Absolute Batman: Scott Snyder’s Dark Knight Is “Chaos and Anarchy”

More than a decade after writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo relaunched the Batman comics for DC’s New 52 initiative with the first Batman #1 since 1940, Snyder is going all in on Absolute Batman. Snyder’s five-year run on the DCU Dark Knight introduced the Court of Owls, “BatCop” Jim Gordon and his Superheavy Bat-bot Rookie, the Joker-centric epics “Death of the Family” and “Endgame,” and the new origin story “Zero Year,” which chronicled how Bruce Wayne became Batman in The New 52. And now Snyder is reinventing the Batman mythology once more in DC’s new Absolute Universe.

Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta (DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Image’s East of West) will launch Absolute Batman #1 on October 9th as part of DC All In, the line-wide initiative that begins with the 64-page one-shot DC All in Special #1 (Oct. 2nd) co-written by Snyder and Joshua Williamson (Superman) with art by Daniel Sampere (Wonder Woman) and Wes Craig (Deadly Class). 

In addition to taking the DC Universe’s core line titles in a new direction post-Absolute Power with the creative teams of Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jiménez, and Carmine Di Giandomenico (bi-monthly Batman) and Tom Taylor and Mikel Janín (monthly Detective Comics), Absolute Batman is the first flagship book set in the Absolute Universe, which introduces its own trinity with Absolute Wonder Woman (by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman, out Oct. 23rd) and Absolute Superman (by Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval, Nov. 6th).

Absolute Batman reimagines Bruce Wayne as a scrappy and bulky engineer without the generational wealth of his DCU counterpart. Absolute Bruce grew up on the mean streets of Gotham City’s Park Row — a.k.a. Crime Alley, where Batman’s parents traditionally die in most versions — as the son of working-class parents, Martha and Thomas Wayne. And Alfred Pennyworth isn’t Batman’s butler, but a grizzled former MI6 agent and mercenary who doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Gotham’s new vigilante.

“Thescariest thing for me is to go back to this character,” Snyder told DC.com. “It is the mostchallenging thing, because I was lucky enough to be able to do storiesthat really mattered to me with one of my best friends in the world,Greg Capullo, and Jon [Glapion] and FCO [Plascencia] for a long time. And I’m nottrying to touch the hem of that. Butonce in a while, you get an idea where it was like, ‘If I could reallychange the mythology, if I could have Batman grow up in a way where hisfamily never had the money, and how he’s formed happens differently inthis…’” 

“It’sa big story point,” Snyder added. “This Batman comes up in Crime Alley. He knows thevillains in a different way. And instead of being system and order andthe way Batman is in the main universe, this Batman is chaos andanarchy. He’s a big, primal beast. He’s smart. He’s a planner and allthose things, but he’s a force of nature.”

In Snyder’s “totally different take” on Batman, “Iwant him to go up against things that feel unmovable, like giantcivilians and systems that feel like you can’t change them, so you justhave to compromise,” Snyder said. “Which is Alfred’s point of view as a kind ofmercenary coming to town. For Batman, though, he’s this kid that doesnot believe that. He believes you go up and you bang your head againstit over and over and over until you get it to change.”

Snyder has teased that in the Absolute Universe, it’s Batman’s villains — including the Riddler — who wield the power and resources that Batman lacks. Batman’s rogues “play a new and particular role” in this reimagined Gotham, where Bruce is “the small chaos in the system,” putting a similar-but-different twist on the disruptive vigilante who targets the city’s criminal element and corruption in such origin tales as Batman: Year One and Batman Begins.

“He’ssomebody that, instead of scaring bad guys into the shadows, isactually trying to bring good people out into the light and be like, ‘Wecan do this.’ He’s a unifier. He goes up against guys and women withdangerous, solipsistic, selfish ideologies, who think it’s about themand that is inspiring,” Snyder teased. “Hesays, ‘I’ll be the target. I’ll go up against them. I’ll be braveagainst them, to make you brave against the things in your life that youthink are impossible to beat.’ And that formula is so simple. You knowthat’s who Batman is.” 

This more resourceful caped crusader wages war on crime in a Gotham City under the control of a skull-faced gang — the minions of a bulbous-headed Black Mask — which is where Absolute Batman begins in October.

“Ithink the thing that worries me sometimes with Bruce is there arestories when it kind of feels like he’s punching down in the mainuniverse. And it’s hard not to punch down when you’re a generationalbillionaire,” Snyder said. “The goal here was to always have him punching up and havehim face things that seem unbeatable. Crime, for some reason in Gotham,when you open the book, is up 500%. And there’s this new gang which isruining everything, and no one knows why. And so, the secret behind themand what’s happening is a big part of where we start.” 

“Yousee his whole history in issue #1. Alfred is trying to figure him out.After the traumatic stuff that happens early on, which is also differentin our universe, Bruce starts this path to building Batman,” he continued. “When he’s akid, he wins these architectural and engineering competitions. And inone of them that he wins, he makes a mobile bridge that you can take toplaces that have natural disasters and it’s based on a bat’s anatomy.So, he’s always a builder from the beginning. Alfred has this refrainof, ‘What are you building? What are you building?’ He’s buildingBatman.”

DC All In Special #1 goes on sale Oct. 2nd, followed by Absolute Batman #1 on Oct. 9th, Absolute Wonder Woman #1 on Oct. 23rd, and Absolute Superman #1 on Nov. 6th.