Bruce Wayne faces a moral dilemma: let the Party Animals operate without Batmanâs interference for a week and receive a large sum of money and the gang going easier on Gotham. As Bruce tries to make his decision, political wrangling makes it more clear exactly who is behind the chaos in Gotham. Absolute Batman #3 is written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Nick Dragotta, colored by Frank Martin and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
As the mob war in Gotham begins, the battles on the homefront for Bruce Wayne start to become more clear. Dick Grayson is not exactly like Bruce, and he has to figure out how to deal with that while still partnering with Robin at night. Batman & Robin: Year One #3 is written by Mark Waid, drawn and colored by Chris Samnee, and lettered by Clayton Cowles and Samnee.
Batman and Superman are missing, and something weird is going on. The only people (and pets) who can solve the mystery? Jimmy Olsen, Batgirl, Krypto and Ace! Batman/Superman: Worldâs Finest #33 is written by Mark Waid, drawn and colored by Fran Galan and lettered by Steve Wands.
The murder on the Watchtower leads to a suspect The Question never would have suspected: her ex, Batwoman. And if investigating a murder wasnât bad enough, a Kryptonian-level threat is trying to steal something. Just another day for a sheriff in space. The Question: All Along the Watchtower #2 is written by Alex Segura, drawn by Cian Tormey, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettered by Willie Schubert.
Will Nevin: Hayden Sherman last week, Chris Samnee this time out. Our eyes are living a pretty charmed life, Matt.
Matt Lazorwitz: They absolutely are. And the other books are all pretty good looking. Itâs like DC is actually trying to make comics people want to read.
Will: Trying. What a novel concept!
Absolute
Will: Boy, this thing sure is better when itâs able to sit down and focus on one thing, isnât it? Too bad I feel like we havenât had that since the first issue. And, look, itâs not like I donât want a complex world with multiple things going on â thatâs a trait of some of the best Bat books of the past that weâve read. But it seems a bit foolish to do that when this alt Bat is barely established. The childhood flashbacks especially seem to do nothing but stop this book dead.
Matt: I like the flashbacks in theory. I think they were some of the best features of the first couple issues. But the boulder is rolling downhill now. Now we have Bruce struggling with the offer from Black Mask. We have Alfredâs continued surveillance. We have Hamilton Hill working with Black Mask to influence the Gotham elections. And the subplots within those about Riddler and Martha Wayne. There is so much going on that youâre right in that it feels like someone is trying to stop the momentum with those flashbacks. Especially the fact that, while Iâm sure theyâll be important eventually, they donât feel like they have bearing on this particular issue, something the events from the past issues did.
Will: There just didnât seem to be a narrative flow, you know? This issue just felt disjointed and messy. The individual components are solid ⌠at least, I think. But so far, this whole is less than the sum of its parts. Maybe I was spoiled by the first issue that seemed to have something to say.
Matt: This issue more than the past two felt like we were moving pieces on the board. We need to get more information about Black Mask out there, and we need to give Bruce a personal struggle. His fear that he might lose Martha to the Party Animals gives him a struggle that a Prime Earth Batman never will. And in the end, we see this Batman seemingly willing to compromise. Something Alfred encouraged. These are completely outside the parameters of their main universe counterparts. I donât expect them to be the final answers for either, but it is establishing a Batman and Alfred dynamic like we have never seen before.
Will: I donât think any Bruce this side of the Metal-verse is willing to make a moral compromise, so something is definitely afoot here. (Unless he takes the week off and *thatâs* when Martha dies? God, that would be pretty shitty.) This Alfred, though? âScumbagâ is probably the wrong word, but heâs certainly a moral opportunist.
Matt: I do fear that Martha Wayne is not long for this world. Is it me, or is it weird to fridge a character whose entire existence was a long-term fridging before that?
I think Alfred here is someone who has spent so many years working in the dark, he has forgotten what the light is really like. I am hoping that this Alfred is going to eventually wind up working with Bruce because he sees the moral right of what he is doing. Almost flipping the script on the traditional Batman themes, where here it is Bruceâs moral forthrightness that inspired Alfredâs, and not vice versa.
Will: To this point, Alfred has certainly been inspired by Bruceâs dedication and ingenuity. But weâre going to have to see a real shift in his character to feel like any true face turn was earned. Ugh. Is it really going to take Marthaâs death to get us there?
