'The Zoo' Part One of Five
Writer: Scott Snyder / Penciller: Nick Dragotta / Colour Artist: Frank Martin / Letterer: Clayton Cowles / Editors: Sabrina Futch, Katie Kubert, Chris Conroy / Ongoing / DC Comics
Review by Paul Dunne / 9th October 2024 (Released: 9th October 2024)
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The Pitch: BATMAN LEGEND SCOTT SNYDER AND ICONIC ARTIST NICK DRAGOTTA TRANSFORM THE DARK KNIGHT'S TALE FOR THE MODERN AGE! Without the mansion...without the money...without the butler...what's left is the Absolute Dark Knight!
Animals.
They're all animals.
Gotham has always been a breeding ground for inhuman behaviour. Make no mistake. Like all cities, it looks like a functioning society, like a place you'd want to live. It fools you into thinking it's safe.
But deep down inside, in its alleys... its hidden streets... on Park Row near the Monarch where they used to play old movies, and blood stains the sidewalk...
Gotham is a zoo.
But it's missing the parts that make zoos safe. No cages. No keepers. Just victims or observers. Like this guy Pennyworth, running around in secret, armed to the teeth, watching what happens. Reporting back to his masters, whoever they are. He watches. Permission to engage denied no matter how bad things get. And whilst there are no keepers in the zoo, there are emerging protectors. Predators who built themselves to prey on all the other animals. Like the guy dressed up as a Bat.
You shoulda seen him... he's HUGE!
In a world saturated with Batman, you wonder if it's another Batman we need. Seemingly, DC banks everything on this character. It's the foundation that holds up everything else, with more titles and mini-series spinning out of its world than any other book in the DC Universe. More films. More shows. I'm a gigantic Batman fan and lately,even I've said 'too much'. I was ready to jump off. But this... This is not what I was expecting.
First we have to talk about the Bat-sized elephant in the room. Bruce is big in this, probably bigger than he's ever been. But you know, when you go back through the pages of beloved books, especially the modern runs, he's always drawn this way. Size matters for the Batman. It's part of the mechanism of fear and intimidation he uses. And hey, lest we forget, Keaton had to put on fake muscles because the size and the illusion of it count. Accoutrements are very much the thing in this Gotham. Wings, tech, masks, weapons, fetishism... it all comes out to play here. There's a gang running around calling themselves 'The Party Animals' who feel like a horde of Daft Punk fans that raided the Masked Singer's costume department. They're indulgent, moneyed, vulgar... as if the one per cent turned to actual crime and violence instead of the asset-stripping bullshit they pull now. In them, you feel the spirit of idle rich youth, disaffecting its way through the underbelly of Gotham, violence guaranteed. Jesus, won't somebody do something?
But of course, somebody does. Big bad Bruce Wayne. Built like a quarterback. Things like that tend to get noticed and Bruce attracts the eyes of the wrong - or perhaps the right- people. I'm being coy about details here because I have the feeling that the Batman we see at the start of this book and the Batman we'll come to know five issues in may be very different and to spoil the details of where we're at at the beginning may be ultimately giving the game away for the end. In the spirit of not wanting to spoil it for you, what can I say? Well, I can tell you that this has a lot in common with Darren Aaronofsky's failed attempt to bring his and Frank Miller's more extreme version of Batman Year One to the screen a few years back. There's a radical tone to that work that bleeds through into this. Before, Batman fought anarchy. Now he embraces it, becomes it... because the other option is worse. The violence around him is punk and spits in the face of the crime and violence that's gone before it. The hypothesis used to be that Batman made his villains. Now, they make him. And they're going to regret it!
The physical changes that Dragotta brings to Batman extend to everyone. It matters because physicality is character in a visual medium. It's why actors wear fake noses, wigs, fake teeth. There is theatricality, archness, and outrageous movement in this Gotham. And sure, that's comics. But it's a particular type of comic that provides the visual foundation for Absolute Batman. Dragotta's Manga influences are clear in his panels and, in particular his close-ups. One always expects that it's the action sequences that most reveal the hand of the books that the artist grew up with, but with over-the-shoulder shots, eyes, and faces, Dragotta wears his Manga heart on his sleeve. Not to the extent he did in Ghost Cage, but you can definitely see it. But does it play? Will it give you a Batman you can love rather than love to hate? For me, it's a yes. There's boldness here, both in Snyder's reinvention of The Batman and Dragotta's interpretation of that reinvention. It's a gorgeous-looking book, in places flirting with Otomo. Even in American superhero comics, where certain conventions are expected and probably demanded, Dragotta and Snyder have strived for maximum comics where every moment delivers. Big storytelling. Big changes. But for all its size, it's what's been taken away: Bruce is not a generational billionaire. One of his parents is still alive. He doesn't come from privilege. More than any other, this Batman feels built, crafted. Speaking of craft, if I've not said enough about Snyder's writing, let me say it here: He's created something quite revolutionary whilst on a well-trod road, something that dare I say it, is better than his New 52 work. Dragotta's designs and panel work are startling, working within the traditions of cape comics whilst modernising and bringing dynamic movement to the book. His panels are full of expansive urban density and breaking concrete. Frank Martin's colours bring a new sheen to Gotham, with neon violence electrifying the image, whilst matt, steel greys make you feel the grind of the machinery used to bring both justice and anarchy to the city. Clayton Cowles proves, as if proof was needed, that he's one of the best letterers in the business, giving us a new set of voices for familiar characters that match their new roles. Go join them in the zoo and see if the animals scare you.
Absolute Batman #1 is available at your local comic shop now. If it's all sold out, a second print is on the way!
