'Absolute Batman' Volume Four Review: Weak art, but a great story on anger

While searching for something new to start yet again under the assumption that all of the recent things I had started reading were between volumes, I stumbled across Absolute Batman's fourth volume. I was certain that it came out about a week ago, and began to question whether I had actually read that one or not. It's a bit hard to keep track these days! The only real way for me to tell was to go into my own Hive posts and have a look at the last volume I wrote about. To my surprise that was volume three! Where did the time go? Oh well, another week, another volume to check out and have some fun with for a few minutes. Now knowing it was new and I hadn't yet read it, I jumped into it ready for whatever story was to come next. I have been quite enjoying the Absolute Batman story so far, with each volume being something fairly slow in narrative but also quite extensive in establishing some broader Gotham issues. Last week's story saw us looking into the masked individuals that had been terrorising the city, and how their masks were actually part of a massive digital network that gave them missions to pursue while also offering payment services to those who successfully finish the mission(s). It was a nice addition that saw the series take on a larger idea regarding the villains, showing how they were criminals of a larger scale, part of an elite group that had the ability to establish such an operation and pay silly amounts of money to maintain it. Extending beyond the idea of just petty crime from clowns and psychopaths!

It was a nice read over the morning coffee, and that is somewhat how these comic readings have started to go as of late. Absolute Batman's fourth volume takes a different turn from the previous volume, completely putting aside the narrative that explored the masks. Instead, we're jumping back into the past but in a more effective way, putting the usual childhood narrative of Bruce aside and showcasing the anger that has built up within the child as a result of losing his father. There's a significant degree of strong emotion within Bruce that seems beyond just wanting to help people. While it spans from wanting to provide a bridge to better help communities in need, it speaks of the corporate greed that goes unnoticed, the manipulation of society from the elites which lobby and shift attitudes purely for their own profit, using the common people and city as their own tool to get richer. From a child Bruce knows he wants to achieve something to help people, but the loss of his father shapes the Batman character beyond tools to help others. Turning him into a creature of hate rather than a bat. Adapting to the challenges and understanding that the only way to better the society is to face it head-on with brute force. That sense of brutality is shaped over the volume, with Bruce slowly coming to terms with the realisation that action is the only way Gotham can learn. When the elites down to the common criminal take advantage of people, the only way to stop them is to get physical.

I really liked the narrative in this one, with the little skips between time periods as Bruce's character comes into fruition, even showing some of the court case in which Bruce directly confronts his father's killer, telling him he hates him. And the rest of the volume feels full of that anger. Full of a hatred that is fuelling his interest in developing something to fight back. Starting off with little tools here and there, to slowly creating the early concept of Batman, which wasn't quite working. It shows how his strong anger turned the emotion into a tool to develop. His primary emotion being nothing but hate, becoming a bit of a reflection of the very thing he's wanting to fight against. It felt much more different to the usual Batman stuff, more unique and emotionally driven in that sense. It reminded me a lot of Batman: Year One. Showing the development of the character and his challenges faced, mixed with his disgust of how the city operated. Though in regards to the art style, it completely ruined things. It tried to pursue this gritty, messy look at the past. With some inspiration pulled from the colours and tone of Batman: Year One, just with weaker detail and more scratchy art. I get the idea of how it wanted to show the darker past, something that was messy. But it felt cheap at the same time, sometimes distracting with how poor some of the proportions looked.

Fortunately with that story on a child developing his own schemes against society's exploiters, it felt like something that you can connect to a bit more. Bruce isn't really the usual rich kid with millions of dollars to siphon and expend from his father's company. Instead he's your ordinary child that has to figure things out on his own, even going into adulthood. All of it has that homemade feeling to it, and I think the aforementioned emotion feels much stronger as a result of this. Just an ordinary person going out of their way to put things together with what they can and have around them, trying to make a difference. Not accepting the way things are, seeing how the law is something that is only upheld for the very elites he's wanting to fight against. Realising that the idea of justice is flawed. It's likely my favourite volume of the four yet, incredibly powerful despite such an ugly art style. And that's purely on the great writing. Usually I don't like these flashback stories in comics, and the Absolute stories so far have been relying on them a bit too much, but this one really worked.

I'm definitely looking forward to the future volumes, though I really do hope that this artist doesn't make a return, or at least changes things up a bit. It's the weakest part of it all by far. The other volumes weren't the best, but the art still worked for the world. Whether it's influenced by previous comics and artists or not, this messier attempt just doesn't quite translate.