Absolute Batman: The Zoo Review

There’s a flashback in the middle of Absolute Batman #4 (Snyder, Dragotta, Walta, Martin, Cowles) where we get a look at the mobile collapsible bridge (shaped like the anatomy of a bat wing) that Bruce designed as a kid to win a class trip to the zoo. There is a conversation between Bruce and Thomas that goes as follows:

As they converse through, Thomas reminisces on how he wanted to be a heart surgeon because his father, Bruce’s grandfather, died due to a massive coronary, but he ended up being a teacher. Choosing that profession let him still do that ‘core’ thing, to guide kids, to make them feel safe.

At the end of the issue, after Bruce finalizes the design of the bridge, Bruce and Thomas have a conversation that feels like a reflection of the whole deal of Absolute Batman, to me.

“A bat at its core… defies the impossible.”

What is the core of Batman, if not that statement? To be very specific within the context of “modern” Batman, it’s what we’ve been seeing since Miller’s iconic take on the mythos back in The Dark Knight Returns (with Janson & Varley) and Batman: Year One (with Mazzucchelli, Lewis & Klein). Snyder’s initial take on Bruce in the New 52 is all about this too – the city he thought he knew wasn’t what it seemed, but he still protected it. His greatest nemesis tried to cut everything off that held him back, but he still managed to protect them. His city was isolated from the rest of the world, but he still saved it. Over and over again, throughout Snyder’s tenure on the character, one thing is for certain…

He has Batman defy the impossible, always.

So, what then? You have the core. You understand that the core is what you need to construct your new vision of the mythos around. What do you do?

Well, obviously, you bring in an illustrator who fundamentally understands how to present that core.There are tons of writers, specifically Batman writers, who have studied under the shadow of Miller and have tried to replicate that whilst putting their own spin on it(Scott is one of them), but how many have tried to put their spin on Miller’s cartooning? Those pages that manage to compress so much in them, on the cusp of feeling like sensory overload on the reader, yet strikes that perfect balance.

That’s where Nick Dragotta comes in.

It’s important to note that Absolute Batman isn’t Dragotta’s first foray into the character. It was actually Batman: Black and White #3 (February 2021) in a story named Legacy. Set in a future, post-apocalyptic Gotham, Batman pilots a giant mech that ends with him facing off against the elite.

Of course, you can trace Dragotta’s high-energy style back to East of West, where he’s joined by Absolute Batman colorist Frank Martin. But a taste of his Batman, that’s what you have to go to Black and White for. It’s there you can see his manga inspirations, his love for showing Batman as big as he can be, and the idea that Absolute Batman surrounds itself in – that he exists in opposition to the elite.

Frank Martin is also key to all of this. Something you’ll see, specifically in the direct market space right now, is how these comics look. They may look pretty, but they’re more interested in portraying the art in a “realistic” fashion rather than actually drenching the colors in mood, in a feeling, to give a focus on what the panel needs to focus on as opposed to basically “everything”. Martin does this, his colors manage to draw your eye exactly to where it needs to be, make exactly what needs to pop, pop, and it’s a delight on every single page.

Clayton Cowles’ lettering is also excellent, it always is, but what stood out to me when reading the Noir version is how much of the sound effects lettering is done by Dragotta directly, which explains why they feel so inextricably linked to the page as opposed to a layer on top.

More on all of this as we dig into the formalist elements of the story at hand.

“As far as the fascistic implications of a character like Batman, that’s one of the things I’m really having fun with in the series. I think that in order for the character to work, he has to be a force that in certain ways is beyond good and evil. It can’t be judged by the terms we would use to describe something a man would do because we can’t think of him as a man.” 
– Frank Miller in The Comics Journal (no. 101) on The Dark Knight Returns

The push-and-pull conversation around “is Batman fascist? Does he beat up the mentally ill as a billionaire?” is a conversation we’ve all seen, and truthfully, it is clear that in the present day, a billionaire being a hero for the people is fictional nonsense. Of course, it’s important to consider that – in most cases – and even textually for Bruce at times – being a billionaire is just an excuse narratively to explain how he can afford the toys. Yet, it’s something that is always relevant, especially when we are to examine this character critically. 

