While writing an episode for season 3 of HBO Max’s Harley Quinn animated series, showrunner Justin Halpern included a scene of Batman going down a flight of stairs with Catwoman. After he presented the script to higher ups at DC Comics, Halpern was shot down as they claimed, “Heroes don’t go down stairs.”
Puzzled by this comment, Halpern assumed they meant Batman has climacophobia, which is the fear of climbing up or down stairs–but this is not the case. The absurd yet true reason DC executives don’t want to feature their heroes on staircases is because it is a “pedestrian thing to do” and “heroes must climb the sides of buildings or simply just fly.”
When Halpern suggested that Batman had taken stairs before in other animated series, films, and even the comics, DC blew him off.
“I even showed them a clip from Batman Begins when Batman was literally going down some stairs, but they claimed it was different as he jumped down the stairwell rather than going down each individual stair.”
-Justin Halpern, via Twitter DM with Marvelous Movies
Zack Snyder, director of the infamous Zack Snyder’s Justice League, showed his support for Halpern and shared a very detailed painting of Batman going down stairs with Catwoman on his social media accounts. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. has issued a DMCA on the artwork which removed it from Snyder’s Twitter.
We at Marvelous Movies speculate the actual reason the powers-that-be want to distance Batman from going down stairs is because a staircase was recently featured in 2019’s Joker film, and fans should associate “going down” with the villain rather than the hero. But what do you think? Let us know in the comments or hit us up on Twitter.
— Link Voximilian
Marvelous Movies 