With Valentine’s Day around the corner and all the schmaltzy faux-romantic mood in the air, I guess this is the time to have a look at half a dozen times when Bruce Wayne said goodbye to the women in his life (and vice versa).
In Detective Comics #49, actress Julie Madison becomes a movie star, so naturally she changes her name and breaks off their engagement. Bruce, smoking a pipe, is completely debonair about it:
Julie clearly looks disappointed by so much nonchalance (especially in that fish-eye lens panel).
But it’s not as if Batman is completely heartless… When socialite Silver St. Cloud breaks up with him, in Detective Comics #476, the Dark Knight is almost speechless:
Great timing, Commissioner Gordon!
Poor Bruce Wayne, he keeps getting dumped… That said, with social activist Rachel Caspian, I’m not sure what he was expecting. In Detective Comics #578, he just saw her father fall off a building after a murdering spree as the villain Reaper, yet somehow Bruce still thinks that will not affect their immediate plans:
On the plus side, we get a huge Todd McFarlane bat-shadow, which is nice.
Batman and the world-conquering villainess Talia al Ghul have split up plenty of times. However, the most powerful one is probably in Son of the Demon, what with Talia supposedly losing their baby and everything…
I am going to skip the whole thing with radio talk show host Vesper Fairchild (needless to say, it didn’t end well). I’d rather go straight to Detective Comics #775, where Greg Rucka wrote one hell of a coda for Bruce and his former bodyguard Sasha Bordeaux. It’s worth reading the whole thing, of course, but I love how artist Rick Burchett absolutely nails the final moments:
Finally, there is the crazy-ass ending to Bruce’s relationship with fashion model/African ruler Jezebel Jet, in Batman #681, while fighting the sinister secret organization Black Glove. For once, the Caped Crusader is actually the one calling the shots. He even gets a super-douchey final line:
NEXT: Go West.