Scott Snyder understands Batman on a primal level. He’s so in tune with the fundamental qualities that make Batman a hero, that the writer’s able to strip away almost every known Batman trait away, change everything that we’ve absorbed about the mythology, and reverse engineer an ingenious interpretation of the Caped Crusader that’s unlike anything we have seen in the history of DC Comics.
The Absolute comics currently are viewing the major DC characters through a unique prism. Absolute Superman (penned by Jason Aaron) spent his formative years on a dying Krypton, and knew his parents before they sacrificed themselves and sent a grown version of the hero to Earth. Absolute Wonder Woman (penned by Kelly Thompson) was raised in Hell, instead of Themyscira.
Every Classic DC Villain Featured in Absolute Batman
Image by Scoot Allan
DC’s Absolute Batman series has delivered to readers a complete reinvention of the classic Caped Crusader, along with his most famous villains. In a world seeded with Darkseid energy, Scott Snyder’s first arc in Absolute Batman saw many of the characters’ classic rogues’ gallery appear, but in drastically different roles.
Many of Batman’s typical villains, such as Penguin and the Riddler, are actually his closest friends in the Absolute Universe. However, while some of these villains are on Batman’s side for now, Gotham still has plenty of villains who are out for the Bat. Along with a bigger and more brutal Batman, writer Scott Snyder aims to translate that to the characters’ villains as well, stating that he aims to make Arkham and Batman’s villains the stuff of nightmares.
And then there’s Snyder’s Absolute Batman, a beast of a warrior who didn’t grow up rich, who lost his father in a shooting (but not his mother), and who fights alongside an Alfred he didn’t grow up with… and who has a mission of his own. Though we have met characters such as Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and Bane in these books, they have been drastic but invigorating alternates to the ones we’ve known forever.
Absolute BaneCredit: DC Comics
One aspect I’ve loved the most about Snyder’s storytelling on Absolute Batman is his approach to Bruce Wayne’s friends. From the beginning, young Wayne has run in a tight-knit group of neighborhood kids with names you are bound to recognize: Harvey Dent; Waylon Jones; Edward Nigma; Oswald Cobblepot, and; Selina Kyle. They are Bruce’s inner circle, yet his need to push them away led to most of them being severely injured during the devastating Abomination storyline.
As that saga comes to its conclusion, we were lucky enough to have Scott Snyder join us as a guest on CBR’s new podcast, Heroes Journey, to discuss the ongoing Absolute line, as well as the fantastic DC K.O. event that’s taking over the current run of books. The full interview will drop on YouTube, on Saturday, Nov. 8 — then on Spotify and Apple Podcasts on Tuesday, Nov. 11 — so make sure that you are subscribed.
But below, we discussed the direction that Absolute Batman will go following the conclusion of Abomination, and the importance of Bruce Wayne’s friends as he continues on this very challenging journey.
Bruce Wayne and his childhood friendsCredit: DC Comics
Going back to re-read this book, now that we know where it’s going, there’s a panel that I want to know your feelings about when you saw it. It’s the photograph of young Bruce surrounded by his friends. I revisit it now, and it’s just devastating. Do you remember seeing that for the first time? Is that sketch a touchstone for the foundation of this character?
Oh, absolutely. So Nick and I – and I can’t say enough good things about Nick (Dragotta), because the next stage of the process, when DC was like, ‘Okay, so you’re going to write it.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not saying I’ll write it. I’m just saying I’m considering it. But I need to know if the right artist is available.
The one person I thought of… spoiler, but one of the people I had gone to to write and draw (Absolute Batman) himself was Daniel Warren Johnson, but he was already committed to Transformers.
But I knew I wanted a style, if I did it, that was unconventional and that felt both gritty and elastic, and had this kind of modern pliability and kineticism. That feels like manga and yet at the same time has this groundedness when it needs it. And Nick was just the person. He’s the person I wanted to do it with. …
We went to my studio right there, and we just started putting stuff on a board, and on the walls. I was describing, like, ‘I see Batman as really big in this one.’ He would draw something. I’m like, ‘Bigger.’ And he was like, ‘Again?’ ‘Bigger.’ ‘He’s like the Hulk then.’ And I’m like, ‘He’s like the Hulk!’
Absolute Universe Confirms Its Heading to a Legendary Location for ‘Straight Up Horror’ Story
Image via DC
For nearly a year, DC Comics has delivered some of its most inventive and refreshing stories with what has been dubbed as the Absolute Universe. Overseen by Eisner Award-winning comic book writer Scott Snyder, the imprint introduces unique takes on the publisher’s most iconic characters — primarily the Holy Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman at first — reinterpreting them in a fascinating and, especially, darker manner.
