DC’s Wildest Superhero Show Is About to Leave HBO Max (& Absolute Batman Fans Should Watch iIt Before It’s Gone)

When it comes to television adaptations, DC Comics has had a lot of memorable ones. Shows like The CW’s Arrow and The Flash helped redefine what superhero television could look like and became their own larger franchise, the Arrowverse, as more shows were added. The now-defunct DC Universe had some great shows, too, with series like Doom Patrol bringing the publisher’s strangest team to live-action.  More recently, HBO’s The Penguin was not only critically acclaimed, but helped expand the world of The Batman movie, helping to bridge television and movies. But there’s one superhero adaptation that might just be the wildest and it’s one that comics fans need to check out before it leaves streaming later this month.

Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler is set to depart HBO Max on January 23rd. Currently all three seasons of the Jack Bannon starring series are streaming on the platform, but the first two seasons are slated to be removed. That distinction is worth noting because Pennyworth had an interesting history, with the series originally debuting on Epix (where it was billed merely as Pennyworth) before making the hop to HBO Max for season 3. It’s possible that the first two seasons are departing because of that interesting split.

Read Next

Netflix’s Underrated Sci-Fi Series From Game of Thrones Creators Finally Gets Season 2 Release Confirmation

Pennyworth Works as a Double Prequel And Has Themes Absolute Batman Fans Will Enjoy

Created by Bruno Heller and Danny Carson, who had previously been behind Fox’s Gotham, Pennyworth is an extremely unique DC television series. It follows the early life of Alfred Pennyworth (Bannon), who goes on to become the iconic Wayne family butler and specifically traces his life as a former British solider of the Special Air Service as he forms his own security company and soon becomes the target of the fascist Raven Society and works against them with American agents of the CIA-affiliated No Name League, Thomas Wayne and Martha Kane.

What makes Pennyworth interesting is that it’s set in an alternate history London, which allows for quite a bit of creative latitude when telling its story, but the series also functions as a prequel to two different series. Banon’s Alfred Pennyworth is the younger version of the character played by Sean Pertwee in Gotham, but the series also leads to the British Civil War and eventual formation of the Norsfire government in V for Vendetta. Pennyworth even features characters wearing Guy Fawkes masks in season three. It makes for a fascinating sort of throughline between two otherwise pretty disparate comics properties. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of those connections get any deeper, as a television series based on V for Vendetta that was announced in 2017 pretty much entered development hell — though a new adaptation was revealed to be in development last November.

Beyond Pennyworth’s interesting position as being both a prequel for Gotham and V For Vendetta, however, is how what were wild storylines in the series have some neat parallels to DC’s Absolute Batman. The biggest similarity is that the Alfred of Pennyworth is more in line with the Alfred featured in Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s comic. Pennyworth gives us a much greater insight into Alfred as a soldier and spy, which is the role has in the Absolute Batman comics. But there is also the similarities between Ark M in Absolute Batman and Pennyworth’s Level 7. In Pennyworth we’re introduced to People With Enhancements, aka PWEs, people who have been enhanced by science and end up with special abilities as a result. But while MI5 initially seems to be focused on handling PWEs in a human fashion by paying Pennyworth Security for every PWE they bring in to be humanely cared for by Level 6, the final season of the series introduces Level 7, part of a different government faction who has been less humane and have harsh, militaristic goals for the PWE.

It’s not entirely dissimilar to the Joker’s shadowy Ark M project in Absolute Batman. That series has shown the twisted, inhuman experimentation that has been don on people, including the horrific transformation of Waylon Jones into a crocodile-like hybrid mutant. It’s certainly not a one-for-one situation; Level 7 isn’t Ark M but there’s something to be said about the idea of experimentation to transform innocent individuals into something twisted and horrific that makes for a good, and terrifying story — and Absolute Batman fans will probably find how Pennyworth approaches things very interesting.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!