Beginning with the muted colors of nostalgia, Absolute Batman #3 takes us through Bruce’s childhood with Selina. It’s a welcome change to see a version of preteen Bruce who has friends his own age. In exchange for a butler and a mansion, what Absolute Bruce has instead is a close-knit community of pals and his loving mother in a brownstone. This reshuffling of origin not only solidifies this alternate universe, but also helps set up the stakes: Bruce has a lot to lose, and he doesn’t have expendable funds to protect himself with.
Credit: DC Comics
The comic cuts back and forth from his post-tragedy childhood to what can only be described as the best Batmobile chase ever put on paper. Inside his dump truck, Batman and Alfred bicker like reluctant roommates. It’s like two people from different generations who ultimately want the same thing but go about it in opposite ways. Scott Snyder exemplifies this through the duo’s dialogue and Alfred’s captions, how he persuades Bruce to take Black Mask’s offer, which he feels is the only way to leave a meaningful dent in the latter’s criminal empire. With his silver stache showing his age, Alfred is the more diplomatic of the two, while Batman is anything but.
While that’s happening, Nick Dragotta’s combination of small and tall panels makes for a great ensemble of pure action. One page has him separate the momentum of a wrecking ball into panel-sized chunks and then immortalize the impact of the car crash in cardstock. In tandem with Dragotta’s linework, Frank Martin’s colors make the Batmobile’s blue exhaust almost burn off the page. When it flashes back, the art portraying young Bruce compared with his adult self is amazing, especially in how he retains the same cold scary stare that transcends his age, the one he holds with conviction. Yet underneath all that, he warms a little whenever his friends or mom is around, giving a smile he can’t seem to hide.
This vulnerability that both writer and artists successfully evoke reminds readers that Batman can’t afford to be stubborn here, he has people he can lose, and he literally doesn’t have the money to afford it. Bruce is tempted by Black Mask to compromise in order to become the Batman of the main DC universe, the one with unlimited resources and a global impact. He is goaded to be more than just a disruptor, but a change maker. All he needs to do is give up for a while.
Speaking of Black Mask, he is terrifying in this issue, the financial opposite of Bruce. While Bruce only has his small network of rogues gallery friends to support his mission, Black Mask has an army and (probably) multiple yachts. Although normally Black Mask never takes off his well… mask, this time around, his mask doesn’t even have eyes for readers to detect emotion on. Having Batman at a complete class disadvantage to the villain is definitely interesting, but apart from his enigma, there is still really nothing to Black Mask, which makes for a great antagonist to root against but makes for an as-of-yet uninteresting character.
Absolute Batman #3 puts the pedal to the metal. In flashbacks, Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin produce bittersweet glimpses of Bruce’s life full of friends and love. And in the present, they deliver a heavy metal Batmobile chase unlike any other. All the while, Scott Snyder infuses tension in every lull and action with Batman having to make tough decisions that he never had to deal with before. As Alfred said in this issue, “I may actually love Batman.”
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