At yesterday's HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, Absolute Batman creative team Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta shared a first look at the cover for Absolute Batman #24.
Paying homage to the comic's first issue, we see Barbara Gordon suited up as Batgirl. However, her official moniker will be "The Bat." Wearing the cowl the young GCPD rookie has been using to communicate with Batman, along with her father's coat, this looks to be a very grounded take on the character. She's also wielding a familiar shotgun.
Suiting up after the death of her father, Mayor Jim Gordon, at the hands of The Scarecrow, Barbara is seeking to end the corruption within the Gotham City Police Department and save her city.
Dragotta said (via Bleeding Cool), "Barbara knows Batman didn't kill her father. She's going to grab her dad's coat. We've seen Bruce hanging up; he's going down this spiral from the Scarecrow. Barbara's going to take the mission into her own hands to avenge her father."
"She's got this great story; she's going to become The Bat," the artist continued. "Her day job is a cop, but at night she'll have to go outside the law to get things done. But she still has this core, it almost feels more Btman than Batman."
Snyder added, "It really comes to a head here. We wanted her to come up under her father, and after her time at the GCPD, she sees all these things that are wrong with it. For her, there's her father, but there's tremendous corruption, so she goes outside that."
"One of the fun things is she fights differently, and so in terms of the shotgun, you might recognise that from the very first issue we did, Bruce repurposed Alfred's shotgun to be this Batshotgun that fires electrified mini Batarang pellets, so that it's non-lethal and at the same time super badass. She uses different weapons that way."
"So she follows some of the same tenants, she's not out there murdering people, but at the same time she is really tough, wait till you see her with the coat off, it's awesome, she's buff, she looks like MMA, out of control, she's got the wraps, she's got the tank top, kevlar with the Bat symbol on it," the writer concluded.
Absolute Batman recently introduced a very different take on the Robins, turning characters like Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake into foes, not friends, to Bruce Wayne. Meanwhile, the likes of Killer Croc and Harley Quinn are now among his closest allies.
The series has been a huge success for DC Comics, and its momentum shows no signs of slowing down. Marvel Comics has yet to find an answer to it, with the Ultimate Universe ultimately unable to compete with the Distinguished Competition's Absolute line.
Check out this first look at Absolute Batman #24's take on "The Bat" below.