Oberfurer O'Neil
Denny's "mandates" to sabotage Bat/Cat goes way beyond this one story. When he became Bat-editor, he shut down the serious romance going on in the main Batman and Tec titles. You can tell with phrases like "She didn't know why she was doing this" that it was something forced on the writer. When that breakup wasn't conclusive enough, they "revillainized" her, and then all of a sudden "Bride of the Demon" comes along.
At the time, I remember sniggers about BotD, how out of character Bruce was in that story, and that it was just done to get Denny to calm down and do his job. It didn't work, it was an Else World and he spent the next several years trying to make it continuity.
He couldn't stop the Catwoman title from exisitng, but he did mandate that they not use other Gotham characters i.e. keep her away from Bruce. That rule was eventually overturned, but to an extent the damage was done. It had the rep of not being a "Gotham" title. It was all very transparent and common knowledge at the time.