One of the biggest comic books on the market nowadays is Absolute Batman, the DC Comic that re-imagines the story of Bruce Wayne and Gotham City in some wild ways. Helping push this new line of comics to the forefront, the series has been brought to life by writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta. With the re-imagined universe surpassing the main DCU, many are dying to see what classic characters will make a comeback in the future. Surprisingly, you might not have known that Snyder had created his own version of an “Absolute Attack on Titan,” which changed the universe in a wild way.
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To start, this unique one-off story arrived as a part of the Attack on Titan anthology, a 2016 release that brought together quite a few comic book legends to create their own stories within Hajime Isayama’s universe. Creators such as Evan Dorkin, Sam Humphries, Gail Simone, Paul Pope, Michael Avon Oeming, and more wouldn’t just create tales that showed little-seen parts of the Titans’ universe, it created entirely alternate realities as a part of this new sandbox. Of the many stories that arrived, Scott Snyder teamed up with writer Ray Fawkes and artist Rafael Albuquerque, with Snyder having worked with Albuquerque before on the horror comic American Vampire. With this Attack on Titan short, Snyder once again revisits his horror roots in a very different location.
Absolute Attack on Titan
Rather than focusing on the world that was inhabited by Eren Jaeger, the nation of Marley, and the island of Paradis, Scott Snyder and Ray Fawkes’ story actually took place in San Francisco, 2030. In this alternate future, the world appears to be falling apart, with one doctor, Dr. Price, and his assistant making one futile attempt to save mankind. Rather than working on an experiment to stop humanity from tearing itself apart, Price believes that there is only one thing left that will bring about peace. The good doctor has discovered motion beneath the ocean’s depths, believing that whales are returning to the surface after once believed extinct in this brave new world.
Hitching a ride on a helicopter, Price and his cohort want nothing more than to document the whales’ return, hoping they can film their surfacing to show a war-torn civilization. Unfortunately, the pilot isn’t too keen on potentially being blown out of the sky thanks to mankind falling apart at the seams, and the worst news possible takes part following a confrontation on board. Whales are not the ones that are making the ocean depths shake, but rather, it’s emerging, skinless Titans crashing to the surface, presenting a future far more terrifying for humanity. While the Titans’ arrival is the final panel of this short story, it proves that the anime behemoths can exist within an entirely new setting.
Is This Really An Attack on Titan Sequel?
There’s certainly an argument to be made that Snyder and Fawkes’ Attack on Titan story takes place in an alternate reality, but there is also a fairly strong argument that it might take place in the main universe. In the Attack on Titan series finale, viewers witnessed that despite humanity losing eighty percent of its population, and Eren Jaeger dying fighting his former friends, war seemed like an inevitable conclusion of mankind’s march toward the future. In the final moments of the series, we witness a newcomer stumbling on Eren’s grave, seemingly beginning the cycle of the Titans once again.
This final scene, however, doesn’t mean that it was definitively the first time that the Titans returned following Jaeger’s demise. As we witness, we see that death and destruction are in the world’s future, with cities much like our own erected before falling to war, all the same. Is Attack on Titan something of a prequel to the world we know today? It is entirely possible, meaning that Snyder’s new take might be canon, though it seems unlikely that this will ever be confirmed by Hajime Isayama.
What do you think of this unexpected take on Attack on Titan? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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Image Courtesy of Ufotable -
Image Courtesy of Paramount