What was the solution to updating the character for the 21st Century then?

Snyder and Dragotta opt to present Bruce (and the Waynes) as members of the working class, with Martha being a social worker, Thomas being a teacher, and Bruce being a blue-collar worker. There’s a really cool parallel between issue 1 of Absolute Batman and issue 1 of Batman: The New 52 (both penned by Snyder) that I pointed out in my review of issue 1. To quote:

“You see, fellow Gothamite – Scott’s understanding of Gotham lays the framework for easily presenting to us the key difference between the two. When he wrote Batman during The New 52, he presented to us how that Bruce loves Gotham, how he wants it to evolve, and how he plans on incorporating his own secrets with that evolution. In the very first issue of that book, the opening to the Court of Owls saga, he has Bruce reveal his plans for the future of Gotham, large skyscrapers all across the city, and in secret, additional safehouses for his alter ego as the Caped Crusader.

Conversely, Absolute Batman‘s Bruce isn’t the one that’s paying people to build the skyscrapers. He’s the one building the skyscrapers, and he understands that no one’s going to use them, so he builds his headquarters inside those skyscrapers. It’s playing with the idea of familiarity, bringing forth an idea that sounds familiar but then twisting it on its head. Bruce Wayne will ultimately do the same thing, but they’ll do it in very different ways.”

For better or worse, I think this is both to the book’s benefit, and its detriment.

To the book’s benefit, it makes Bruce someone you want to root for almost immediately. You almost know this guy already, you can feel him on your fingertips. The changes are exciting, sure, but, as I explained previously, anyone smart can tell you the “billionaire” discourse is a lot of nonsense anyway, so it’s not particularly adding anything “new” to that. It’s recontextualizing him, but is it recontextualizing him enough?

To dive into the detriment, it’s important to look back on The Dark Knight Returns (which is why I quoted Miller just a few paragraphs ago). The Dark Knight Returns was meant to revitalize the character, who at the time was suffering from poor sales and a fall to obscurity (hard to imagine, but that’s how things were). Miller’s reinvention, at the time, was radical, to the point where he kept thinking Dick Giordano (initial editor on the book) would reject his ideas, and he kept being surprised when Giordano approved them and evolved on them. It’s also important to note that, for better or worse, almost every Batman comic that has come out since Miller’s take, exists in that shadow. It’s in conversation with those, whether directly or subtly, even if not all of it, a certain aspect of it definitely, because it redefined the character that much.

Snyder’s Batman work is also not subtle about being attributed to Miller’s (it’s funny that you can say this about both Snyders who have worked in comics and related media). Zero Year is a love letter to Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, and with this, it’s wearing its inspirations on its sleeve. When you see that many panels on a page and some of them feature the news on TV, you already know. The fact that Batman is a huge guy too, come on! #6 also has a splash that’s clearly a homage to The Dark Knight Returns.

All of this to say, and to harken back to the quote at the very beginning of this, Absolute Batman is still very much Batman – which is fine, because Snyder is one of the best Batman writers ever, and also because Dragotta is an absolute monster (complimentary) at drawing him and Gotham, but it left me desiring for more, at least textually. Within every issue, you can tell that there is a real rage that exists within Snyder and Dragotta about the systems that govern us, about the cycle that we, the regular folk are trapped within. You can tell that real frustrations and real fears are what power the engine of this book – this was the case in the New 52 too, but it was different there because a lot of those fears lay internally, as in they were focused primarily on Batman – but this time, they’re focused on the world too… or so it seems on the surface. 

In truth, a lot of those frustrations that are expressed through the book don’t quite land as hard as they should. Like yes, I understand that billionaires are evil and the systems that exist do so to silence and disenfranchise us whilst highlighting oligarchs (just look at the world we live in, folks), and that’s a solid foundation, but the book needs to do more. I enjoy what it’s doing, and I’m into it, but narratively there’s not much depth to sink my teeth into. There are always things in this book that resonate, the shooting, the way the police focus on the wrong things, corrupt politicians, etc, etc, but all of that I can find already in a Batman book. The angle that Bruce is a blue-collar worker, that he moved laterally across different jobs in city infrastructure to learn how it operates, is so interesting to me, but I need more of it. I love and appreciate that we get a balance of Batman, and Bruce, but show me more. Give me more of a reason to care. 

