In this column, our resident ‘comics guy’ Fred Azeredo expounds on a single comic book issue published the previous month. Not necessarily the biggest, not necessarily the best, just one he thinks is worth discussing! See if you agree!
Look at me changing my mind! In my very first IOTM last year, I wrote that Absolute Batman “feels suspiciously like a return to Doug Moench’s grimdark muscleman of the ‘90s.” I stand by that—but I didn’t consider how much fun that could be. Though Absolute Batman has plundered heavily from the Dark Knight’s most unhinged, excessive era, it’s managed to do so in a consistently character-driven way. The twists on familiar characters are genuine experiments at new dynamics within the Bat-mythos, not merely twists for shock value.
Scott Snyder’s spirit of confident reinvention is especially evident in this issue, the finale of the “Abomination” arc. The storyline introduced a Bane with an even more comically hellish backstory, as well as an interesting desire to pass on his mantle to Batman himself. It also brought us ‘Ark M’, a giant underground laboratory filled with grotesque genetically engineered versions of classic Rogues. Ridiculous? Yes. Sounds like something Rob Liefeld might have written? Yes.
But does it work? Surprisingly, yes.
Snyder just commits to all this excess, finding a heart within this absurd world of twenty-foot-tall musclemen and Gatling gun tranquilizer rifles and investing the proceedings with a visceral pathos.
He also finds room to homage some of the greatest stories of ‘90s Batman, such as Denny O’Neill’s “Venom”. Bruce’s addiction to the titular super-steroid constitutes the central conflict of the arc, and Absolute borrows that compelling dynamic wholesale. It may be a familiar beat when Batman forgoes Venom to beat Bane the old-fashioned way in this issue, but it makes for a rousing climax. Nick Dragotta’s remarkable art goes a long way toward selling all this; he knows just when to opt for minimalism and when to render gobs of flesh exploding in hyper-realistic detail. It’s gross and way too much, but at the same time, it’s kind of great. Honestly, that’s Absolute Batman in a nutshell.