Each Friday, we'll be letting a different DC.com writer share what they'll be reading over the weekend and why you might want to check it out. Here's this week's suggestion for a perfect Weekend Escape!
Writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman took fans and critics by storm when it arrived in 2024 with the full force of a Category 5 hurricane. Its first volume, The Zoo, which collects issues #1-6, inverted the Bruce Wayne we know and love, establishing him as a working-class kid who grew up in Gotham City’s Crime Alley to become a civil engineer. This Bruce lost his father as a child, but his mother is very much alive and working with mayor Jim Gordon. He also grew up best friends with the very same folks who would become his rogues gallery. With scant resources, he’s aided by Alfred Pennyworth, an MI6 agent originally tasked with eliminating him.
Absolute Batman Vol. 2: Abomination—collecting issues #7-14—picks up immediately where the first volume left off, with the Dark Knight having defeated the terrorist Black Mask and his band of Party Animals, who secretly work for a more-monstrous-than-ever Joker.
The Premise:
As Abomination begins, we learn Bruce’s friend and informant Matches Malone has been gathering information on Ark M, a mysterious, recently constructed, experimental detention facility authorized by the city’s new mayor Hamilton Hill. Matches is killed (in spectacularly gruesome fashion), prompting Batman to infiltrate the Ark and confront cryogenics scientist Victor Fries, AKA the hideous mutant Mr. Freeze, in a two-part story that kicks off the book.
The main event, however, is an epic Bane storyline that sees the Santa Priscan superman—under orders from his benefactor Joker—capture and torture Batman while Ark M scientists perform surgery after surgery on him, imbuing him with the same Venom-enhanced system as his arch-foe. Can Bruce escape and defeat Bane? How much will his friends' loyalty cost them? And where does the outlaw collective known as “the Red Hood” factor into all this?
Let’s Talk Talent:
Snyder’s story here is even more propulsive than in Vol. 1, and it’s clear that the veteran Bat scribe is having the time of his life. As a longtime horror writer (who established himself at DC with the Vertigo series American Vampire), Snyder concocts all manner of grotesquery for Bruce to face, coupling them when necessary with moments of splatter comedy.
Marcos Martin handles the art chores on the opening Mr. Freeze two-parter, and his style—a combination of clear lines and Frank Quitely-like facial renderings—is perfect for a story focused on Gotham’s most chilling villain, twisted more terribly than ever here by the science that keeps him alive.
Nick Dragotta returns for the remaining issues—with the exception of #11, in which Clay Mann illustrates Bane’s origin. Mann packs all the detail he’s known for into this interlude, which propels the madman to greater heights of fanaticism. It’s Dragotta, however, who brings Absolute Bane to his full potential in a mano-a-mano, kaiju-sized showdown with the Dark Knight.
A Few Reasons to Read:
- While Snyder’s proven himself a master of most forms of terror, the body horror on display here ensures Abomination more than lives up to its title (and makes this book a solid choice for body horror fans looking for more after the upcoming Clayface movie). The range of the twistedness on display encompasses everything from David Cronenberg to Akira. Veins pop, eyes gouge, heads explode and the Venom flows like never before.
- Anyone who loves The Dark Knight Returns will be thrilled to see Abomination summon that touchstone classic’s over-the-top spirit. Dragotta’s splash pages, in particular, recall Frank Miller’s iconic imagery.
- Absolute Batman continues to be the book that shouldn’t work, given the number of alternate/Elseworlds/variant Bruce Waynes in DC history—and the fact that Snyder has nothing left to prove with the character. Yet, each new character re-introduced to Gotham feels like a necessary tile in the mosaic Snyder is building, unleashed from the shackles of mainstream continuity.
Why It’s Worth Your Time:
I haven’t had as much fun with a Batman series in years as I’ve had with Absolute Batman. Even more so than its first bestselling volume, Absolute Batman Vol. 2: Abomination will leave fans eagerly awaiting the next turn of this addictive joy ride and hoping we haven’t seen the last of this universe’s utterly terrifying Bane.
Absolute Batman Vol. 2: Abomination by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin is available in bookstores, comic shops, libraries and digital retailers as a softcover graphic novel. It can also be read in full on DC UNIVERSE INFINITE.
Joseph McCabe writes about comics, film and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Instagram at @joe_mccabe_editor.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Joseph McCabe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC, Warner Bros. or Skydance, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
