Poison Ivy tries to win Batman over to her way of thinking. In a flashback, Bruce Wayne talks with someone who has figured out his identity. And Martha Wayne has a fateful meeting with the Court of Owls. Absolute Batman #18 is written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Eric Canete, colored by Frank Martin and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: Matthew, in today’s opening bit, you have a choice: Thought Experiment A or Thought Experiment B? Which one is it gonna be?
Matt Lazorwitz: I am terrified, but let’s say … B.
Will: B for Batman, perhaps? Interesting choice. DC editorial calls you to Los Angeles for a meeting. (Congratulations!) They want you to pitch Absolute Detective Comics. Shoot your shot, Brother Matt.
Matt: That’s a tall order. I can come up with two possibilities here. One is something to your taste, but fits less with the overall narrative of the universe. One is probably going to turn you off based on some of the comic book nonsense involved, but I think would be a better pitch to DC. The first is we get a real grimy crime book. Slam Bradley, or maybe Jim Gordon now that he needs a job, gets involved with a terrible crime syndicate in Gotham, and we can maybe tie in some Jack Grimm stuff to it. But it’s lacking in capes and costumes. That is right up your alley, yes?
Will: Going back to the future, back to the original concept. Hell yes, love it. I’m sure we can come up with a really weird Detective Chimp to occasionally star. What’s idea No. 2?
Matt: Number 2 starts not in Gotham but in Hub City. Vic Sage is a journalist who came up expecting to be able to change the world. Now, print is dead, TV news is siloed and the internet is a festering hellhole. So Vic has nowhere to go when he hears about teenagers and twentysomethings joining a new self-help group and disappearing, one that with a little digging he discovers is a front for The Cult of Omega.
Now, Vic as the Question has to navigate a nationwide, maybe global, criminal enterprise that is tied into the overarching Darkseid plot of the Absolute Universe. It’s a little Religion of Crime, but with a shinier face on it, and can tie into some of the stuff from Absolute Evil, like Jack Grimm’s discovery of the Omega particle, some of the stuff that is going to happen in Absolute Green Arrow based on solicitations and what the “Justice League” of the universe is doing. Heck, if we’re doing Absolute Religion of Crime, it might be a good spot for Absolute Vandal Savage to pop up.
Will: I don’t hate it, Matt! Vic Sage would be an interesting addition to the Absolute Universe — lord knows he’d have plenty to bitch about. As far as Absolute Vandal Savage goes? Let’s make him Moses. Wandering through the desert for thousands of years.
The Heart of the Matter
Matt: I want to start this review off with something that, while important, is a small point in this issue in comparison to many others. Someone, in this case Jim Gordon, calling out how this Bruce Wayne is so obviously Batman due to the fact that he is a terrifying giant. Him knowing about the bats is also important, but how many guys who could play The Mountain from A Game of Thrones can be wandering around Gotham?
Will: I get that reference now! Amazing. The Secret is not so much of a secret in the Absolute Universe, is it? Bruce’s frenemies know, Gordon knows, basically anyone paying attention knows. We’ve been speculating about this moment since the beginning more or less — how would Gordon react in this moment? And to be honest, it felt pretty flat. These characters don’t seem to have much of a relationship at all; the painful formalism of “Mr. Gordon” putting a big ol’ lampshade on that fact. And, look, I’m not prepared to say that’s bad — I think there’s more there to be explored if Bruce’s surrogate father is more or less his actual father. Maybe these characters will develop that relationship. But it’s not there now.
I was prepared to come in here and talk about how the moment is done a disservice by shoving it alongside two or three or four other things, but, again, if the emotional impact is not there (yet), I suppose I’m content with the prominence this was given.
Matt: It is weird that they don’t have more of a relationship, isn’t it? Jim seems to talk to Bruce about Barbara like they haven’t met, or barely know each other, which might make some of what we see with how Bruce reacts to her in costume make more sense. He trusts her because she’s a Gordon, not because she’s his sorta/kinda stepsister.
Will: It’s strange how little mileage has been gotten out of Gordon. We didn’t see him do anything as mayor aside from lose an election, and he’s certainly not doing anything of note now. It’s a real casualty of ambition and choosing to focus on any number of balls in the air rather than committing time and attention to a core set of ideas.
Matt: I think that this scene, plus the possible fate of Martha at the end of this issue, will force him more into the spotlight. Putting more focus on Barbara in this two-parter makes me feel like the Gordons are about to come into their own.
I do feel that, while this is busy with the sheer volume of characters, it never tips into the Elseworlds problem (as at least one other Absolute book does), where every character is a DC deep cut, and is there just because it’s fun for the writer. I think Snyder has plans for all of this, he just rolled them all out right away and hasn’t had time to dig into all of them as much as one would hope.
