Absolute Batman Borrowed A Twist From Tim Burton — And Made It Better

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Spoilers for "Absolute Batman" #20 follow. 

Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's "Absolute Batman" debuted by reworking Bruce Wayne's classic origin into a mass shooting at Gotham City Zoo. Now, issue #20, part of the "Straw Man" arc, revealed yet another twist. If Jack Grimm/Joker and Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow can be trusted (which ... TBD), then the murder of Bruce's father Thomas was no random act of violence.

In "Absolute Batman" #19, former Mayor Jim Gordon was murdered by Scarecrow, but before he jumped to his death, he passed along some files labeled "Project: Batman" to Bruce. Having read them obsessively, Batman sets out to Blackgate Prison to visit the shooter who killed his father, Joe Chill. 

But Scarecrow is waiting in Chill's cell. Crane, working for Grimm, apparently coerced Chill with Fear Toxin to shoot up the Gotham Zoo. The true target? Bruce's mother, Martha Wayne (who, unlike the classic "Batman" story, is still alive). Martha was once a member of the Court of Owls, a guerrilla resistance group. Grimm decided to play a joke on her by taking her husband and setting her son on the path to become a bat, the natural prey of an owl. 

Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" famously had Jack Napier (Hugo Blick), the future Joker (Jack Nicholson), be the gunman who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents. I'm not a huge fan of that change, and when I read issue #19, I was wary of this hinted twist that there was a conspiracy behind Bruce's origin. I much prefer a Batman born out of a unplanned murder that could've happened to anyone.

But after the incredible scene between Batman and Crane in this issue, the "Straw Man" breaking everything Bruce thought he knew, I'm sold. This twist doesn't contradict the premise of "Absolute Batman" like I feared.

Now, there's a chance this isn't entirely true. In his 2016 "Batman" comic "Endgame," Scott Snyder featured the Joker trying to deceive Batman into believing he's an immortal demon, using doctored photos and newspapers from Gotham history. Snyder recycled bits of this story for "Absolute" Joker (who really is a centuries-old monster), so maybe "Project: Batman" will echo "Endgame" with another Joker ruse. Merely convincing Batman the Joker has controlled his life would be a cruel joke, too.

But there's some evidence otherwise, too. Scarecrow's first scene in issue #19, when he manipulated two farmers into their own deaths, showed that he throws people's worst secrets in their faces and lets them combust.

In issue #20, Scarecrow suggests Bruce remember crows flying over the zoo the day his father died. (The "Absolute" Scarecrow has seemingly supernatural control over crows.) Look back to "Absolute Batman" #1 and you can see a panel of crows during a flashback to the Gotham Zoo shooting. Similarly, in another flashback in "Absolute Batman" #4, the zoo's welcome sign has a Joker-like figure on it. The hidden clues could have been there all along, too subtle for us (and Bruce) to notice.

DC Comics

DC Comics

Issue #20 also opens with the Joker having a laugh in his cave lair. In one of his trophy cases, you can see a Court of Owls mask, suggesting the Owls were an enemy he once vanquished.

DC Comics

Snyder has teased that "The Straw Man" will be the arc that's the hardest on Bruce yet. What's more brutal than "Absolute" Bane, villain of previous arc "Abomination"? Learning Batman is nothing but Jack Grimm's sick joke.

Again, I generally don't like Batman losing his parents to a conspiracy. It makes his crusade feel like simple revenge, not a war on all crime to protect the innocent. The Joker killing Bruce Wayne's parents in "Batman" (1989) also makes his character smaller by removing any mystery from him. By tying Batman and the Joker's beginnings together, their rivalry feels less epic.

But reading "Absolute Batman" #20, I realized my fears about the twist were rooted in preconceptions of the typical Batman — and that's not who "Absolute" Batman is. Batman typically stands for order (treated as synonymous with justice) while the Joker is destructive chaos. "Absolute Batman" flips that; the Joker embodies a corrupt order that Batman is swinging his axe at.

Scott Snyder told Polygon in 2024 that he wanted "Absolute" Batman to be a hero who speaks to kids today, hence placing Bruce's origin in a mass shooting event, and depicting him as an angry young man in his 20s. Many young people today feel that we don't control our lives or futures, and that we're at the whim of billionaires or systems that don't care about us. 

Scarecrow even alludes to this in issue #20, saying he loves how in the 21st century, everyone dreads huge, Earth-shattering changes we can't control or influence. The Joker plotting Bruce's whole life, even his transformation into Batman, ties into that fear and reflects the total but often invisible ways that power moves in the real world. 

The flashback arc of "The Straw Man" features a pre-Batman Bruce roped into working for mob boss Carmine Falcone. I've no doubt the younger Bruce overcoming Falcone will parallel him rising up against the Joker.

"Absolute Batman" #1-20 are available now.