To be fair to the book, narratively it does make a point of this being a Bruce who recognizes that Batman is who he is, and Bruce is a way to facilitate that endeavor, but yet! Show me the systems that are oppressive, show me the hows and the whys, show me the effects of that. If Batman is to be the chaos in the system, I need to know the system.

It almost feels like how you would explain systems of oppression to kids and teenagers, and I wonder if the problem is they’re being held back or filtered because (at least compared to the 80s), Batman is a major IP now. His symbol as a brand will always be the big thing, and thus, does that prevent stories from going hard and cementing it as a symbol of revolution (which isn’t a concept that died with DKR, Ram V’s Gotham Nocturne is a big part of this too)? Is the ‘brand’ afraid of really portraying concepts like the bourgeois or ‘society’ or even ‘cities’ as inherently broken or evil? We can’t keep re-doing Miller if we’re afraid of going as hard as he did in trying to examine the state of America in Dark Knight Returns.

That being said though, you can tell that Snyder and Dragotta are having a hell of a fun time on the book. The ‘meta’ joke of everything being ‘big’ rules, of course, a big Batman would have an even bigger Batmobile, it’s incredible. Reading every issue feels like going to watch a wrestling match, and I say this with the utmost love.

I also really like the changes we get. Gordon being Mayor, Martha being alive, Bruce being childhood friends with his Rogues, it all introduced newer dynamics that I can only hope we dig deeper into as we go on with the book.

But more than anything, the art is what stands out in this book. Big 2 comics look so boring to me most of the time, and then Absolute Batman comes into the scene and really shows everyone how to get the job done. Nick Dragotta is such a force to be reckoned with, drawing by and far the best superhero comic on shelves that it’s not even close (and its only competition is going to be Absolute Martian Manhunter, illustrated by Javier Rodriguez). His visual language is so strong that even Gabriel Walta (guest artist on issue #4, the flashback issue) surrenders to it, while Frank Martin colors it like he would Dragotta so that the whole story is visually cohesive. 

Something that really stood out to me is how this arc begins and ends. Looking back at Issue 1, the first big splash page is the gun being pointed, with the finger on the trigger. That issue itself has a neat callback to it in the ending with Batman jumping out of the skyscraper on a motorcycle to illustrate that now there’s always going to be someone to protect you from that trigger. Issue 6 adds onto this by really making that explicit. The last panel of the issue has him lying down while Alfred patches him up, which doubles as a callback to that Issue 1 splash. If he can’t stop the gun from being shot, he’ll at the very least take the bullet for you, and that’s the storytelling power that I love.

“Bruce, before you go to sleep… I want you to know I’m proud of you. What you went through, you’d have every right to say to hell with it all. Live angry or afraid. But that’s not who you are. The way you got back out there with your friends. What you said to Jim at the funeral… because the other thing you cand o when bad things happen is use the pain to be even more determined, more hopeful.

You wear the pain like a damn cape. And you work every day to stop those bad things from ever happening again. Thats how you win against the nightmares. How you win against all of it, always.”

It is a damn delight to be reading a comic that isn’t afraid to be a comic, especially in a sea of comics that look more like storyboards that are placed sequentially than they are comics. Dragotta clearly understands rhythm, how to showcase motion, how to play with form, and how to construct and deconstruct, and he’s simply flexing on everyone else with it. That goes such a long way. Even though Absolute Batman might be weaker in terms of the bigger political storytelling, but Scott Snyder’s writing simply has an attribute of raw emotion to it that makes you want to root for Batman, and Nick Dragotta illustrates it so well which alone makes it by and far the best superhero comic on shelves right now. I also appreciate that, even with my problems, you can tell that Snyder’s willing to push himself, to challenge himself to get this new take going. He could’ve coasted by after writing one of the most popular Batman runs of all time and two major DC events, but he’s still willing to take risks, and big wings, and I respect the hell out of that.

Absolute Batman: The Zoo (#1-6) is out now in single-issue format, with the trade paperback coming out on August 5th!