Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Harley Quinn season 3.Batman's apparent inability to love Catwoman in a certain way has become the butt of many a joke and knowing reference in Harley Quinn season 3. There is a fitting irony in this, as the hullaballoo over the one joke that DC Comics refused to allow Harley Quinn to make has led to a greater controversy over the censorship involved. It has also led to far more jokes about Batman and Catwoman's troubled love life than there ever would have been had simply DC Comics allowed the original joke to be made.
The scandal first started in June 2021, when Harley Quinn executive producer Justin Halpern revealed that DC Comics had refused to allow a scene where Batman gave oral sex to Catwoman, saying that "Heroes don't do that." When Halpern asked for clarification and if it was DC Comics position that heroes were all selfish lovers, he was informed that "we sell consumer toys for heroes. It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone." The fact that Harley Quinn is an animated series aimed at adults not intended to sell action figures was apparently irrelevant.
Halpern's revelation led to a social media firestorm. Director Zack Snyder, filmmaker Kevin Smith and actor Val Kilmer all weighed in on the controversy, confirming that their versions of Batman definitely gave as good as they got. Multiple artists took it upon themselves to depict the more intimate moments of Batman and Catwoman's relationship. This led to the official Harley Quinn animated series tie-in comic, The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour, having Catwoman complain that Bruce Wayne was "not a fan of cats" to a sympathetic Harley and Ivy.
How Harley Quinn Keeps Calling Back To DC's Limit
Harley Quinn season 3 took the gag from the comics and ran with it, making repeated references to Batman's apparent failure to satisfy Selena Kyle. The scene where Batman was meant to perform on Catwoman in Harley Quinn season 3, episode 3 was replaced with one where he administered a terrible foot rub, but the dialogue made it clear what was meant to be happening. Catwoman also made a disparaging remark about Bruce Wayne's obsession with "clean eating" in Harley Quinn season 3, episode 7, which seemed at odds with an earlier episode confirming that, in defiance of several memes, Batman did eat nachos and had turned to the messy cheese and chips dish as a comfort food in times of stress.
This is not the first time that DC Comics has put their foot down regarding references to certain sex acts. Writer Neil Gaiman, whose series The Sandman enjoyed a masterful adaptation at Netflix, was told to remove a reference to masturbation from one of his The Sandman scripts and informed that "There's no masturbation in the DC Universe." Ever the wit, Gaiman quipped that it "explains a lot about the DC Universe.” It might also explain a lot about the universe of Harley Quinn and some of the frustrated characters making up its sizable cast of characters.