The world of DC is about to get a lot bigger with the advent of the Absolute Universe this fall. Providing an alternate take on some of DC’s most beloved characters, the Absolute Universe launches with new ongoing titles focused on Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman, led by three different all-star creative teams. In the upcoming Absolute Batman series, writer Scott Snyder will return to the world of Gotham City for an all-new vision of the Dark Knight, alongside collaborator and artist Nick Dragotta.

Debuting next month, Absolute Batman will center on a young Bruce Wayne who is scrappy, bulky and without the generational wealth that he’s commonly associated with. This Bruce is an engineer with a passion for fixing problems in his city. And Snyder and Dragotta’s reinterpretation of the Batman mythos doesn’t stop there. Our good friend Alfred Pennyworth is now a grizzled former MI6 agent and mercenary who isn’t afraid to kick some butt and doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Gotham’s new vigilante.

We recently had the chance to speak to both creators about what they have in store for us in this eagerly awaited new series. Read on to learn what fuels their collaboration, their love of the character and their excitement for carving out a new frontier for the Dark Knight.

Scott, you mentioned that this is a very personal story for you, and you’ve spoken in the past about how you often lead with the personal when it comes to your work in general. Could you talk about where you were coming from with Absolute Batman?

Scott Snyder: Yeah, 100%. The scariest thing for me is to go back to this character. It is the most challenging thing, because I was lucky enough to be able to do stories that really mattered to me with one of my best friends in the world, Greg Capullo, and Jon [Glapion] and FCO for a long time. And I'm not trying to touch the hem of that.

But once in a while, you get an idea where it was like, “If I could really change the mythology, if I could have Batman grow up in a way where his family never had the money, and how he's formed happens differently in this…”

It's a big story point. This Batman comes up in Crime Alley. He knows the villains in a different way. And instead of being system and order and the way Batman is in the main universe, this Batman is chaos and anarchy. He's a big, primal beast. He's smart. He's a planner and all those things, but he's a force of nature.

And I wanted to do a story where it really is for my kids. Maybe not just yet, it's a little too violent and dark, but it's written for my kids. Batman always made me brave. Growing up in New York, I love the idea that he went up against nuclear war, like in The Dark Knight Returns. My anxieties were reflected in these books in the ’80s. And for him here, I want him to go up against things that feel unmovable, like giant civilians and systems that feel like you can't change them, so you just have to compromise, which is Alfred's point of view as a kind of mercenary coming to town. For Batman, though, he's this kid that does not believe that. He believes you go up and you bang your head against it over and over and over until you get it to change. So, it's a totally different take.

From the Absolute Batman San Diego Comic-Con Ashcan Preview Comic

I know with your work, Nick, there’s a very powerful sense of perspective and low angles. How did that impact the way you went about drawing Batman and Gotham?

Nick Dragotta: Scott cooked up this incredible story, and my job is to bring that to life and inject my own self into it. And I'm really taking a different approach in that, when scenes are pedestrian, I really want to slow it down a bit. And then as emotion or action ramps up, we're going to go a little more hyper and more dynamic. So, there's a rhythm. And Scott's got some incredible dialog in here, and I really just want to nail the beats.

We like to leave a lot to the imagination too. So, you'll see a lot of silhouettes in my comics, and I like readers to inject themselves into it. It goes back to what Scott was saying about character too. When you see this Bruce Wayne, he's more like us. And I think readers will go, “Yeah, I've walked the streets like that. I've done things like that. I've solved problems like that.”

At its core, it's Bruce Wayne. But pulling them in this new direction feels a little more identifiable, I think. And readers are going to love it.

Going back to what you were talking about with this new identity for Bruce, I love that he’s an engineer. The Batman we know is always thinking things through, he’s got these contingency plans. Was his job as an engineer a way to get him thinking and knowing about how things work?

SS: 100%. You see his whole history in issue #1. Alfred is trying to figure him out. After the traumatic stuff that happens early on, which is also different in our universe, Bruce starts this path to building Batman. When he's a kid, he wins these architectural and engineering competitions. And in one of them that he wins, he makes a mobile bridge that you can take to places that have natural disasters and it's based on a bat's anatomy. So, he's always a builder from the beginning. Alfred has this refrain of, “What are you building? What are you building?” He's building Batman.

