Tom King’s continuity has taken on a life of its own in a similar way that Frank Miller’s continuity has over the past few decades. King has even stated that he now regards (or hopes others will regard) his stories as existing on their own timeline akin to how Miller’s Dark Knights Returns became the center of the author’s very own Miller-verse, which came to include all of his works, including the canonical “Year One.”
Like Miller, King started off in the realm of 100% canon—Miller began with Batman while King began with Grayson and then Batman. And like Miller, King ventured into murkier canon territory afterward—Miller wrote the Dark Knight Returns series and the All-Star Batman and Robin series while King wrote Batman/Catwoman (along with Strange Adventures, Mr. Miracle, and The Human Target). In the case of both writers, as stated, the works of each have garnered their own special timelines.
And it is with great pleasure that I present a special project—the King-verse chronology. Please check it out at the following link:
https://mega.nz/folder/jSYSBDDS#iTZ3wLeU98ka-pwi3H7VNQ
And just to wet your whistle a bit more, I’ve re-edited the letters that Batman and Catwoman sent to each other during King’s canonical Batman run. These letters, which were chopped up and scattered throughout a few issues in random order, are of key importance to King’s entire timeline. Check out these images below.
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I began to read this compilation, which is quite interesting to see the progression of the relationship between batman and catwoman through the year, but i am wondering if Tom King really did referenced all of these stories ? I am thinking in particular about the brainwashing of Catwoman by Zatanna, is it canon to tom king stories ?
I can’t speak for Martin, but I think if King referenced it, then it is canon in the King-verse. And while it doesn’t have anything to do with Catwoman, I would also include all the Batman nods in King’s Black Label Human Target series, which references a lot of old Justice League International stuff.
Oh i see, i didn’t know that it was referenced in tom king’s batman, is it in the batman series or in the batman/catwoman ?
Maybe Sephcloud can chime in, but I know that Catwoman’s mind-wipe is not mentioned in King’s main-line Batman series. If it is mentioned, it must be in Bat/Cat, but I’m not 100% certain.
I didn’t read the Bat/cat yet, i do find surprising that it is still canon, because it seems like nobody remember this…
I mean, i find surprising that it is still mentioned because the way tom king wrote his batman/catwoman relation was very tweaked, for example the part with holly who is not really the same as in the modern age. I don’t even see why he would bother referencing this story which to be honest was quite useless… Maybe it’s in heroes in crisis ?? i did not read it.
As far as I know (having given it a cursory second look), Catwoman’s mind-wipe/brainwashing has not been mentioned or referenced by TK anywhere.
Thanks… But then i don’t understand Martin Lel’s Chronology haha
The mind wipes aren’t referenced. As the project took shape I understood King was doing the same thing as Morrison in regards to looking at all eras of Batman and treating them as a coherent whole, but where Morrison did it mostly with the silver age, King zeroed in on his relationship with Catwoman. Of course, King never advertised this fact and his re-canonizing of obscure pre Crisis Catwoman tales got lost in the flurry of the Rebirth-era “everything is canon, so nothing matters” discourse. Suffice to say, I think he deserves more credit. He looked at the way Bruce and Selina moved in and out of relationships and built a solid foundation for what could Selina’s psychology be like to act that way while maintaining a feline like metaphor, keeping her a stray cat.
This is all to say the first parts of the chronology include only the stories King referenced, but he only went up until Hush. As I realised the project had to be a bigger, more encompassing “Chronological Batman and Catwoman” to see the full canvas, I included the key stories between Hush and the start of King’s rebirth run. I admit this goes against my mission statement and people are free to skip those parts. King’s run begins with the Tim Sale letter pages full of text.
Thanks for all the precision, i was thinking it was really weird that all the stories with catwoman disappearing because she had a child were strange (and the mind wipe one also)… i am not really a fan of this types of stories, (and i can get why King would not referenced it) I don’t get why DC had to justify the evolution of the character of Catwoman with a mind wipe. Anyway thanks for your works.