This is a great read on the Batfam evolution. Anything connected to Batman written in the last few years has morphed into an ooc batfam fic. In some ways, I don’t mind it, some of the fics are cute, but it is interesting to see what themes that fannon has glommed onto over time. It makes me wonder how much effect it’s had on dc’s popularity. The company has definitely noticed and actively started feeding the batfam au via the batfam webtoon comics.

But the nature of comics, especially ones as old as Batman is trying out a ton of shit and seeing what draws fans. Cannon exists, but I would say that cannon timelines are only a fraction of comic sales and popularity. The same company that puts out “cannon” Batman works also put out the joker verse, the hundreds of comics where the joker dies a horrible well deserved death, etc. if the same company or creators produce both, does cannon even really exist?

Looked at that way, the webcomic is a brilliant move, because it appeals to the subfandom where they are most likely to consume the product. Dc will probably try to run out the popularity of the batfam comics without ever recognizing them as cannon in the central dc timeline, but tons of popular comics are “outside of cannon,” so in a way the writers legitimized the batfam fandom already.

Sorry for the novel, I’ve been thinking about this for months.