I have sung endless praises for Snyder, Dragotta, Martin, and Cowles’ monumental achievement in Absolute Batman before. To avoid sounding repetitive, this time I would like to focus on one aspect palpable in this issue: humor.
Absolute Batman #10 explores Bruce being trapped and tested in the underground facilities of Ark M. He is stripped naked, privacy violated, and the one thing he won’t let anyone take away is his will. The issue follows his repeated attempts to escape, failing every time he hits the big, burly wall that is Bane.
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All good jokes have a little extra oomph at the end that catches people off guard. Just when you thought you’d found the punchline, there’s another one right around the corner. This works especially well for a character like Batman, who is well known to have limitless gadgets for every scenario, gadgets that could work as gags and comedic payoffs. Snyder twists this to his benefit.
This Bruce doesn’t have the resources for bat shark repellents, but he’s able to do more with less. Absolute Bruce fights his captors using teeth as makeshift brass knuckles and delivers the finishing blow with a feeding tube strapped to his body. It’s absurdly fun. Not to mention off-the-cuff remarks like Bruce being so heavy that the people carrying his unconscious body sustained a back injury.
It is visual comedy sprinkled like this that sparks a higher contrast with the dark and dire situation that our titular hero is in. In effect, the reader laughs at Batman’s Sisyphean attempt at escape, as Bane does. We are unwittingly put in the position of Batman’s abusers, curious if he’ll succeed. But deep down, Batman is the bullied we root for. He is Rocky Balboa, and he’ll run up the steps a hundred times as long as he’s breathing.
That’s who Absolute Batman is. The victim of a mass shooting makes himself bigger than humanly possible to take down the system that produces bullies on a major scale, the system that puts them in positions of power. Here, Bane is the biggest bully of all, begging Batman to get up every time he beats him down, just to have something to break.
Operating at a whole other level, Nick Dragotta captures that core perfectly, the humor and the horror. I can already see multiple panels of this comic being used as memes and reaction images. But equally present are terrifying panels straight out of a spook show. It’s a testament to Dragotta’s range and aesthetic ability.
Once again, Snyder expertly packs an emotional narrative in 23 pages, balancing an internal story for Batman with a larger underground conspiracy. Usually, single issues are just part of the whole, but Snyder manages to make every single one stand on its own. There are plenty of easter eggs too, Batman being dubbed Patient 27, a nod to Detective Comics #27, and Killer Croc also numbered by his first appearance.
Absolute Batman #10 embraces the ridiculousness of comic books, using the medium’s absurdity to its advantage. It delivers an emotional story that is equal parts humorous and horrifying. Snyder and Dragotta maintain Absolute Batman’s quality with unending creativity.
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