Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Nick Dragotta
DC Comics, May 2026
As ever, spoilers abound in this critique.
This story begins with a gag, played on regular readers of Batman comics. The reader is taken down into what, in DC Comics’ main continuity, looks like the classic Batcave with the customary indicia : the entrance hidden behind the grandfather clock, the giant dime, and the inert mechanical dinosaur. The resident of the cavern however is not the masked billionaire crimefighter. In this universe tainted by the evil god Darkseid, it is the lair of the Joker.
It is fair to say that Absolute Batman is no longer properly characterised only as a superhero comic. The sight of the Joker, a pale beast in a business short and tie, with the gaping dislocated jaw of a snake, the feet of a demon, being fed by the cranial fluid of a cluster of babies attached to his body by steel cables, is shocking. (To some readers, we imagine, this two-page splash panel contains a metaphor for extreme wealth.)
Here is DC Comics’ promotional copy (not a lot of effort has gone into it):
As the dust settles in the city of Gotham after the loss of [redacted], Robins enter the scene ready to hunt and more than one secret will be revealed in this seminal issue.
The “loss” is Commissioner James Gordon, who Batman is accused of murdering. But this tragedy is overshadowed within the text by the re-appearance of the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow is a completely creepy figure with coins over his eyes as if ready for the grave, and his face marred by surgeon’s stitches, rendered with horrible effect by the masterful Nick Dragotta.
We have mentioned that we first encountered Mr Dragotta’s art on the sci-fi/ fantasy epic East of West, a title encompassing disembodied and sentient eyeballs, shape shifting shamans, and a robot horse which looked like a jet engine, all set in an alternative universe North America. (See our review of East of West here: https://worldcomicbookreview.com/2016/08/11/east-west-26-review/ ). Mr Dragotta has brought that surrealism with him to this title.
This calculating, mocking version of the Scarecrow, sightless with a deadman’s pennies in his eyesockets, is spookier than anything Batman fans have seen in comics or in motion pictures. “Maybe I am some “operative”, travelling the world, toppling governments, causing panic. Yadda yadda. Or maybe I’m just a straw man out for a walk,” says the Scarecrow, before effortlessly talking Batman’s father’s murderer Joe Chill into hanging himself in his prison cell, and Batman fails yet again.
Writer Scott Snyder delivers each concept, pulled from the Batman mythos and transformed into something wicked, with a machine gun cadence. Messrs Snyder and Dragotta’s title is dynamic, restless, constantly pushing boundaries of expectations. The showcase action within the comic comes from the appearance of the Robins in the last three pages of the issue. Within DC Comics’ mainstream continuity, Batman has had many versions of his sidekick Robin, and in this title, all of them are assembled as Batman’s adversaries, sporting mechanical armour.
We have seen mecha versions of Batman many times before over the years, but not an array of Robins, together vaguely resembling colour schemes of the Super Sentei / Power Rangers franchise. The team of five are introduced to us in a brief opening sequence of panels, capturing a grainy television interview: “It’s wild! The program hasn’t even launched yet and already Gotham seems to have fallen in love with the Robins. Everyone has their favourite!”
The only significant Robin missing is Dick Grayson. Jason Todd, the second Robin (“R-2”), in a mid-sized mecha and with a very large gun, is as reckless his mainstream counterpart. Jason nearly shoots leader Tim Drake’s titanic robot and otherwise carelessly sprays bullets over Gotham City’s skyline as he downs Batman from the sky. We wonder when Mr Snyder will introduce Jason to a crowbar. in the meantime, he will have to contend with Batman’s axe.
A score, then, for our friends at Comic Book Round-Up: 5/5.