Batman’s pal Matches Malone tells him about a black site called Ark M where a mysterious company called JK run by a man in white (gee I wonder who that could be) is conducting evil and highly illegal Dr Moreau-style experiments on people. As Batman investigates, he encounters his most lethal foe yet: Baaaaaane!
Absolute Batman is back with a second, absolutely silly book: Abomination. For all its superficial appearances of being “not your grandpappy’s Batman!”, in fact it really is just that - the story of this is the same story you get every time you put Batman and Bane together: it’s Batman vs Bane, and it’s back-breakin’ time agin!
I think that quite a large proportion of the audience is seeing familiar characters with redesigns and their relationships slightly altered and think that they’re getting something new. Absolute Mister Freeze is an ice monster here, in the first couple of pointless issues that opens this book, but he’s still basically Mister Freeze, the same Batman villain, and the slightly different origin does nothing to alter their dynamic or basic conflict. What happens? They fight - and that’s it.
Absolute Bane is absurdly big. He’s always drawn absurdly big but I mean Nick Dragotta draws him like Tetsuo from Akira-BIG - it’s laughably nutso. What does he do? Fights Batman over and over. Breaks his back. The usual Bane stuff.
I believe this is the first time Snyder’s written Bane before, which surprised me. Considering how closely associated this writer is to Batman, I felt sure that he’d covered him before during his New 52 run or any of his subsequent Bat-books but this is the first time Bane’s been the star heel in a Scott Snyder Batman book - and, fair play to him, he writes Bane really well.
Bane’s origin in Santa Prisca is basically again the same origin readers familiar with the character have read before, again with minor changes. Still, it’s no less compelling and Snyder’s retelling is strong. Batman’s numerous attempts to escape Ark M were fun to read and just the reframing of Arkham as a black site is interesting. And having Bane be the one to “create” Batman’s rogues gallery is the one original concept Snyder does in this book - clever stuff.
But I’m not a fan of jumping-around-storytelling - present-day storyline JUMP flashback sequence JUMP another flashback sequence JUMP back to present-day storyline - (which is a style that’s used in way too many shitty shows and movies) especially when the subplots we jump to aren’t engaging. Bruce and Waylon training for a MMA fight - pointless. All to show us they’re buds. Bruce and Selina humping, to show us they were lovers once, is similarly pointless and dull.
And that’s essentially the whole book. Really underwhelming stuff from Scott Snyder. All his creativity went into reimagining the characters - who aren’t all that changed really - and when it came to the story, there’s nowt here but standard Batman fare, dressed up in flashy bells and whistles to distract from its lack of originality or substance.
Marcos Martin’s art on the Freeze issues was… cool - I liked that he drew Absolute Batman like Mumm-Ra from Thundercats (the weird hook cape swirls like Mumm-Ra’s bandages). Nick Dragota’s Killer Croc redesign - like all of his redesigns in this series - is completely OTT and bonkers. His Catwoman design is ok but his Harley redesign is godawful.
I’m a Joker guy though. Freeze and Bane storylines can be good, though neither were that worthwhile here, and the glimpses we caught of Joker made me wish I was reading Absolute Joker instead of Freeze/Bane. So I’m definitely looking forward to the next book when we do get Absolute Joker. This book though? Much like Bane, it’s noisy, roided-out forgettable smush.
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