Bruce Wayne has made it back to Gotham after escaping Ark M. And while the city is still there, it has changed for Bruce. His friends have changed. And those changes may make friends something much darker. Absolute Batman #12 is written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Nick Dragotta, colored by Frank Martin and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: So much for that new Red Hood book, huh?
Matt Lazorwitz: Oof, yeah. There is time for a thoughtful piece on DC/Warner’s response to this that will take up more space and time than the opening of our little review column. I did buy a copy, so I will be able to read it, but I wonder if this is going to just disappear; not be added to Infinite or anything and DC just hopes it is forgotten.
Will: It appears to have been pulled from Comixology, so I wouldn’t expect it to go on Infinite, no. It’ll just be memory holed, I reckon. As always, your employer does not care about you generally and does not care about your principled right to free expression specifically.
Homecoming
Matt: This issue finally brings about the origins of so many of the Arkham crowd. As I was reading it, I was thinking about you, Will. The existence of Bruce’s friends as members of the rogue’s gallery of Batman has been a metaphorical rock in your shoe since the first issue. And now all of them have experienced the changes that will make them versions of the villains we know from Earth-0. And as the origins are specifically happening BECAUSE they are friends with Bruce, I feel like it justifies this setup. It’s not coincidence that his friends become monsters who hate him; they became monsters because he couldn’t protect them. And while I hate the idea that Batman creates his villains in prime continuity, this seems to work with what Snyder has been laying down from the beginning: the cost of doing good.
Will: One of the reasons I’m not too sad we didn’t get Star Trek: Legacy is that the premise — a whole bridge crew of some of the most interesting people in the galaxy and/or the kids of such — was baby food soft. Magical pablum. A contrived stew of nonsense. Batfriends becoming Batenemies is not much better. I’ve tried to make my peace with it, but we’re here once more, aren’t we?
It’s a different take; I’ll give Snyder that. But nothing will ever make it not contrived. Let’s assume for the moment that Riddler — who for my money made for the most disturbing transformation — remains an ally, or at least tries to stay on the right side of the law. That gives us Croc, Penguin and Two-Face who are all villains/villainish, who were all transformed by Bane and who were somehow failed by Batman. That sameness is profoundly uninteresting to me.
Artistically? Love the designs, although I guess there’s only so much you can do to reimagine Two-Face. But to answer your question (was there a question?), the rock is still in my shoe, but I’m working on ignoring it.
Matt: As fair a response as can be given. This never bugged me nearly as much as you, so I’m more in on it. A lesser artist may not have sold me as much, but Dragotta sells the body horror. Penguin is truly grotesque. I’m curious to see what Harvey is going to look like outside the bandages. Leslie Thompkins says his skull was split in two when he was found, so that might mean he’s a bit more grotesque. And yes, the cybernetic Riddler is super fucked up looking. I think he will still be a villain, but not out of bitterness. I think Eddie, regardless of the universe, is all about the challenge, and he will eventually want to challenge Bruce. As we have said about this book on multiple occasions, this is a body horror-meets-superhero comic.
Will: And I love body horror as much as the next body horror pervert. But some of what we’re not getting in this book continues to surprise me. Once again, the Gordon/Bruce relationship is hinted at but not explored beyond a single line. As we’ve said before, turning Jim Gordon from surrogate father to something akin to a stepfather is a big change. And while there’s still plenty of runway — this book has sold since day one and continues to sell — I’m stumped as to why this is not something that has gotten more attention.
Matt: I am more disappointed in the lack of Martha and Bruce. The pages we get here are great, the combination of her rage at him for disappearing and her relief that he is back. I wish we could have spent more time with that. This book plays with time and flashbacks so much, I want a series of flashbacks about their relationship. Seeing Bruce as he reacted to Thomas’ death. What it was like when he was a teenager. All of it through his relationship with Martha. That is a well I would like to see plumbed.
Speaking of the flashbacks, I feel like we are heading to the inevitable splintering of the Bruce/Selina relationship. Right where we are in the flashbacks, things seem so good. She’s willing to give up her loot to help Bruce help Waylon. Whatever causes them to slit up is going to be bad.
Will: I’m sure Selina will be very rational when it comes to apportioning blame for what happened to the gang, too. Fun times are ahead for Bruce — especially when he tries to kick Venom and/or roll back whatever Bane has done to him. Whole fuckin’ lot going on in this book, Matt.
Matt: And we haven’t even talked about Alfred yet. I am still not as sold on that relationship. Other than his daughter calling him on his bullshit, we still haven’t seen a lot of why Alfred came around to Bruce’s cause, and someone who has spent his entire life as this black ops guy doesn’t just change overnight. I’d like to see more of that. Not everything needs to be on the page, and at times I feel like I’m asking too much, but I do think we should spend some more time with the central relationships in the book, or at least with Alfred being more than a walking exposition dump. But with this much plot and action, it’s hard to squeeze that in, too.
Will: To this point, Alfred has been hesitant, almost conflict avoidant, but he sure as hell jumped right into that at the end, didn’t he? And the last thing we heard about the city, it was under martial law, wasn’t it? Again, a lot going on here, and not enough pages to fully explore everything. I’m not really sure how you fix that. I like the pacing we have here — we already had one issue of Bruce being tortured, so we certainly didn’t need to see that with the gang. If I could pass along a word to one Mr. Snyder, maybe it would be to slow down a bit somehow? Instead of throwing out five ideas, maybe we take three and really get to ground and grapple with those.
Matt: We’re going to reach a point where that has to happen. There are only so many characters to introduce in this warped world. Now here’s a fun thought experiment: Ra’s and Talia are, so far, the big bads over in Absolute Superman. Can you pick one character from another corner of the DC Universe who you’d like to see Snyder plug into Gotham?
Will: Weird pick incoming. Since this Batman is so (relatively) grounded, how would he handle some space shit? Specifically of the Sinestro variety. I think that could be interesting.
Matt: I like that. I was thinking some time-travel nonsense. Abra Kadabra, a Flash rogue (lower case “r”; he’s not one of the official group of Rogues) is a crook and grifter from the 64th century who came back in time and plays with the Arthur C. Clarke saying about advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. Put Bruce up against a “magician” who turns out to be using tech. And a guy like that would totally work for Absolute Joker.
Will: And probably helping him with some sick gains, brah. What a creep.
Bat-miscellany
- Patreon backer and new friend of the show Sam Hopper joins us to talk about three stories of early Damian Wayne where he is, indeed, the worst.
- So there’s a Red Hood Gang in this Gotham, too. That’s gonna be Jason Todd who Bruce was talking to, right? So now, where is Absolute Tim Drake?
- Don’t worry. We’ll be talking about Dark Patterns next week.
Buy Absolute Batman #12 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.