Will: For readers who haven’t listened to our “New Year, New Batman” episodes of the podcast, the “Elseworlds problem” is where writers throw every damned character imaginable into an alternate universe story, eventually flooding the zone with things like, “Oooh did you see Harvey Dent there? He’s got a funny hat!” — things that come off more like lazy references rather than attempts to actually say something. And while I don’t know which of the Absolute books you’re referencing (Matthew, you catty so and so), I will agree that Snyder never crosses that line. He’s got a vision for what he’s doing, even if I don’t always agree with it.
Matt: So, we’ve just spent 600+ words on two pages of this issue. We should probably talk about the two main things going on here, huh? Namely Batman & Ivy and Martha & the Court of Owls.
We spent most of last issue building up to Ivy, and this issue we see more of her monstrous form and get a better understanding of what her whole deal is, both powerswise and personalitywise. The ending of last issue made me think that Ivy was going to be manipulated by Grimm, but instead she has been imprisoned and locked away. And just her heart, the last piece of her original body. We’ve talked about the body horror of this book a lot, but that is especially fucked up.
Will: Some real Robocop vibes, eh? And to have Batman destroy that, after threatening it in order to secure the city? That was probably as cruel as we’ve seen him in this book. If we’re assuming that Martha is dead (which is a fair assumption, but no one is dead until we’ve seen them dead on the page — and even then, they’re only mostly dead), I think he’s set up for a real bad spiral.
Matt: Yes, Bruce is going down a dark path at the end of this issue. All the loss he has experienced has finally caught up with him, and everything Ivy said about him evolving, the darkness behind everything he has seen, it’s too much. He hasn’t crossed the rubicon yet, he hasn’t taken a life, but needlessly destroying Ivy’s heart is a bad sign, as is him seemingly giving up on his friends and his mother. I read those last couple pages as him deciding to give up on Bruce Wayne and just deciding to be Batman, which hasn’t worked for any Batman ever. And Martha’s death will only make that worse.
Will: Batman exists to war against the Court, does he not? A Court of Owls that kills his mother? He’ll burn it all down — even if they might be the only organization capable of taking on Grimm. But if Martha’s (probable?) last words are to be believed, this could be a crusading Court of Owls that has lost its way. I know this is probably a big ask in the context of everything I’ve already griped about, but I’d like to see this idea — a Court established for the same reason prime-universe Batman took up the mantle — explored a bit. How was it corrupted? And what does that say for the future of Batman?
Matt: That is how I read it as well. Martha’s line, “And yes, they crushed us. He crushed us.” That has to be in reference to Grimm, right? He ran the Owls out of Gotham when he started to take over, and they fled with their tails between their legs. I wonder if they aren’t corrupted so much as disheartened and beaten. And they might have found an ally in Batman and his slowly growing network of allies if they hadn’t killed his mother. I think a crusading Court of Owls who instead of protecting power are there to bring it down when it crosses a line is a great concept for the Absolute Universe, as the universe exists on a twisted moral axis (not a reversed one like Earth-3, but one that tends toward darkness), and so here the Owls watch from their perch and defend those who can’t defend themselves rather than those who exert control. A shame they killed the mother of the guy who could have been their greatest ally and agent, huh?
Will: Seems like a tactical error on their part! I could probably use more of Martha’s history with the Court, but considering that we’re about to get a whole heap of Dick Grayson and Scarecrow, I doubt that we’ll have a lot of time in the immediate future to square that backstory away.
Matt: Martha’s death is definitely going to be driving some of that next arc’s narrative, but yeah, finally paying off Dick Grayson seems like it’s overdue.
I also want to see what’s going on with Waylon! He’s the member of Bruce’s crew that we have the most time invested in (with the possible exception of Selina, who’s off to her own mini), and I want to see how he’s reacting to being more human again. I wonder if he’s fully human, or more akin to traditional Croc; it feels like there’s a reason we’ve only seen him shot from behind so far.
Will: Maybe Waylon — if he is truly something more healed than the monster we’ve seen — is the only member of the gang that’s going to remain an ally? A Croc that can go full on beast at will would be a good friend to have.
Matt: Most definitely. And final thing I want to bounce off you: the delivery that arrives for Oz at the Iceberg Lounge at the end of the issue. That’s got to be something from Grimm, right? Him starting to move in on Bruce’s former friends and getting them on his side.
Will: No matter the universe, Joker plays the long game.
Bat-miscellany
- Big bossman of ComicsXF and editor of this very column, Dan Grote, made a Patreon pick for this week’s BatChat column. We read three stories about the Bat family and supervillain turned superhero turned super spy, Mr. Bones.
Buy Absolute Batman #18 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.
