New threats rise in Gotham. Things are looking bad for a Batman who is an outlaw and who wants no help from his friends. And then, the Scarecrow appears, and one of Batman’s staunchest allies will not survive the encounter. And the Robins debut under the thumb of Slade Wilson. Absolute Batman #19 is written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Nick Dragotta, colored by Frank Martin and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Will Nevin: Matt, I’ve found a new low in comics “journalism.”
Matt Lazorwitz: That bar is nearly at the floor already, man. How much lower could it get?
Will: You’ve got no idea, chief. Headline Tuesday over at CBR: “Absolute Batman Officially Stars in Open-World Game Coming This May.”
Matt: Seriously? I think I know what this is about. Fellow writer here at CXF and friend of the pod Tony Thornley mentioned it to me on Slack. This is the new Lego Batman game, right? Just a freakin’ skin in that game.
Will: But it’s an Absolute Batman skin. So that means Absolute Batman is starring in the game. Officially. What the fuck are we even doing here?
Batman goes to hell
Matt: When you’re working in an alternate universe, you can take big swings. As divergent as a lot of the details are across the universe (Ra’s al Ghul is a Superman villain; Martian Manhunter isn’t really from Mars, but the human mind calls him a Martian because it’s what we can wrap our head around; Batman was friends with his rogues before they become his rogues), in a lot of these cases, things default to just a variation on what we expect.
The death in this issue? That’s a game changer.
Will: Are we sure it’s real?
Matt: I think it is. I think this is Snyder taking the big swing and doing the inverse of keeping Martha alive. The death of Jim Gordon removes one of the building blocks of who Batman is, and sets a lot of his traditional allies against him. Even if he proves he didn’t do it, he was there and didn’t save him. Can Martha and Barbara forgive that failure? Those are the first questions that came to mind for me. And as an inciting incident for an anti-Batman crusade, it’s a hell of a drop.
Will: If it is real (and with Scarecrow about, I have doubts), I am both frustrated at how Gordon’s death is not the central focus of this issue — because this book is chronically incapable of focusing on a single thing for more than five panels in a given floppy, naturally — and also a little understanding of why this version of Gordon was never particularly fleshed out. If he is well and truly dead, it’s been the plan from the beginning.
Matt: I don’t know if there’s anything I can say here that’s any different from what we’ve discussed when it comes to similar issues you’ve had for the past 18 issues. I think this was the plan from the beginning, so I think there was only so much time to spend with a character Snyder knew he was just going to kill off. And his death feels like the beginning of a story, not the end. I think we’re going to feel the reverberations of his death for the rest of the arc, and further once Martha comes back. He died 17 pages into a 22-page comic. If you needed to focus on it, you’d have to have changed the structure of the comic. I think next issue is where that should be felt.
Will: The brief meeting between Bruce and Gordon in the last issue makes more sense in context now. We had to get the “Yeah, I know you’re Batman, dumbass” conversation because there wasn’t much time left. And, again, to your point, there wasn’t much sense in investing a lot into the scene. But I think you’re right in that we can expect Martha to both survive her meeting with the Court and to be back relatively soon to factor into this fallout.
If this was my book to write (which it’s not, and given the sales numbers, I don’t think DC editorial will ask me to take over any time soon), I would put this Scarecrow in the Deathstroke spot, almost like a Music Man-style con, with Scarecrow promising to rid Gotham of the big, scary Batman. But if nothing else, this Scarecrow design is cool as shit.
Matt: Oh, this might be the scariest looking Scarecrow ever. Those eyes? Terrifying. What angle do you think Snyder is playing with Crane here? He seems to be inspiring something that isn’t the usual bowel-loosening fear that the Scarecrow of the main DCU does. Scarecrow is a character I’ve been surprised Snyder has not done more with.
Will: If we’re totes honest, prime Scarecrow is always best as a secondary concern — he’s a nerd with spooky gas, and there’s only so much you can do with that. This Scarecrow seems much more of a Randall Flagg/Leland Gaunt sort of character — one who has a sense of the fear and hatred that lurks inside all of us and the knowledge of how to manipulate that into monstrous results. So as of now, it feels like a more grounded and sinister take on the character, which is a bit of a disconnect from, as you say, the horrifying visage. But, hey, this is the body horror book. That’s one thing I wouldn’t change.
Matt: I’ve said this in various pieces we’ve written, and several podcasts we’ve recorded: Snyder is a writer whose plots are driven by fear. He writes about whatever his current fears are. So Scarecrow seems a natural fit. And frankly, someone using fear to craft a narrative that allows for an armed force to walk the streets of a major city is something to fear in 2026.
There’s a lot of other stuff going on here, too. Because, yes, this book always has a thousand things happening. I like the design of the more human Waylon. It’s close to the original Killer Croc design. Not full on monster-man, but more human, and it makes him expressive, which is always a problem with more monstrous takes on Croc.
Will: Co-sign on the Waylon points. The best versions of Croc (like Penguin) are closer to “man with a troubling skin condition” rather than “genetic accident gone horribly wrong,” which was where we last saw him. Although at least that took him all the way through to the other side in which a more monstrous take was something different.
Introducing *all* of the Robins at once seems like a bit much, but we’re continuing to go over the top with mechas (or something similar). And I still can’t help but feel that Deathstroke is superfluous, but maybe something interesting with him is cooking, and I simply can’t get a handle for what that could be.
Matt: I am leaving most of that to discuss next issue when we have more than two pages of all of them. Introducing the Robins as a team might be a bit much, or, as with some of the other things in this book, it’s better to do that and have them all out there then hear a bunch of fanboys whining about the lack of Tim Drake (something I would never, ever do).
I think Deathstroke’s potential is in his relationship to Alfred. If he was maimed and holds a mad-on for Alfred, if he and Alfred were partners and Alfred took him out because he sold Alfred out to Grimm? There is a lot of story that could be mined there.
Will: Deathstroke vs. Alfred would have my attention. If nothing else, I hope these Robins have some fun Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle vibes. I know who the mad one will be!
Matt: Last thing I want to talk about. On top of Dragotta’s design work on Scarecrow and Croc, which are great, that opening chase scene with the “Bat-Nasty” also looked great. I’m not used to a big action scene using so many small panels rather than large splashes, but it kept that scene moving, and that is also a cool vehicle design.
Will: I think whenever Snyder hangs it up (or gets that TV money flowin’), the words “Snyder,” “Capullo” and “Dragotta” will all fit quite nicely into one sentence. Regardless of my continuing gripes, there’s no arguing the dynamite commercial success of Absolute Batman, and Dragotta’s vision for the look, feel and pace of this book are every bit as integral as Snyder’s contributions.
Bat-miscellany
- This week’s BatChat podcast sees us read some classic anthologies, something we love, as we rank story 700! Who would have expected that? Not us!
Buy Absolute Batman #19 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.
