Absolute Batman: Scott Snyder's Dark Knight Is "Chaos and Anarchy"

Batman writer Scott Snyder talks changing the Batman mythology for the DC Absolute Universe.

By Cameron Bonomolo

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).

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(Photo:

Absolute Batman #1 cover by Nick Dragotta.

- DC Comics)

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.

"The scariest thing for me is to go back to this character," Snyder told DC.com. "It is the most challenging thing, because I was lucky enough to be able to do stories that 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 not trying to touch the hem of that. But once in a while, you get an idea where it was like, 'If I could really change the mythology, if I could have Batman grow up in a way where his family never had the money, and how he's formed happens differently in this...'" 

"It's a big story point," Snyder added. "This Batman comes up in Crime Alley. He knows the villains in a different way. And instead of being system and order and the way Batman is in the main universe, this Batman is chaos and anarchy. He's a big, primal beast. He's smart. He's a planner and all those things, but he's a force of nature."

In Snyder's "totally different take" on Batman, "I want him to go up against things that feel unmovable, like giant civilians and systems that feel like you can't change them, so you just have to compromise," Snyder said. "Which is Alfred's point of view as a kind of mercenary coming to town. For Batman, though, he's this kid that does not believe that. He believes you go up and you bang your head against it over and over and over until you get it to change."

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(Photo:

Absolute Batman #1 interior artwork by Nick Dragotta.

- DC Comics)

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's somebody that, instead of scaring bad guys into the shadows, is actually trying to bring good people out into the light and be like, 'We can do this.' He's a unifier. He goes up against guys and women with dangerous, solipsistic, selfish ideologies, who think it's about them and that is inspiring," Snyder teased. "He says, 'I'll be the target. I'll go up against them. I'll be brave against them, to make you brave against the things in your life that you think are impossible to beat.' And that formula is so simple. You know that'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.

Related:

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(Photo:

Absolute Batman #1 variant cover by Mitch Gerads.

- DC Comics)

"I think the thing that worries me sometimes with Bruce is there are stories when it kind of feels like he's punching down in the main universe. And it's hard not to punch down when you're a generational billionaire," Snyder said. "The goal here was to always have him punching up and have him 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 is ruining everything, and no one knows why. And so, the secret behind them and what's happening is a big part of where we start." 

"You see his whole history in issue #1. Alfred is trying to figure him out. After the traumatic stuff that happens early on, which is also different in our universe, Bruce starts this path to building Batman," he continued. "When he's a kid, he wins these architectural and engineering competitions. And in one of them that he wins, he makes a mobile bridge that you can take to places 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 refrain of, 'What are you building? What are you building?' He's building Batman."

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.

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