“Your choice, gentlemen! Tell me! Or I’ll kill you!”
Absolute Batman by DC superstar Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta has been a consistent top seller for DC Comics’ All-In initiative. Not only was it the comic to launch DC’s Absolute line, but it successfully achieved the goal of DC’s New 52 initiative from 2011: reinvent DC’s iconic characters in exciting new ways for a new generation.
It’s not hard to see why Absolute Batman is a smash hit. Apart from Snyder himself being a major selling point, the way he and Dragotta have challenged what fans know and love about The Dark Knight is also a huge part of the book’s appeal. Instead of the more familiar billionaire orphan who used his family’s fortune to fund his vigilante lifestyle, Absolute Batman’s Bruce Wayne is a working-class citizen living in an apartment in Crime Alley, living paycheck to paycheck with his still-living mother.
What this version of Bruce Wayne lacks in resources, he makes up for with his sharp intelligence and his ability to use any tool to his advantage. In many ways, this makes him very similar to the Golden Age Batman from 1939: a self-taught hero who relies on his wits and detective work. But there’s another trait the Golden Age and Absolute Batmen share: their sheer brutality. Whether it’s dismembering enemies, snapping necks, or impaling opponents with sharp objects, both versions aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Though it’s not a popular choice for the “mainstream” Batman, this intensity reveals a lot about the character and his development in the last 86 years.
Golden Age Batman Showed No Mercy
Courtesy of DC Comics.
One thing that easily stands out about the Golden Age Batman (at least in his first year) is his complete lack of restraint in his use of violence. In his very first story featured in Detective Comics #27, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” he tosses a man off the roof of a house to the pavement below, with the latter never getting up. Toward the end of that same story, Batman punches another man into a vat of acid, and infamously says “A fitting end for his kind.” This, of course, is not the only time the Golden Age Batman has let loose.
In the following issues that span from Detective Comics #28 to Detective Comics #38 (which introduces Dick Grayson as Robin), there are countless more examples of Batman killing. In Batman’s second story, he throws a jewel thief off a skyscraper, and threatens to kill a man in his third story. That same story also introduces Dr. Death and his first assistant, Jabah, whom Batman later strangles. During an altercation, Batman leaves Dr. Death to burn alive in his lab, but the latter surprisingly survives. Batman then kills his second assistant, Mikhail, by snapping his neck on a window sill when he swings past.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Apart from killing the Mad Monk and Dala (both vampires) with a silver bullet, Batman also crashes a plane containing one-time villain Carl Kruger and his Scarlet Horde. He even drives a car over a cliff to kill its occupant. The Golden Age Batman also impales people with swords in two different occasions, and kicks an illegal trader out of a window, resulting in the latter’s death. While the Golden Age Batman did eventually stop killing after he acquired Dick Grayson as his ward, he did kill at least one more person in Batman #1: the escaped psychiatric patient, whom he hung from the Batplane.
While it can be argued that Batman’s various kills in 1939 are reflective of the character not being refined at the time, it simultaneously conveys a very important detail about him: he was very young (around 25) and driven by anger. Since Bruce Wayne’s origin eventually revealed that he was traumatized by his parents’ murder when he was just a child, it made perfect sense he would be more raw in his use of violence this early on. It also made sense he would stop killing once he became a father figure to Dick Grayson. This sheer brutality is an idea Snyder and Dragotta revisit in Absolute Batman, but without disregarding the character’s vital evolution.
Absolute Batman’s Bruce Wayne is Ruthless, Nuanced
Courtesy of DC Comics.
The final two issues of Absolute Batman’s “The Zoo” storyline depict Bruce Wayne at his most brutal. After luring Black Mask and his Party Animals to the top of a skyscraper, Bruce goes all-in in taking down the whole gang. With his costume functioning as a utility suit, Batman does everything from impale members of the Party Animals with the sharp tips of his bat wings to crushing bones with his boots. When the Party Animal whose hand he amputated in issue #1 attempts to subdue Batman, the latter impales him with the metal spikes on his shoulders.
