The origin of Absolute Bane is revealed, as Alfred recalls the character’s past and fears for Batman’s future. Absolute Batman #11 is written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Clay Mann, colored by Ivan Plascencia and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: Whatcha more excited for: new Lego Batman or new Peacemaker?
Matt Lazorwitz: Those are two things I am very excited about. And two things that are long in the making. We’re three years since the first season of Peacemaker, and eight since the last Lego DC game. By simple math, I’d have to say Lego Batman, but I will be watching Peacemaker first chance I get.
Will: A more serious Lego Batman is an interesting concept. Looking forward to it whenever it drops. As far as Peacemaker, I’ll catch that eventually. You know me, always got Dragnet to watch.
Matt: I respect your hard-headed determination to watch as little television created since the ’70s as possible.
Will: Dude, have you heard about this new LSD stuff? It’s scary as hell.
The Skull-Backed Bird
Will: Just so I’m clear on what happened versus what might happen or what might have happened in Alfred’s nightmares, we got a Batman with a crushed-in face and two missing arms, correct? If so, this is as close to Robocop as Batman has ever gotten, and I gotta say, I’m not mad about it. Buy that for a dollar, Matt?
Matt: I think that was just Alfred’s fear. I think everything from the moment that Bane shows up at Batman’s door and when we see the Bat/Bane hybrid is Alfred talking about what might happen. That’s why it ends with Bane going after our proto-Riddler, Penguin and Two-Face. A Ro-Bat-Cop would be a great Elseworlds, though.
Will: See, this is why I ask these things. We talked about this last time, but once again, we have a Bane that’s tweaked rather than completely overhauled or entirely reimagined. As we speculated, Venom in this universe is more of a mental stimulant, and when it comes to Bane’s back story, while much of it is the same, Joker is all over it, and Bane’s daddy issues are all kinds of different.
Matt: That is very much intentional, and designed to better parallel this version of Batman. This Batman only lost his father, and so here, Bane only has his father. Thomas died protecting Bruce and his friends; he was doing something. While Bane’s revolutionary father clearly did things, he also seemed something of a dreamer, just constantly spouting off his ideals and dreams, and in the end it is Bane who actually does something. And while Bruce’s mother was present, Bane’s mother seems entirely absent from this story.
The Venom that doesn’t dumb you down is a fascinating wrinkle. It seems to add a touch of Grant Morrison’s Prometheus to Bane. And tying KGBeast and Deathstroke to the same project, and to Joker, adds a cool wrinkle. I think I said it when we were talking about all the Bat villains as mad scientists working for Ark-M in the last issue, but this isn’t contrivance, more finding a way to extrapolate and connect characters with similar backgrounds. And it does confirm that the nameless eyepatch guy we saw in a photo or flashback with Alfred is indeed Absolute Deathstroke. I’m trying to figure out who the nameless character from the Middle East is. If he weren’t in Superman, I’d think Ra’s al Ghul, but I guess that’s a tease for later.
Will: I’ll agree with you that it’s not a contrivance. When you have the opportunity to remake a universe, it only makes sense to put like things together, to give some kind of order to the chaos of continuity. I mean, I don’t know what the Absolute Clayface plans are, but I’m damn sure there won’t be five or six of them.
Matt: I like how, as you said, Snyder just tweaked Bane’s origin. It rhymes with the original quite well. There isn’t the vision of the bat that draws him to Gotham, but adding the skull-backed bird as his vision, tying it to the skull on his mask and adding the bird imagery to Santa Prisca is some solid writing. And the fact that he did what he did to protect his homeland, that he accepted the Joker’s deal, stands him in stark contrast with Batman, who turned down a similar deal from the Joker-backed Black Mask. And Alfred’s comment that Bane was the second of three temptations means the third is going to come from Joker himself, right?
Will: Yessir, we’re gonna get our first real taste of the Joker sooner rather than later. And it’s funny — as much as this has been Batman: The Body Horror Universe, Joker (as he is now) is relatively normal looking aside from his trademark grin. I wonder if that’s going to change, if he’s going to get into the body horror himself or if, like much of the world we see around us, his relatively banal appearance is the scariest part about him.
Matt: Will, your memory is failing you again. Remember Joker in the baby suit? The fact that he has some Elizabeth Bathory-style, using-the-youth-of-others-to-regenerate-his-own thing going? The body horror is already there.
Will: Matt, body horror is only full Cronenberg and nothing short of it. Everyone knows that. You’re just jealous of Joker’s good skin care routine.
Matt: Absolute Evil is just a month and change away, so we’ll definitely be seeing Joker there, teaming up with all this universe’s crooked industrialists, and there are a lot of them.
I like that this Joker keeps up so much of the traditional Joker stuff: the sheer, vile disregard for human life, the general look of the character, but emphasizes the Svengali-like aspects we only see every so often, most notably with Harley. This is a guy who talks a boy who was raised to be a revolutionary over to his side in one conversation. That’s a whole different level of creepy.
Will: And this opens up a lot of story possibilities down the road, ya know? Alliances between bad dudes never last. What happens when Joker alters the terms of the deal with Bane and Santa Prisca? Doesn’t have to happen, certainly, but that’s an interesting possible chapter to explore.
Matt: What did you think of the art here? Clay Mann certainly loves to spotlight his bikini-wearing ladies whenever he can, huh?
Will: I like my consistency from issue to issue like I like my television, but artists are human, and I’m sure Nick Dragotta appreciated the break. Mann does good work, even if it is a little gaze-y.
Matt: Oh, yeah, and there seems to be a spot Snyder has reserved for guest artists. We had Gabriel Walta draw part 4 of arc one, and this is part 3 of arc 2, and they’re both mostly flashbacks. He’s spacing it out so Dragotta has time to catch up and it doesn’t break the cohesive nature of the main arc.
Will: The mid-narrative flashback: an artist’s greatest friend.
Bat-miscellany
- It’s a milestone on the BatChat podcast. ComicsXF Editor and Publisher Dan Grote joins us to celebrate 200 episodes, with Grant Morrison’s The Return of Bruce Wayne and two of the stories that inspired it.
- We’ll be covering the big Detective Comics #1,100 next week. How could we not cover a book with stories by Greg Rucka AND Dan Watters?
Buy Absolute Batman #11 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.