ND: I'm just going to spoil this, but Scott's script reads like a novel. It's not written like a normal script. It's all there. It's got all the dialog beats. And there's a part in it where Bruce fixes what he breaks and it's just awesome, and it all comes full circle. It's just such a great moment in the book. And it just fits this character. He's a do-it-yourselfer. He's a problem solver. He’s a new hero for a new age.

SS: It's writing it so your kids feel like it’s an invitation to be better than us. If you have to burn down the things that we made to make something better, do it. Just go for it. Be Batman.

From the Absolute Batman San Diego Comic-Con Ashcan Preview Comic

That reminds me of the ending of The Batman, with Gotham City getting flooded.

SS: That’s my favorite part of that movie. And that’s the thing. From the moment I started on the character in a post 9/11 world, it really felt like Batman needed to be something different. And it wasn't so much about him facing his demons in this. He's somebody that, instead of scaring bad guys into the shadows, is actually trying to bring good people out into the light and be like, “We can do this.” He's a unifier. He goes up against guys and women with dangerous, solipsistic, selfish ideologies, who think it's about them and that is inspiring.

He says, “I'll be the target. I'll go up against them. I'll be brave against them, to make you brave against the things in your life that you think are impossible to beat.” And that formula is so simple. You know that's who Batman is.

You’ve mentioned that there is chaos and anarchy in this series. Could you speak to where the sense of order can be found in this world?

SS: It really is a flip. Like when you see how the villains come in, it’s just very different. Bruce grows up very differently.

I think the thing that worries me sometimes with Bruce is there are stories when it kind of feels like he's punching down in the main universe. And it's hard not to punch down when you're a generational billionaire. The goal here was to always have him punching up and have him face things that seem unbeatable. Crime, for some reason in Gotham, when you open the book, is up 500%. And there's this new gang which is ruining everything, and no one knows why. And so, the secret behind them and what's happening is a big part of where we start.

From the Absolute Batman San Diego Comic-Con Ashcan Preview Comic

This is a much different Alfred, as well. How did you reflect that visually, Nick?

ND: Just trying to represent the core of the character. I mean, this is a grizzled MI6 Alfred. He's a badass. He could have his own title, in my opinion. He narrates the book. He's kind of the storyteller that we're connected to most and he's witnessing all these events. And like we said, he is order. He might be the old ways and Bruce is the new. Can that inspire Alfred too?

I'm just trying to draw characters that represent who they are. I want my villains to be scary. I want them to be brutal. I want them to be evil. I want you to be disgusted by their actions. Batman, I want him to be scary. I don't want you to be like, “I want to go meet this guy.” You want to run from this guy. And I want that youth to come through too. Like, “Wow, this guy can make a serious mistake that could cost him his life. He's really riding that razor's edge.”

One final question, what’s your favorite part about working together?

SS: Look, it's going to sound corny, but already at my age, you don't make a lot of new friends. Nick has become a true friend and creative partner. I think the thing that I love the most about working with Nick is the same thing I loved about working with Greg [Capullo]. It's the same thing I love about working with Jock. The people that I return to always put story first, and neither of us have an ego about it. Meaning, if he has a better idea for something, great. Whatever is going to make the best story, we do it. And my favorite part, in a literal way, is he lives just across the water from where I live in New York. So, he takes the ferry over and we work in my studio and put pages up all over. I've never gotten to work in person before, so it's such a magical experience to get to physically make it together.

ND: Yeah, I think that it's the friendship. The first day I went over to Scott’s, I ended up playing wiffle ball with his son. We're enjoying this. It's not work. Scott's enthusiasm is infectious, and no hyperbole, he's in this 100% like me. I'm fully passionate about this medium. In terms of business, I want to leave it in a better place. And I want to just continue to create good comics.
 

Absolute Batman #1 by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin will be available in print and as a digital comic on Wednesday, October 9.

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