Batman has the most iconic origin story in superhero history. Ever since the deaths of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, at the hands of a mugger in Crime Alley, Bruce Wayne has dedicated his life to punishing the criminal underworld that took his family away by becoming Batman. This historic origin story perfectly conveys the pain, trauma, guilt, and intense motivation Bruce has felt ever since he lost his parents. Although DC Comics has rarely changed this origin in the main canon, the Absolute Universe completely reinvented the Caped Crusader’s origin in the darkest way possible. Absolute Batman #22 unveils the latest in a long series of shocking twists that expose how everything the Dark Knight thought he knew was a lie.
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The Absolute Universe has offered one of the greatest reinventions of the Dark Knight in recent history. In this dark world, Bruce is a working-class engineer who, after his father was killed by a shooter at a school field trip to the zoo, became Batman to punish the evil and corrupt of Gotham. However, recent events have revealed that all the pain and torment Bruce endured was orchestrated behind the scenes by the Joker and Scarecrow, and that they had one more surprise for the Caped Crusader.
Thomas Wayne is Still Alive in the Absolute Universe
Since day one, the Absolute Universe’s version of Batman has been repeatedly put through the wringer while fighting his crusade against the Joker and his goons. Still, the newest storyline, “The Straw Man,” sees Batman faced with the horrific truth of his past. Earlier issues revealed that the Joker and Scarecrow set up the shooting at the zoo to mold Bruce into becoming Batman as a joke at the expense of the hero’s mother, who was a former member of the rebel group the Court of Owls. To find out that the death of his father and his subsequent transformation into becoming a bat-themed vigilante was so choreographed was already bad enough for Batman. But things took an even darker turn with the release of Absolute Batman #22.
In this issue, Batman and Harley Quinn are desperately evading the Robin task force that’s been hunting them down for days. However, things get even worse when Batman trudges to the cemetery and the grave of Thomas Wayne. Once there, Batman receives a FaceTime from Scarecrow, who was with someone he’d like the hero to meet. Curled up in a corner, naked, frail, chained up, and absolutely broken is none other than Thomas Wayne. Overcome with shock and denial, Batman digs up his father’s grave to discover that the coffin is empty. That’s right, Thomas Wayne, the man whose death inspired the Dark Knight’s entire identity and crusade, was never dead but was instead kidnapped and tortured by the Joker and Scarecrow for decades.
From the very beginning, Batman has been a hero defined by his parents’ deaths. Even though in the Absolute Universe, his mother, Martha, is alive, the shock of Thomas’s death still drove Bruce to become a hero. The Absolute Batman series has always enforced the bond the Dark Knight had with his father through numerous flashbacks, and how it was Thomas’s intelligence, kindness, wisdom, and supposed death that molded Bruce into the man he is today. For Thomas Wayne to still be alive completely upends Batman’s entire identity and motivation for becoming a hero in the darkest way possible.
Absolute Batman Faces His Greatest Challenge Yet
The revelation that Thomas Wayne is alive and imprisoned by the Joker and Scarecrow leaves Batman extremely vulnerable and pushes him towards his breaking point. In recent issues, Batman has been allowing his obsession with stopping the Joker to cloud his judgment. The villain is constantly toying with Batman and taking advantage of the hero’s decline. Batman will undoubtedly now do everything in his power to track down and save his father from the torturous hell that he’s been trapped in for decades. Still, in a storyline where truth seems to always merge with lies, Thomas Wayne’s supposed reintroduction could lead to two potential narrative opportunities that will see the Dark Knight tested as never before.
The first possibility is that Scarecrow is being genuine, and that the frail old man in the video call is indeed Thomas Wayne. If that is the case, then Batman will fight his way through the Joker and his army of supervillains to get him back. This is exactly what the Joker is counting on, as he sees his war with Batman as nothing more than a diabolical game. Even if Batman does manage to save Thomas, the man he once knew will be long gone, as decades of torture and isolation would have left his father a shell of his former self. The idea of Batman having to come to terms with the father he remembered, and the man broken by the Joker is incredibly fascinating.
Of course, the alternative is just as psychologically dark. There is also the very real possibility that Thomas is dead, and the man in the video is an imposter. DC has already been teasing Absolute Clayface, and this could be the villain’s perfect introduction. Batman, thinking he had finally found his long-lost father, only for the person to reveal themselves as Clayface, would be an incredibly haunting development that would break the Caped Crusader as never before. Thomas being dead has already been hinted at when Batman seemingly met his ghost while on a mission to the Underworld with Wonder Woman. Furthermore, in Absolute Batman #22, Harley had warned Batman that all of this could be a lie set up by the Joker to further toy with him.
Whether Thomas Wayne is truly alive or not, what is abundantly clear is that Batman is playing right into the Joker and Scarecrow’s hands. Even before the revelation that Thomas is supposedly alive, Batman has been increasingly isolated from his friends and family because he has come to believe that he must fight his war against the Joker alone. He’s even left Harley, one of his last allies, to pursue the Joker and save Thomas alone. In breaking Batman’s origin, the Joker has left the Caped Crusader more vulnerable and broken than ever before.
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