Customer Reviews

Batman: Absolution

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maybe it's just the more recent Batman comics, but it seems like any Batman volume I pick up is depressing. This book is especially dark and depressing. I can handle a dark, brooding, crime-fighting Batman, but the Batman in this volume is just obsessed to the point of danger. He refuses to see anything but his own point of view. He won't even consider another point of view, because he believes that his view of the world is less biased than anyone else's. He is not an enjoyable character.

In this book, he is hunting a woman who, as part of a protest against Wayne Enterprises, set off a bomb several years before that killed a lot of people. Batman turns hunting her into his own crusade, partially because of the deaths and partially because, it seems, his ego is continually hurt by the fact that she eludes him for so long. The artwork looks lovely, but I just can't like the story. I haven't read a lot of Batman comics, but this doesn't seem like a prime example of them.

Sometimes the problem with graphic novels is that writers tend to put a mythos that is contradicted to some extent in other stories, thus breaking a continuity in the Batman mythos. This is an example of such an outcome for if one was to compare this story to the graphic novel "The Chalice", two very different Batmen emerge.

I am going to avoid recapping the story, because it is so thin and easily discernable, that any hint would leave a possible reader disinterested from the beginning. After all, some other readers may like this slow moving, illogical story.

The major problems in this book are that Batman is a little slow on the up-take in trying to catch a killer who killed some of his employees ten years before. Obvious clues (what little the authors developed) are seemly dismissed. Further, the idea of logic is mentioned several times, just so many illogical conclusions are drawn. Though I think the writers were trying to develop an existential search in Batman, they largely failed. The tension just isn't there.

The last great Batman graphic novels (not counting re-prints such as Dark Victory, etc) are from the period (1986-1992) which produced such great work as , "Year One", The Dark Knight Returns", "The Killing Joke", "Night Cries", "The Birth of the Demon", "Arkum Asylum", and "Digital Justice.", etc. Since that time, the monthly magazines have produced the biggest "hits" and some of their reprints have been re-introduced into prestige hardbound formats.

One would think that a great author like Jean Marc Dematteis would write a reasonable Batman story. It was a surprise that the end result was not something to be proud of. Dematteis has been a long standing author of Spider-Man and in his prime wrote the thought provoking storylines that slowly careened more to the psychological. You would think that this work right for a character like Batman. Surprisingly, it doesn't.

The story picks up with a hellbent, vengeful Batman searching for the bomber of a Wayne Enterprises building that killed many people. It takes Batman 10 years to get to the killer, but of course, you know he ends up there. One surprise is that Batman throughout his years never showcased a vengeful feel to his personality that would fuel his rage for such long a time. The story here falls to being more incredulous in that sense.

The other part is that when he does finally reach up to his prey, he is so relentless that he does not believe in redemption and he is intent on making the bomber pay for what she did, though throughout her life that person has completely changed and has become a nun healping thousands in an impoverished land.

Simply, said, this is not Batman. You wonder what Dematteis had in mind while scribing this down, but it's a pity that his theme and the Batman character didn't work. I believe that if given the chance, another story by him would give us a better tale. I don't know if that's going to happen in the near future though.

I've never been steeped in the Batman mythology and universe - I was just looking for an interesting afternoon read when I picked this up. It was a quick read - taking around an hour to get from one end of the book to the other.

The plot device of searching for a killer was all a maguffin to explore existential/religious implications of modern society. Much of the story is a series of stream of conscious thought balloons that honestly we've seen before (e.g., Batman pondering Bruce Wayne and saying that Bruce is the masked character and the Batman is his true self, etc.).

This is the third Batman in the last month that I've picked up and has been over the top pretentious about philosophy. I admit I'm not really interested in Batman's musings on the Catholic church, budhism, etc. It introduces an ambivalence and grounds a fantastical character into a grim (yet unbelievable) reality.

The modern Dark Knight Batman aimed for adults can really be done well (The Miller books, for example, brought a brittle humanity to the characters that hasn't been matched). Or it can be done as this book and feel both unbelievable/illogical yet too grounded in reality.

The artwork is fine - thought the Batman is the old grey tights type. I wonder if putting a more modern spin on the art of the Batman character himself might have been more appropriate.

I was into the story, loved the art, the dialogue, and the angst, and.....the thrust of the conflict between the Children of Maya and The Bat peters out into inanity. I liked everything but that. The final two pages, with Batman still an indominatble spirit, flawed but resolute, I liked. In fact, every since Frank Miller's, "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", I've been in love with the character. He's a superhero without superhero powers and his internal dialogues has been as intruiging as any of the external problems he's faced. In "Absolution" we have a story that gives full power to the internal angst that Batman faces in his lifelong struggle against the predators among us. Unfortunately, the climax depends on an apparent suicidal destructive act by the villian which resolves nothing except a need for plot development. It's not bad, it could have been so-so much better.

This book really cemented my fondness for J.M. Dematteis as a comic writer. Much like his 1988 Martian Manhunter mini-series, this graphic novel taps into serious metaphysical questions that undergird the very possibility of a character like Batman. It is less an action book (although there is plenty of that) than a psychological drama with chilling implications for people who choose to live life in the cold light of reason. There is an implication of a "right" path here that perhaps can only belong to the innocent - and Batman is not among that number.

On a wholly other front, Dematteis clearly understands his medium, and Ashmore's art compliments the story perfectly. Pages go by without words, but the story is more complete for trusting the art.

This is a book I would put in the hands of a comics skeptic as an example of what is possible within the medium, even within a superhero book, beyond the typical bash-em mindlessness so many associate with the genre.

I really enjoyed this!! Story and art were both very enjoyable. Kind of a hard-hitting story but one I enjoyed nonetheless. It really makes you think...not always a bad thing. :) I also really enjoyed the beautiful painted artwork...a lot of great work and a lot of great iconic images of the Batman. Highly recommended! Kudos!