Batman/Catwoman, billed as the final cap on his Batman story — or from King’s story in the upcoming Catwoman 80th anniversary special. In King’s 85-issue run on Batman, drawn by many artists, Batman and Catwoman nearly got married, and eventually resolved to stay together without a formal commitment.
— Tom King (@TomKingTK) February 19, 2020
While Clay Mann (Heroes in Crisis, Batman) is the main artist on Batman/Catwoman, the art in this tweet doesn’t appear to be in his style, and looks closer to the work of one of King’s other long-time collaborators, Mikel Janin (Batman, Grayson). Janin is also contributing to Catwoman’s 80th anniversary issue — so perhaps he and King are contributing together?
Back in 2018, when all the Batman comics were ramping up for Batman and Catwoman’s cancelled wedding, Selina didn’t seem gung ho to reproduce with Bruce, as she explained to her step-son-to-be, Damian Wayne.
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On the other hand, she and Bruce both went through a lot of growth and soul searching in the 35 issues after their non-wedding — she could very well have changed her mind. It wouldn’t be the first time Batman and Catwoman had a baby, either. The Huntress, lately introduced to cinema audiences in Birds of Prey, was originally the vigilante daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle of Earth-2, complete with a high-pointed mask that gave her the same silhouette as her bat-dad.
It also wouldn’t be the first time King has put a superhero couple in a famliy way: Mister Miracle and Big Barda welcomed their baby, Jack, in King and Mitch Gerads’ Mister Miracle.
On the other other hand, Tom King loves his dream sequences and his alternate universe Batman stories, so maybe this panel is all a ploy. The only thing we can say with reasonable surety at this point is that King and Janin will be exploring what it would be like if Batman and Catwoman had a baby in an upcoming comic.
And also that Selina’s costume has a lot more give to it than it looks.