Matt: I really hope not. But we are clearly in a world where moral compromise is front and center. All it took to get Harvey Bullock to sell out Jim Gordon, someone with whom he has an even longer history in this world than in the prime one, was some shiny new military equipment. That is probably the central theme of what we have in this issue: compromise. The problem is so much going on here doesnât directly tie into that theme.
Will: Itâs a noisy book. Hereâs hoping it starts to quiet down and really starts to wrestle with the moral dilemmas itâs creating.
Year One
Matt: Mark Waid has written a lot of comics, and I canât think of many that are this close to a crime comic. We have someone manipulating the Gotham mobs into war with each other that we know but they donât. Itâs a cool plot, and itâs not at all what I expected coming into this book.
Will: And for the General, itâs presumably so he can gain control of the city, but what if itâs something fancier than that? Definitely intriguing. But, really, the joy here is in Alfredâs complete and total exasperation and Waidâs delineation of Robin and Dick Grayson, the latter of whom still needs some help in adjusting to manor life.
Matt: And that is an important line to draw. While I think this idea has been run into the ground over the years, Batman is who Bruce really is. Waid knows that. And I love the conversation where Bruce tells Alfred he assumed Dick would just feel the same because of their parallel traumas. But Dick is a different person, and this issue makes that so clear.
Will: And not in a mean or cruel way either. I mean, the last time we had a book with a premise close to this one, it ran aground hard and fast. (Thanks again for that, Jeff Lemire.)
Matt: Next issue is going to be a real test. The cliffhanger here, of Bruce drowning because Dick wasnât paying attention, or at least wasnât trained enough, is where we could get Bruce coming down hard on Dick. I donât expect him to go to the extent we saw in Robin & Batman, but I think we might see some more intense friction. Which is OK, because a story without conflict isnât really much of a story.
Will: Oh, absolutely. If we want this story without conflict, we can just crack open any Batman and Robin story from the first 30 years of their pairing. But the challenge is introducing that conflict without turning Bruce into a cold taskmaster and Robin into a child soldier. Which I think Waid can do.
Matt: 100%. And my God, Samnee just absolutely kills the scenes in the cave and the manor. Watching Alfred reach a boil as Bruce just isnât hearing him talk? The disaster area that is Dick Graysonâs room? These are great panels.
Will: Did you notice how we didnât need some insane lettering to get across Alfredâs mood? I noticed.
Matt: I said it when you asked me about favorite artists last week: There are few artists in comics who handle facial expressions and body language as well as Chris Samnee.
This book is doing a really good job of showing a Dick Grayson who is still growing and is very wet behind the ears. I think of this now because of the panel when Dick, thinking Two-Face might be tangentially involved with the death of his parents, flips out. First, Samnee draws the heck out of the facial work and the motion there, but just thinking about how Nightwing dealt with his confrontation with Tony Zucco in the last issue of Tom Taylorâs run on his book and this, we see how much Dick has grown.
Will: And Robinâs emotions feel natural. He thinks his parentsâ killer has been taken care of, that the mission can move beyond that. And then he gets that surprise? Absolutely natural reaction â but itâs Batmanâs job to (gently) teach him to be better.
Buy Batman & Robin: Year One #3 here.
Worldâs Finest
Matt: After the epic JLA/JSA three-parter, we get a fun little one-off featuring some unexpected characters: Batgirl, Jimmy Olsen, Ace and Krypto. I really enjoy these between-arc one-offs that Waid does in this book. I miss one-off issues in general, and with this and the others, Waid uses them to flesh out the world but focus on characters other than Batman, Superman and Robin.
Will: And this was gonzo as all hell, wasnât it? Aliens, psychic shields, giant eyeball prisons. Wild, wild stuff.
Matt: That is exactly what this book is made for. This is where Waid can cut loose with wild and gonzo, and not worry about continuity. Justice League Unlimited might be similarly widescreen, but itâs a tentpole holding up the DC Universe. Here? Letâs do a flashback where only dogs can sense the supervillains, so Krypto has to gather a team. Delightful.
Will: You know what Iâve always said, Matt: Dogs are the real superheroes.
