Absolute Batman #1 is one of the best first issues of the entire year. Writer Scott Snyder, artist Nick Dragotta, colorist Frank Martin, and letterer Clayton Cowles masterfully craft a story full of new ideas and compromise for not only the characters we all know and love, but for Gotham City as a whole. They give up a lot of what makes Gotham and these characters recognizable in order to introduce new interesting concepts that really work in favor of these new versions of the characters. The team does their best to make this new Gotham feel new and bustling, and they succeed completely. It’s a whole new world, and with that there is a whole new Bruce Wayne.
*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1*
The issue opens with a young Bruce Wayne, enamored by the bat exhibit at the zoo during a school field trip. The teacher calls for him to catch up with the rest of the class, and Bruce runs to rejoin them. A man with a gun is seen afterwards. They then cut to the present day, where we follow Alfred Pennyworth. He seems younger than usual, with a full beard covering his face. He enters Gotham City on his motorcycle, and enters a room where a call to his daughter, Julia, goes straight to voicemail. He opens his computer and is being debriefed by his handler, presumably for some peacekeeping government organization.
He’s informed on the status of the now heartless city, as he put it, and is told about a gang called the Party Animals. They all seem to be followers of Black Mask. His job is to survey the situation and not get involved. That is, unless he comes into contact with “another player in town.” Someone else is trying to stop the party animals.
WRITING
Scott Snyder isn’t returning to a character that he mastered a decade ago. No, Absolute Bruce Wayne feels entirely new. There are similarities in the stories of the two, but those passing comparisons are where it stops. Where the Bruce Wayne of the main DCU left Gotham to learn to fight, Absolute Bruce Wayne left in search of knowledge. He prioritized learning about how things worked over how to enact vengeance on the criminal element of his city.
Snyder plays with this idea of creating a new Gotham wonderfully. Classic Gotham rogues are now Bruce’s childhood friends. Bruce Wayne does not come from riches, he comes from a place of community and morals. Alfred wonders where Gotham’s heart is early in the issue, and you can see that Gotham’s heart is this universe’s Bruce Wayne.
Snyder adds in a few fun callbacks to his 2011 run on the character, but it’s nothing too distracting. It’s clear how excited he is about reinventing Batman’s world. Major players are taken off the board early, but just as many who typically would’ve seemed insignificant are given new life. Where he strips one classic Batman character of importance, he provides a new twist on another that maybe hasn’t been in the spotlight in a while. Making Black Mask the big villain for this first arc was a good choice, but he’s just as different from the original universe as Bruce is. He’s not this comically emotional drug lord. He’s smart and calculated. He specializes in sending messages more than making himself seem prominent. It’s a nice change of pace that’s in line with the concept of the Absolute universe: taking away everything that makes the character the one you know.
In taking away, Snyder gives just as much in return. Bruce fights differently. He’s not perfect, but he’s not careless. He doesn’t have as many special tools as the Batman we know, but he’s not without an arsenal of his own that fits him better. His accessories mostly come from his suit. They’re a part of him, and he uses them efficiently. It fits this new take on the character perfectly. He not only wants to use what he has in a way that makes sense, but every single piece has to work with one another. Everything has a purpose, and every addition to the suit just makes sense.
Bruce Wayne as a character is the heart of the issue. He’s obviously the titular character and who we’re all coming to see, but Snyder really cracked something with this version of the character that feels novel and unfamiliar. What feels like the thesis of the issue is Bruce’s love for Gotham, regardless of its history. He and his main universe counterpart both love the city, but what’s interesting is they do it in different ways. While our main Batman is analytical and loving towards an ideal version of the city that he’ll never stop fighting for, our new Bruce Wayne loves the city for what it is. He desperately wants to make it better, not because of some Joe Chill, but because Gotham raised him. He loves it. He doesn’t need to take the city apart and put it back together in order to learn every inch of it, he just needs to do the latter. Through this, making Alfred the character narrating the issue was a unique choice.
With this new version of Alfred, Snyder uses him and his role as a secret agent to not only learn everything about Bruce Wayne, but to tell the reader about it. He retells the story through his point of view, but in a way that invites the reader to come to our own conclusions about Bruce. It’s through his own bias and opinion, but analytical as he’s still writing a report. It’s objective. What feels special about it though is how Snyder has it almost feel like this could only be meant for Alfred’s eyes. It forms a new connection between Pennyworth and Wayne. Turning Alfred from a diligent butler and father figure to an analytical soldier who knows just as much about this new Bruce as the rest of us cleverly makes him the perfect POV character in a way, and really attaches us to his character early on, despite initially having nothing to do with Batman. This sets the tone for the series in a powerful way. We now know that we can expect a story about Bruce that’s just as rooted in curiosity as it is in loss.
We know that Alfred will learn about Bruce too, but Snyder uses Alfred’s notes on Bruce to tell us just as much about Alfred. How he explains Bruce’s demeanor is important, as this clearly isn’t his first rodeo. He knows what he’s doing, and that’s clear to us. But this isn’t some report to be submitted. His vocabulary and shock at Bruce’s actions gives us a better understanding of his worldview aS well. Snyder describes two characters to us at once in different ways and it is just magical. It’s all the more wonderful when Bruce surprises Alfred later in the issue, symbolizing the fact that Bruce has tricks up his own sleeve too, but ones that Alfred couldn’t possibly understand that he has to learn. Snyder’s constant question here seems to be “What can I add to say something about the character and his environment?” rather than “What can I change to make the character we know feel new?” and this approach is genuinely one of the most special things about the issue.
