The Absolute Universe Line produces bangers, and Absolute Batman Annual #1 is no exception. The Dark Side Alternative Timeline featured the witchy Wonder Woman, the brick-shack Batman, the temperamental Martian Manhunter, and the creepy creature Mr. Freeze.
Photo credit: DC.
Absolute Batman Annual #1 depicts the early part of Batman’s career, specifically before Batman chooses not to kill the villains he faces. But instead of creating a youthful, edgy iteration of a violent Batman, it feels more like a gaudy mirror held up to the headlines. This story has the delicacy of a megaphone, daring you to say something. Batman lashes out at a group of neo-Nazis after intervening in a hate crime that was going on at the beginning of this issue. That’s the story.
Normally, I would just roll my eyes. Of course white supremacists are bad. They were clearly a sinister target…at least about five years ago. When a significant portion of the country is so focused on defending white supremacy that they don’t even consider alternatives to it, that goal is no longer demonstrably evil to some people, right? When we see people cheering for an ICE detention center being built in the middle of the Florida Everglades, we see how many people are rooting for atrocities past and present.
For years, portrayals of white supremacists have felt, at least to me, like a crackdown on white creators addressing racists but not racist systems. But when racists in white hoods control the government, the police no longer come. It’s the cops trying to meet them in the middle. This annual event has felt like a catharsis for the pent-up anger I’ve been feeling this past year, and I’m sure others have felt, too.
Photo credit: DC.
Over the past year, I have felt gassed, abused, and lied to by the current administration. I have seen state-sanctioned violence perpetrated against American citizens, from military occupation to starvation as a political bargaining chip to depriving people of health care, and yet I am expected to go to work and behave as if it is not happening. Over the next month, one in eight Americans will go without food. To pretend the economy isn’t collapsing. To pretend that SCOTUS is trying to further disenfranchise me and water down the Voting Rights Act and marriage equality. Pretending that the villains did not win and remaining painfully victorious at great cost to the American people as a whole and the international community.
There is a belief among our right and well-meaning liberal allies that nonviolence is always the answer. Nonviolence becomes even more admirable in situations of violent repression and hate crimes. This historical revision fails to acknowledge the fact that in the 1950s and 1960s, the mere presence of black people in white-only spaces or just outside of hard labor (such as housekeepers, sharecroppers, and day laborers) was an act of violence.
Never mind the fact that in the Big Two, it’s mostly hidden or used as an allegory for non-human races. I remember an episode of Teen Titans where Starfire’s people, the Tamaranians, were talking about being called a slur and how it affected her. Even back then, I knew that addressing racism head-on was a tough stance for mainstream media in the 2000s, whether in comics or otherwise.
In the end, I agree with the conclusion this issue reaches. Issues like white supremacy cannot be solved with violence alone. But sometimes it’s the answer. That’s understandable, given the violence they commit when in power. Batman doesn’t mince words or turn neo-Nazis into mincemeat (though he should). It gave me a sense of the conversations Daniel Warren Johnson probably had with his loved ones while making this an annual tradition. I get angry when I see headlines about ICE agents kidnapping mothers from elementary schools and vegetable gardens, or about National Guard troops descending on major blue cities like swarms of locusts.
Photo credit: DC.
I fully expect this annual report to appear on next year’s award list. The art is ragged, energetic, and frenetic. The dialogue lacks punch. Most of all, it feels like a much-needed primal cry in the midst of all the horror.
Absolute Batman Annual #1 is available at your local comic shop.
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