Matt: One thing I want to call out and give Waid some real credit for here: A big action set piece here takes place in Arkham. And at no point do we see any of the Bat rogues. They wouldnât be necessary for this story, and what does Waid do? He doesnât use them. That is more self-control than we have seen from a lot of writers.
Will: But, Matt, Easter eggs would be so much more fun! *eye roll* I appreciate that Waid only goes to the continuity well when it would mean something. Refreshing in our reference-based economy.
Matt: As for our central characters, it would be easy to make Jimmy even more over the top than he is here. But Jimmy clearly takes these things seriously, even if he canât resist flirting with Babs a little. The only thing I would have liked from this issue that we donât get is more Batgirl and Ace, but as a writer, Waid chose the characters he was focusing on and went with that. He didnât try to cram too much in.
Will: Which is good for a one-off, right? We wouldnât want this thing to be too overstuffed.
Matt: Fran Galan, the issueâs artist, draws some great dogs and aliens, too. Iâm only familiar with his work from the supernatural-tinged PI story Pine & Merrimac that he did with Kyle Starks, which was a great book if you havenât read it, but that is my first exposure to him doing superheroes. And if we canât get Dan Mora, this book being a chance for artists that Waid and his editors feel like need some more attention is a pretty good idea, if you ask me.
Will: Even the best artists need a break now and then. But, hey, we still have Mora on JLU.
Question
Matt: The mystery deepens. Segura is doing a really good job balancing a mystery plot with superhero nonsense here, by tying them together. If you have a mystery involving super folk, you have to take mind control and high-tech hijinks into account. If you donât, you leave out a whole angle, but you also have to rely on some classic tropes like asking the local bartender. Itâs a fine line, but itâs been tread well so far.
Will: This is a plot point we see all the time in genre fiction, isnât it? If our Star Trek/DC comics detective sees a video of someone normally not a criminal doing a criminal thing, shouldnât they automatically assume mind control or shapeshifters or a weird virus or some other insane thing? That takes a lot of oomph out of so many stories, but it just seems logical, right?
Matt: Renee seems torn by it here. She knows something isnât right, but she feels like she needs to question Batwoman like she would any other suspect. The fact that it is her ex, the lost love of her life, might be a big part of that. If it were anyone else, it would be easier to just assume, but she feels her objectivity is muddled and so she has to approach it like any other case.
Will: Thatâs a very good point, one that just emphasizes the idea that Renee feels really vulnerable and out of her depth here â like sheâs just trying to keep her head above water.
Matt: And then you throw the Eradicator at her. If this was some threat like the Calculator, someone just trying to use the JLUâs tech and weasel his way into it, or a robot like the Conduit one from last issue, Renee can deal with that. But you throw a Kryptonian artifact made flesh who can throw down with Superman at her? Thatâs a level of out of her depth Renee is not used to.
Will: Canât just draw down on something Supes-adjacent and expect it to comply, huh?
Matt: Nope. And this is making me think that the mastermind here is Superman adjacent as well. Two issues and two Superman-related threats? The mastermind must have some connection to Big Blue, right?
Will: While also tying into the larger All In story. Who wouldnât want the worldâs superheroes united in a common purpose?
Matt: There are so many options!
I really like how this book is fleshing out the world of the Watchtower. We get more about the Challengers of the Unknown (curious to see if Question pops up in their miniseries that debuted this week), but we also see thereâs a bar run by Nightshade and that Bulleteer manages the armory. I canât imagine how much fun Segura, Waid and probably Christopher Cantwell, who is writing that Challengers miniseries, are having building a superhero space city.
Will: A space city in which literally any DC superhero might show up. Wild.
Buy The Question: All Along the Watchtower #2 here.
Bat-miscellany
- Patreon backer Josh Weil returns to the BatChat podcast this week to trace the evolution of the Batman/Superman dynamic in the post-Crisis continuity through three Superman stories guest starring Batman.
- I know itâs not a Batman thing, but if you havenât, check out the trailer to James Gunnâs Superman movie. I think this is gonna be good.
- Will: Itâs a heckuva week for Krypto!
- [Ed. note: And for more Matt and Will this week, visit the ComicsXF Patreon for a special Star Trek crew draft they did with fellow CXFâers Austin Gorton and Mark Turetsky!]
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Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