While not as lethal as his Golden Age counterpart, Absolute Batman still conveys the raw anger of his much earlier incarnation, but in a more nuanced way. This makes sense, because like the Golden Age character, the Absolute Bruce Wayne is a young man in his 20s just starting out for the first time. This is also a Bruce Wayne who has been scarred by the senseless murder of his father while they were on a school trip together. The fact that no justice was really sought, and Bruce started entertaining a criminal lifestyle (complete with run-ins with the police), similarly conveys that his anger has been bottling up for sometime until he finally found an outlet for it in the form of Batman.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
While it’s easy to argue that Absolute Batman’s behavior is a consequence of the world he lives in, there may be a more important reason Snyder and Dragotta have chosen to go this route: it’s an excellent starting point for the character’s later evolution, which hasn’t been done before. For instance, when the Golden Age Batman acquired Dick Grayson as his ward, he suddenly stopped killing, but those earlier 1940s stories didn’t really get into why he stopped killing.
At best, readers can easily infer (from a narrative standpoint) that Bruce eventually came to his senses and realized that killing enemies wasn’t setting a good example for his young ward. Still, opportunities were missed to further elaborate on that idea (likely due to the straightforward nature of comics at the time coupled with the severely limited page count). This is one thing Snyder and Dragotta can do differently: Answer the question of what it would take for this dark universe Batman to change course. Will it be his future confrontation with Bane? There is potential in that idea.
Depending on how Snyder and Dragotta re-imagine Bane for the Absolute Universe, there’s a very good chance this version of the character is going to be far deadlier than his mainstream counterpart. Though 1993’s “Knightfall” storyline/event already cemented the hulking villain’s brutality by breaking Batman’s back, the bleak nature of the Absolute Universe suggests Bane’s ruthlessness will be on a whole new level. If the Absolute version of Bruce is any indication, there’s nothing to suggest his version of Bane isn’t the type to dismember people with his bare hands, or crush skulls in a similar fashion to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin in Daredevil: Born Again.
Absolute Bane. Courtesy of DC Comics.
Seeing how Absolute Bane will fare against his own Dark Knight will be a sight to behold, especially since he appears to be a gun-toting cyborg with a size that exceeds that of Bruce. If his ruthless use of violence ends up parallelling Bruce’s in any capacity, this could effectively serve as Bruce’s inciting incident to change course. More specifically, it could cause him to reflect on the way he’s currently fighting crime, and that maybe he needs to start doing things differently in order to set himself apart from his more vile enemies. Absolute stories should be a way to let these characters address big issues in new ways, and to explore their past while blazing a new path forward emotionally and morally.
Of course, there is another way Bruce could be inspired to change: his future relationships with the members of his Bat Family. Barbara Gordon has already been introduced as a police officer and daughter of Gotham’s own mayor, Jim Gordon. As a cop, Barbara may be the first person to call out Batman’s violence as terrifying, and could even lead her to say that he’s no different from the criminals he fights. This may actually sting, as Bruce might not want to be compared to the criminals who do much worse than him. Additionally, depending on how the Robins like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake are introduced (if at all, of course), this too could be a source of Bruce’s character growth.
In fact, it would provide Snyder and Dragotta with the perfect opportunity to explore how acquiring wards would inspire Bruce to set a better example, instead of leaving this to reader imagination. It would also be a way to connect back to the Golden Age Batman’s own experience, and play around with Batman’s history as a hero.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Even without the members of the Bat Family, however, there is still one other person who could persuade Bruce to change his methods earlier: his own mother. Since Martha Wayne is still alive, she could find out about Bruce’s Batman activities at some point, and be absolutely horrified by what her son has become. It could even be enough to earn her disapproval, which would hurt Bruce the most. If Snyder and Dragotta go this route with Bruce and Martha, they’ll actually be doing something truly groundbreaking: this would mark the first time any of Bruce’s parents would be alive to react to his vigilante justice.
The only time this idea was briefly explored was in Tom King’s Batman run, when the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne came to Prime Earth. But even then, the potential in this idea wasn’t fully capitalized on. Snyder and Dragotta by contrast could make Martha learning about Batman a huge part of Bruce’s journey and not just a story beat.
Whichever direction Absolute Batman goes, it will surely be a new and exciting experience. But more than being a joy to read, it will only expand our understanding of Batman, and the role The Dark Knight plays in helping us understand ideas of heroics, morality, and how we manage pain and grief. While Absolute Batman is just getting started, it’s already done heaps to connect the past, present, and future of the World’s Greatest Detective.
If you haven’t already, read AIPT’s review of Absolute Batman #8.
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