The latest reimagining of the Caped Crusader is here! It reimagines everything from who the Waynes are to the Joker and it does it so well. Easily, this is one of the best reimaginings of Batman ever, if not the best, at least so far. In this review, I'll recap the events of the comic and give my take on it.
SPOILERS for Absolute Batman #1 below.
The story starts off by introducing us to this world's version of Alfred Pennyworth. In this world, Alfred is some kind of secret agent but it is unknown who he works for. He's narrating the story which, interestingly, seems like it's going to be told mostly from his point of view. He's been given a mission which is to go to Gotham and surveil a new gang called The Party Animals who seem to love murdering people without a reason. Alfred has an apartment resembling a CIA safe house chock full of guns, naturally right next to the best tea shop in Gotham. Alfred's reimaging as a beefy, bearded secret agent sets a great tone for the story and prepares the reader for some major differences.
The next scene is both very well executed and hilarious. We cut to a boxing gym where a fit, but not particularly buff young man is hitting a punching bag saying things like, “Tonight, this is your city.” We're clearly supposed to think this is Bruce Wayne, but then the real one shows up and he is massive. I mean enormous. Gigantic. Mountainous. He's so big it's actually hilarious and made me laugh, but in a good way. If the man we saw right before Bruce was an average man, Bruce, in comparison, seems to be at least six feet seven inches tall and around three hundred pounds of pure muscle. He's huge. He proceeds to hit the punching bag hard enough to send it flying away from him, eventually breaking it in two. We also see Waylan Jones as the owner of the gym carrying a crocodile for an unknown reason who reveals to us that Bruce grew up with Waylan, Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle, Edward Nigma, and Oswald Cobblepot as friends.
Throughout the comic, Bruce Wayne's backstory is very different from the one we know. His parents were never rich. His father was a teacher and his mother a social worker. They were just regular people with no money. Bruce is still a genius having invented a collapsible bridge with an origami like structure based on the design of a bat's wing. He won a competition with this and the prize is a trophy and trip to the zoo. Bruce's class, which Thimas teaches, goes to the zoo and someone starts letting off shots with a handgun. Thomas tells the children to hide in the bat exhibit, where Bruce waits as his father is seemingly killed. Later in life, something sets Bruce on a mission, so he quits football and studies mechanics, chemistry, criminal psychology, military theory, and sociocultural history. He comes back to Gotham after mastering all these topics and takes jobs working for the city to learn its ins and outs. Lastly, Bruce Wayne’s mother is still alive and Alfred even declares her his weakness.
The origin story for Batman in this comic is fantastic. It’s a little bit less believable, but exponentially more relatable. It’s so good that I think it could almost serve as Batman’s main origin story, but I feel like that would be disrespectful to Bob Kane and Bill Finger.
The villains in this story are its only downside so far. They’re intriguing, but not very interesting. The Party Animals are led by someone named Roman who wears a big, awkward black mask, so I’m pretty sure he’s this story’s version of Black Mask. He has a DJ named Dr. Benjamin, who also wears a black mask, but seems to be purple and have an octopus on his head, then there’s a little girl, once again, with a black mask, purple skin, and an octopus head. Maybe this is Dr. Benjamin’s daughter. Not much else is revealed about the villains other than that Black Mask really likes death and collects something called death masks that aren’t explained at all but seem to be moldings of someone’s face made after they’re dead. The villains aren’t great, but I imagine they’ll get better as the series progresses.
Eventually, we see Batman in action for the first time and boy is it awesome. After a bunch of goons wearing black gorilla skull masks show up and try to kill everyone at Mayor Gordon’s Town Hall meeting, Batman shows up and fights more like a bat than ever. The origami bridge invention Bruce made when he was young is now used as hook like claws and stilts for Batman to stand on as well as a bulletproof cape separated into segments. Batman uses them to grab enemies from a distance and uses his enormous muscles to launch them into buildings. His ears act as holders for throwing knife like batarangs that he uses to stab enemies, just missing their arteries according to Alfred who is watching and collecting data. Remember that big, bulky batsymbol everyone was complaining about? It’s a detachable axe that Bruce uses to cut off someone’s hand. Yeah, very cool.
This Batman seems to have a no kill rule like most others, but he also lopped off someone’s hand and blew up twenty or so goons right after Alfred points out that he’s not killing anyone. It seems to me that this Batman doesn’t want to kill, but also doesn’t mind if his enemies die. Finally, the one page epilogue introduces us to the Joker, the nameless, super wealthy man who never, ever laughs at anything. Quite interesting.
Overall, this was a fantastic comic. The art was solid and fit the tone of the story very well. The new design for Bruce and Batman as a hulking beast that flings himself around on origami stilts, pulls knives off his head, and has an axe attached to his chest is, put plainly, awesome. The new origin story for Bruce is great and relatable to more people. Alfred’s redesign goes well with the rest of the story and I can’t wait to see where his mission to hunt Batman goes. The only negative part of the comic is the generic bad guy who seems to have no interesting motivation, but that could easily change as the story progresses. As a whole, I give this story an amazing 9/10.
Check back in a few days for my recap and review of Absolute Batman #2!