{"id":537518,"date":"2026-03-21T22:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T22:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537518\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T22:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T22:51:10","slug":"oh-the-new-absolute-batman-villains-are-kinda-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/537518\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, the New ‘Absolute Batman’ Villains Are…Kinda Normal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether or not you\u2019ve read\u00a0Absolute Batman<\/a>,\u00a0you probably know the DC book is charmingly over the top. A big Batman goes up against retooled versions of his rogues\u2019 gallery<\/a> that range from monstrously big Bane<\/a> and Killer Croc to Poison Ivy as a living fusion of the animal kingdom and Scarecrow as\u2026whatever the hell this scary thing<\/a> is. And what about the next villain our hero will fight? Well, it\u2019s actually two villains, and they\u2019re both quite personal.<\/p>\n

The DC Comics solicits for June 2026<\/a> reveal Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta\u2019s Absolute Batman #21 will debut that universe\u2019s Two-Face and Penguin. In this continuity, Harvey Dent, Waylon Jones, Oswald Cobblepot, Selina Kyle, and Eddie Nygma were Bruce\u2019s childhood friends growing up. As adults, they all know about his night life, which led to Bane brutalizing Eddie, Oz and Harvey in ways that\u2019s left the latter two angry at their friend.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Absbatman<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Nick Dragotta\/DC Comics \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Absbatman<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Nick Dragotta\/DC Comics \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Absbatman<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Nick Dragotta\/DC Comics \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Absbatman<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Nick Dragotta\/DC Comics \t\t\t\t \t\t <\/p>\n

That resentment has apparently now boiled over into full-on villainy, as the synopsis mentions that \u201cfriends become enemies, [and] enemies become friends.\u201d Instead of taking on grotesque monster forms, the Absolute Two-Face has just grown his hair out to hide half of his face, which is blue as a nod to his most well-known (and less gruesome) version from\u00a0Batman: The Animated Series. And instead of a double-headed coin, he\u2019s got a poker chip to make decisions for him. As for Penguin, he\u2019s using machine guns as crutches and\u2026 yeah, I can stop there; that\u2019s just kinda cool as hell. Love it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see if Bruce can repair his friendship with Harvey and Oz when Absolute Batman #21 hits shelves on June 10.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether or not you\u2019ve read\u00a0Absolute Batman,\u00a0you probably know the DC book is charmingly over the top. A big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[130735,20486,9417,88,206,240890,240891],"class_list":["post-537518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-absolute-batman","tag-batman","tag-dc-comics","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-nick-dragotta","tag-scott-snyder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}