The issue is also paced perfectly. It understands that it’s the first part of a new and epic storyline, but also provides a self-contained story that you need for a debut issue like this. We learn everything we need to about Bruce Wayne in the pages that we’re given, and what we’re told has a weight to it that it feels like it’s enough for now. All the ideas feel like cogs in a machine, and those gears are turning.
ART
Nick Dragotta gives this book an unmatched beauty; he and Snyder feel like a real one-in-a-million pairing. He’s tasked with visualizing the life Snyder has brought to Gotham and its cast, and in doing that he makes it all just as much his own. His design for Bruce is hulking, yet delicate and intricate. Batman’s massive, but not just for the sake of that. It feels like his body is honed and every muscle moves with purpose. It’s a great anatomy. The proportions of Bruce’s body can sometimes feel fluid, but that really works for the better. His size doesn’t change, but it feels like he has full control over his already gigantic figure. Again, as described with Snyder earlier, the character seems to be more focused on how things work and their purposes rather than just what they are. His body is a machine, and it’s one he knows every last thing about.
All of Dragotta’s redesigns are different enough to make these characters feel new, as is the world. That, however, does not mean that there isn’t a distinctness to them. Waylon Jones, known normally as Killer Croc, is Bruce’s longtime friend in this Absolute universe. He’s not a giant muscular crocodile this time around. He’s instead the owner of the gym Bruce goes to, and is a seemingly normal man with an affinity for exotic animals (particularly reptiles). The snake that rests on his neck is worth a thousand words alone. Every character has some defining visual trait like that, including Alfred. That beard gives him away from miles, but his crazy hair and military uniform both add to that recognizable quality as well.
Batman’s tools mentioned earlier? Dragotta makes them look as epic as possible with jaw dropping action featuring them paired with some really incredible paneling. He has Bruce operate like a force of nature. Like he’s the reckoning of Gotham itself. There’s one specific moment where he detaches the ears from his cowl and uses them as batarangs. After he’s thrown them, he extends the blades on his forearms and uses those to fight the group of Party Animals. This entire sequence is split into about 18 panels in a single page, and not a single one feels wasted or like it was put there to fill up space. We see Bruce do something new in each of those panels, and every single blow to the enemies feels intricate and powerful regardless of how much space is given to it. It’s stunning. Everything feels quick and snappy, while also showcasing this Batman’s new moves in a jaw dropping way. The axe detaching from Bruce’s chestplate is just as wonderfully innovative as the daggers he pulls from his cowl. That’s not even to mention the stands and whips that his cape morphs into. Dragotta integrates each tool and weapon into the suit in a mesmerizing way where you can’t help but wonder what else it can do. This is another question Dragotta’s art poses. What else does Gotham have in store for us, and what will that look like?
COLORS
Gotham is at its most interesting when the colors portraying it make it feel secluded, but also like it’s still a part of the rest of the world. There’s hope for it. Martin captures that in a special way, really mirroring Dave Stewart’s recent work on Detective Comics. Gotham’s night skies are purple and blue, with orange clouds hanging above it to accompany the sun setting. Martin does this really interesting thing where, once we see Bruce suit up for the first time, the orange clouds move with him and engulf the sky. Having this first reveal of The Batman of Gotham occurring at sunset was a smart choice — the first emergence of the night (and the Knight) in this issue. Martin’s colors solidify Batman as this shredded creature of the night that not only works in fear, but is a beacon of hope for the city. He doesn’t move in the night, he teeters on that border between light and dark.
Martin’s colors are also great in the beginning of the issue when Alfred takes a video call: The person he’s communicating with is shown as a sort of infrared outline of a person’s facial structure covered in orange and green. They mix well, and Martin really creatively uses that in outlining the character. In the flashback scenes placed throughout the issue, the colors aren’t necessarily flat, but they’re lighter than they are in the rest. But they’re still detailed, like it’s just a memory for Bruce, but one that he will never forget. It’s not clouded at all—every detail feels exact, as if we should hang onto it like Bruce does for the coming issues. Martin compliments both Dragotta and Snyder using these clever methods that hopefully continue through the bulk of this run.
LETTERS
Cowles goes all in here. The first immediate indicator of his presence is Alfred’s lettering. Rather than the words in the balloons, Mr. Pennyworth’s inner monologue looks like pages torn from a journal. He’s documenting this and his encounters in this city. The letters are different, like they’re written in a more proper manner than any of the words spoken in the issue. Alfred clearly doesn’t frequent Gotham. He’s familiar with the city, but his boxes indicate that he doesn’t intend on making this a long trip. That it’s just a chapter in his journal for now.
The onomatopoeia of it all is a sight to behold as well. Entire panels are dedicated to these stylized sound effects in order for them to carry more weight than they would otherwise. Cowles specifically does a great job with this during Bruce’s first fight. Every bullet bouncing off him makes a sound, but they’re small. It makes Bruce feel bigger than he is. More frightening. If these bullets don’t affect him in any way, nothing will. Which really does help later when Bruce yells and the words almost emerge from the balloon housing them. He’s no longer a person, but a figure. Cowles does a great job in helping establish the myth of the character.
CONCLUSION
This issue is everything fans could have hoped for in the first issue of a new Batman canon. A new mythos is being built by this team. It all feels familiar, but couldn’t be more different. We don’t know what’s in store for this character or this Gotham, but light is being shed on both parts of the city and the character that readers don’t often see. Not only did Snyder, Dragotta, Martin, and Cowles strip the character and city of what we know about them, but in doing that, they chose to highlight that which isn’t typically seen. It just feels fresh and innovative and exciting above all else. If this is any indicator of what the future of this All-In initiative will be, then these books will fly off the shelves faster than you could possibly imagine.
