The Ark M facility’s history is revealed in a dark tale of the history of the Arkhams and their connection to Jack Grimm. Absolute Batman: Ark M Special #1 is written by Scott Snyder and Frank Tieri, drawn by Joshua Hixson, colored by Roman Stevens and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: Here’s today’s wild “whoa, that would have been a crazy thing in comics” thing: Tom King was apparently (at one point in the indefinite past) tapped to complete All-Star Batman and Robin. How weird would that have been?
Matt Lazorwitz: That would have been … wild. I have my eyebrow raised in a Spock-like fashion just thinking about it. I wonder if King could have matched the tone on that book. It’s not exactly in his wheelhouse to go so completely off the rails.
Will: It would have been … fascinating.
No Asylum
Matt: While I don’t think there’s been an issue of Absolute Batman that has ever been exactly a ray of sunshine, I feel like this is probably the first story that has been a flat-out horror story, yes? This is a creepy serial-killer period piece that has some ties to what is going on in the present, but really is mostly about mood and further establishing just what a monster Jack Grimm is.
Will: Shades of a flat-out classic horror story. I suppose it’s an important story, if for no other reason than to answer the question of, “Hey, did the Absolute Universe have a traditional Arkham Asylum? If so, what happened to it?” I realize that’s two questions, but I stand by it.
Let’s start at the very beginning. How does the traditional Amadeus Arkham compare to the one we see here?
Matt: This Amadeus is beaten down, broken by his loss. The Amadeus of the main DCU was also broken, but in his case, he went mad with grief. It’s an interesting twist, especially in the Absolute Universe, which tends toward darkness. You can’t get darker than a guy whose wife and daughter are murdered and he goes insane and kills the killer using electroshock. So Snyder (I assume the plot here is Snyder and the script is Tieri) twists it by having the analogous event happen, but here he is simply crushed by it, and of course as we see, it’s all not what it seems.
Will: Putting aside a few of the logical leaps (how an orphan became a doctor and/or how the first thing he did was build an asylum), it’s one of those setups where we see someone at their absolute (heh) happiest and most successful and the rest of the story is simply everything crashing down upon them.
Matt: That is the essence of this world. In a universe founded on Darkseid’s Omega energy, there are no happy endings. Just the brief moment of joy before the fall.
The haunted-house Gothic of this can’t be denied, even if the haunting is metaphorical and not literal. And Joshua Hixson’s art is absolutely perfect for it. He stunned me working with James Tynion IV on his queer serial killer series, The Deviant, but he brings even more to this. His faces are really expressive, and he knows how to get the atmosphere just right. I don’t know how much research went into this, but however much there was, it shows.
Will: I thought the colors were great — especially when things get all fire-y. What did you make of the inclusion of Jack the Ripper here? I have some faint recollection of that in the Absolute Batman issue that told this Joker’s origin. Is Grimm history’s most famous serial killer? Or is it just a fun twist on the usual “choose your own Joker backstory” trope?
Matt: I think you can take it as you will. I don’t think it’s ever going to matter if Joker was Jack the Ripper, but it’s a neat possibility. I think it’s most important as it’s another crushing blow to Amadeus because he believes it’s true. Regardless, I think his connection to Arkham is true, how he was there and escaped, but that is the Red Hood of this Joker. That is the fact in the tapestry of lies that everything else hangs on. And it explains why Ark M is important to him; Arkham was the chrysalis that birthed him, the same way Ace Chemicals is in the main DCU.
Will: As I’m sitting here thinking about it, it’s kinda difficult to peg this issue as something either essential to this series or a superfluous trifle. On one hand, it’s hard to read it outside of the context of Absolute Batman #15. But I think you’re also right in that this does speak to something important to this version of the Joker. I suppose, as with all things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Matt: And the end is there to set up future stories. I know Snyder has said in recent interviews that the next couple arcs are Ivy and Scarecrow, so we see hints of them in Grimm’s files, and we get the first actual appearance of Absolute Deathstroke. We saw the photo of him and Alfred before, but this confirms he abandoned his old friend to work for Grimm. And hopefully, this version will be a character I can stand because they won’t try to make the merciless, cold-blooded mercenary a guy you’re supposed to root for.
Will: I thought you were a Deathstroke guy, Matt? Weird. I don’t think we’re going to go hungry for developments in the Absolute Batman world — the crossover with Wonder Woman should be fun as hell. (See what I did there?)
Bat-miscellany
- The BatChat podcast continues reading “No Man’s Land” and Grant Morrison’s run in order this week, but swaps out Injustice for “Knightquest: The Crusade.”
- We will be covering the most recent Absolute Wonder Woman, the first half of the crossover with Absolute Batman, along with the second part in Absolute Batman in two weeks.
Buy Absolute Batman: Ark M here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
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.
