DC’s Absolute Comics… In Brief

Absolute Batman Annual #1

In early October, a few weeks prior to the release of Absolute Batman Annual #1, writer and artist Daniel Warren Johnson pissed off all the right people by sketching an art print for New York Comic Con of the titular hero giving an ICE agent, as Bleeding Cool’s Rich Johnston wrote, “a very special hug.” Johnson posted the pic to his Twitter and Instagram accounts and, needless to say, a whole bunch of smooth-brained numpties lost their collective mind, to the extent that former Batman writer and present-day right-winger Chuck Dixon commissioned his own piece of art from a Brazilian immigrant showcasing Batman as an agent of ICE. Comicdom grew ensnared in arguments about how Batman would never do such a thing, but that Absolute Batman most certainly would. All in all, it was amusing to witness, particularly from the “I don’t like my comic books to be political” crowd who have apparently never read a comic book before.

Johnson’s sketch not only showcased his political viewpoint and his talent, it confirmed that the very first Absolute Batman Annual would be pretty goddamned special as the hulking AbsBat took his war on crime to the white supremacist forefront. I don’t know that it would be possible for this book to be any more relevant to today’s political climate in the US. There’s two other stories in the annual, but Johnson’s is not only the biggest, it’s the centerpiece of the issue, the beating heart of it all. While it delivers some much-needed catharsis, and few things are more enjoyable than seeing this absolute monster of a Batman smashing corrupt cops allied with neo-Nazis into the ground, or breaking the arm of some racist trash bag mid-heil, Johnson also injects plenty of emotional resonance while questioning if Bruce’s violence is really the answer, as juxtaposed against a pacifistic priest who doesn’t know how to make things better, only how to not make them worse. That all of this is set against flashbacks to Bruce’s childhood and what his murdered father might think of what Bruce has become in the present-day as a violent, wrecking ball of a vigilante makes it all the more impactful. Johnson’s story is tremendous, wonderfully cartoonish in its violence, and a real gem amidst a series already chockfull of memorable moments.

This is also exactly what comic books should be, particularly in this era of escalating fascism in America. We need our heroes out there tackling the big issues and giving us hope, punching all this country’s Nazis right in the face and suplexing the ever-loving shit out of them against the concrete. Johnson’s story is absolutely perfect and it's a real high-water mark for Absolute Batman as a whole. It’s also incredibly surprising, perhaps even puzzling, that this comes from DC Comics so soon after their firing of trans author Gretchen Felker-Martin and the cancellation of her Red Hood series in the wake of her comments regarding the murder of right-wing agitator Charlie Kirk by another right-wing nutjob. Kinda make you wonder who’s allowed to say what over there. I’m hopeful we’ll see more works like Johnson’s, though, rather than further capitulation to incendiary reactionaries stirring the pot and trying to cause a clickbait ruckus.

The other two short stories that follow Johnson’s masterpiece are good and fair, in that order, with the last one earning an excellent laugh with an Instagram-like panel of a poster taking a selfie in front of a police station. The caption reads “Why Does Batman Hate Me??” and is followed by the response, “I don’t know, ‘cause you keep being shady?” Yeah, that one got me chuckling pretty good.

Absolute Superman #13

Jason Aaron continues to knock it out the park each and every issue. Since its launch, Absolute Superman has been one of the most topical and politically relevant comics in the Absolute line and almost immediately became my favorite book of the bunch. Maybe it’s because I’m not a fan of the traditional Superman, so Aaron’s tweaking of the character’s mythology and rebooting him in a scarily familiar America circa 2025 has really helped redefine the character and make me appreciate him. I think having Kal-El come to Earth later in his youth, after having been raised by working class parents on Krypton, has further solidified his immigrant story and made it all the more appreciable.

As issue 13 opens, tanks and assault drones are invading Kansas. Rafa Sandoval’s artwork looks eerily like something out of recent headlines under Trump’s militarized assaults on American cities. You can easily imagine Smallville as another target, like Los Angeles or Chicago, a sneak-preview of Trump’s plans for the country. Jason Aaron’s scripts have been scarily timely since issue one, with its concerns about artificial intelligence, a government that doesn’t give a single damn about its people, and uber-rich businessmen run amok. Now, it’s all-out war, as the chief architect behind Superman’s Earthly challenges seizes Kansas in an effort to force Kal-El to bend the knee.

The real fun, though, is in seeing Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen working for the resistance and adopting more familiar attitudes, or at least seizing particular job opportunities on the frontlines, more akin to what we’re already familiar with for them. Lane gets to become an embedded citizen journalist, while Olsen is a wartime photographer. It’s fun stuff, and Lane’s commentary on Superman, set against his own internal struggles and self-doubt, makes for an intriguing back and forth. Maybe that’s what I like most about Aaron’s Absolute spin — this is a Superman that struggles, that has doubts, that doesn’t fully believe in himself, and questions if he’s making any kind of a difference at all in a world so stacked against him and fearful of him as an outsider. He’s an ostracized immigrant, an “Other,” and Aaron’s scripts lean heavily on the importance of this. I love it.

Absolute Wonder Woman #13

I haven’t been as impressed with Absolute Wonder Woman as much with the other two members of DC’s Trinity, but I do like the concept of Diana having been cut off at birth from her fellow Amazon’s and raised in Hades, where she grew up to become a muscular, tattooed, witchy bad-ass. Kelly Thompson’s stories have been OK, but haven’t yet truly impressed me, nor has she taken swings as big as what Snyder and Aaron have been doing in Absolute Batman and Absolute Superman, respectively. I’ve found Absolute Wonder Woman to just be a little too simplistic and unsurprising.

This issue sees Diana confronting an electrically charged elemental that’s been wreaking havoc across the globe. And that’s really about it, until the last page, which is pretty impactful and sets up the climax for this two-parter in the next issue.

Absolute Green Lantern #8

While I’ve mostly liked Absolute Green Lantern on a month to month basis, I was growing also increasingly stymied by the intensely decompressed storyline of Al Ewing’s opening arc. By the time it finished, I felt pretty hard pressed to tell you what it was all about, so lost was I in a whole bunch of lore about the various lantern’s colors and what they mean, and I just didn’t have any kind of grip on it at all. What had begun as sci-fi horror quickly grew into something more esoteric and much less interesting.

Enter issue eight. This one’s all character based, giving us some much-needed background on our lead character and titular Green Lantern, Sojourner Mullein. Ewing gives his star the central focus here and it’s all wonderfully rendered in both scripting and artwork, which is both beautifully and at times spicy when it needs to be. We get the full history of Sojourner, from her childhood as her and her father move to Evergreen, to her joining a corrupt police force and truly discovering herself. There’s no real action to speak of, just a completely personal and ultimately human story against which the rest of this series is grounded against. This is the best, and cleanest, bit of storytelling this series has seen, and just as I was about to cancel my monthly subscription Ewing convinced me to hang around for at least another arc. I hope we get more stories in this vein, and a little bit less in style of what’s come before.

Now, just for fun, here’s the big, scary image DWJ created that caused conservatives to lose their collective mind. Ain’t it a beaut?!

Art by Daniel Warren Johnson