The Absolute Universe will finally unveil its own iteration of a place that is very well known among readers, who will also immediately recognize it as the site of many of the most unsettling stories ever told in the history of DC Comics.
But it was an important aspect because we were like, ‘Well, the reason he’s that way is because he doesn’t have as much. And when you subtract cars and gadgets, what does somebody who doesn’t have a lot have to intimidate people in power? Well, they have size. And they have violence. And they have brutality. And they’re going to hurt you.’ You’re not used to being hurt when you have 10 bodyguards, and you live in a world in an ivory tower. And so there’s a level of strategy to being that big and that violent.
Anyway, we came to the friends. And I was like, ‘Look, the idea is he grows up in the same neighborhood, and it’s pulled a lot from my experience growing up in the city. Where you have a lot of friends that you grew up (with) in the same neighborhood. You go different ways, but they still mean something to you. Some of whom I’m still friends with. They’re such formative bonds.
And it just made it so much more energized to me to think of him as childhood sweethearts with Selina, and childhood friends with Harvey and how they all split up over the years. So Nick drew that photograph really early. It was maybe even (during) that visit or the next one. We put everything up on the walls in there for a while. I taped up different sketches and that was one of the very early ones that gave us a totemic aspect of what the series is going to be.
It’s the beating heart of it. Bruce realizing the arc of the entire thing – the whole 40 issues, or 35-to-40 issue story we have planned… and it’ll probably, it keeps expanding as we go, so it might wind up 50 or 60 (issues) or whatever – is Bruce’s realization that you can’t be Batman alone. To mean something, especially when you’re going up against people in entrenched, powerful positions, it has to be a collective. You’ve got to let people in. You’ve got to trust and be vulnerable and allow it to be bigger than yourself, and share it. And so, the friends and his relationships to them, and his mother, are just this real lifeblood of the series. It’s something we’ll return to in a big way.
Absolute Wonder WomanCredit: DC Comics
In fact, the next arcs … the Wonder Woman one we’re doing in January is deeply focused on him trying to help Waylon. (Bruce) going to Wonder Woman to try and help Waylon find some way of stopping this transformation. And then the subsequent arc with Nick, which brings in Scarecrow and all of this, is largely about his relationships with his friends, and how he decides that all he does is hurt people, so he needs to actually shut everybody out. It’s the wrong way to go, but it brings him closer to Harley and a lot of the Red Hood gang.
So there’s a lot of stuff coming that we’re really excited about that deals with the friends. You see their designs. You’re going to see Penguin and Two-Face and Riddler as he becomes who he is. But the one thing I’d say to people. They get very worried that we’re just going to make them (into) Batman’s villains. We’re not. There’s a really different relationship here where they are going to get intact.
But ultimately, there’s, again, this is a world in which people that grow up without a lot, and make wrong decisions, but can find each other again in some ways. There are people who are deliberately awful in very powerful positions throughout this Absolute Universe. And so, it’s not hard to band back together with your old friends, even if they’re never the people you thought you’d be back together with, when you’re facing something much worse.
The GooniesCredit: Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection
Those are my favorite types of stories. I love those stories. We both grew up on The Goonies.
Right? Exactly. It really is like The Goonies. Goonies is actually a good way of thinking about it. There’s a lot of that Spielbergian, ‘80s, kids on bikes kind of feel to this whole thing that comes back later, too. Because, you know, they’re pretty mad at him. There’s a pretty heartbreaking scene in the Wonder Woman (crossover) with his friends, where he goes to talk to them. Then we’re doing a small story afterwards with Poison Ivy and that one is also – it’s again largely about everything changing. Him trying to understand how, after fighting Bane in public, Batman suddenly means something to everybody (in Gotham), and belongs to everybody. And yet, all the people he wanted it to matter to and to be close with don’t want to talk to him anymore, so he’s kind of lost.
So there’s a lot. I’m just so excited about where we’re headed with the series. All the best and biggest stuff is still coming. We were just kind of getting our wheels on in the first couple arcs.
The cover to Batman issue #1 depicts Bruce Wayne as Batman and Dick Grayson as Robin swinging through Gotham City.
Created by
Bill Finger, Bob Kane
First Film
Batman: The Movie
Upcoming Films
The Batman – Part II