When DC Comics' Absolute line was leaked, and then announced in 2024, one stunning image sucked all the air out of the room: the widest, squarest version of Batman anyone had ever seen. The idea that when veteran Batman writer Scott Snyder had the opportunity to remake Batman from the ground up in a darker setting, his first directive to artist Nick Dragotta was to do it damn yuge It was intriguing, to say the least.
Image: Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin/DC Comics
The images of absolute batmanthe brothers' books, Absolute Wonder Woman and absolute supermanThey weren't that surprising. Wonder Woman has carried a sword and pants before; Superman has had shaggy hair. batman was so wide, he made the reimagined designs of his fellow heroes look ordinary in comparison. No wonder absolute batman It became the book to look at.
But three months after the publication of each book, Absolute Wonder Woman and absolute superman are racing towards all-time comic book status, in part because the writers and artists were able to keep their biggest and most topical twists from two very old superhero stories completely secret until the right time. Perhaps they were hidden behind the young Batman's notable girth?
A new year is a time of reflection. I've been doing some thinking, and I'm willing to say it: DC Comics' Absolute Universe rules far more than I expected, in ways I thought were impossible. It's giving me a dark timeline that actually feels good to visit.
[Ed. note: This piece contains some spoilers for the first three issues each of Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Superman.]
Now I understand why writer Kelly Thompson and artist Hayden Sherman wanted to preserve the details of Absolute Wonder Woman on the decline during the initial announcement of the project. Although its first issue takes place literally in hell, it's wonderfully quiet, slow, and bland in a way that monthly superhero books rarely get to be, and in a way that would be resented in short. They deliver a Diana who has been separated from her Amazonian heritage by divine edict, but who is determined to be a bulwark between humanity and terrible monsters, even if it requires spitting in the face of the gods. Also, I won't spoil it here, but issue #3 reveals something about Diana's…physique…in a way so casual that it hits like a Mack truck.
Meanwhile, in the first three issues of absolute supermanwriter Jason Aaron and artist Rafa Sandoval have put together an ongoing series of subversions of the Superman story we think we know. Better yet, they've taken the time to show that those differences have meaning, beyond the impact of the unexpected. His Superman still grew up on a farm, a farm on Krypton, an extremely stratified society in which his family belongs to the worker caste.
Image: Jason Aaron, Rafa Sandoval/DC Comics
Superman's relationship with his doomed homeworld is traditionally distant, but Kal-El, the curious preteen, gives Aaron and Sandoval a vehicle to show the flaws of Kryptonian society from a close-up view, opening up absolute superman #2 with little Kal getting written up at school (remote class only) for writing an essay himself, instead of using the computer to generate one with AI, based on the Kryptonian database of all approved knowledge. They establish all of these details in just two panels that will hit any school-age child, their parents, or their teachers with the chilling punch of an effective ghost story.
The third issue, published on the first day of 2025, gives Superman's well-known origin story another scathingly modern twist. In this version of the story, Krypton's leaders do not refuse to believe warnings that their planet is dying and perishing along with it. Here, they support the illusion that everything is normal and under control, while secretly building enormous escape ships only for the elite castes.
Image: Jason Aaron, Rafa Sandoval/DC Comics
Meanwhile, Kal-El's parents have been building their own ship for the few workers who can fit on it. What happens next? Do elite Kryptonians survive? Kal's parents? So far, they've only been seen in flashback, so I guess I'm waiting. absolute superman #4 to find out.
For comics readers, the Dark Timeline is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Maybe there's a dark future the heroes must avoid, or something could have gone horribly wrong if only What If…? Or it's the future and nothing is as good or as easy as it used to be. Or maybe there's an entire multiverse where things went so wrong that the universes within them serve no purpose other than to power a cosmic forge. “A familiar environment, but surprisingly worse” is a well that is easy to return to.
When the Absolute setting was announced as a darker version of the DC universe, created by the evil god Darkseid for dark purposes that will one day be revealed, it felt like mere repetition. “In this universe, heroes emerge in ways that make them the underdogs,” Scott Snyder said in an announcement video, arguing that more horrific origins would resonate even more when Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and upcoming Absolute heroes like Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Flash – they inevitably made the decision to fight the darkness anyway.
I didn't think Snyder and the rest of the people at DC's Absolute books could execute that idea so quickly and consistently across three creative teams and three very different review concepts. These first three Absolute books are not only solid, they are incisive, meaningful, and superbly told. Thompson and Sherman's Wonder Woman is about love versus self-denial and reclaiming your identity even in the face of divine censure. Aaron and Sandoval's Superman is about action, struggle, and tragedy, but also about the joy of writing and the power of telling the truth.
In an era where corporations are censoring references to queer or trans characters for fear of backlash, there is resonance in Wonder Woman defying divine law by saying the word “Amazon” out loud. In particular, there's resonance in giving that moment to a queer-coded character. (And often, lately, thank goodness, a downright strange one.) do I want to see Wonder Woman defying the rules imposed on her from above. I want to see Superman rejecting generative AI as a homogenizing, lie-spreading force. I do want to see him riding a metaphor for the billionaire-backed push to escape Earth's climate problems by building a base on Mars at the expense of hired labor.