Absolute Batman #3 - DC Comics

ABSOLUTE BATMAN No. 3, April 2025

It’s probably quite easy to see why Issue Three of “Absolute Batman” was the best-selling comic of December 2024 (at least according to the news platform “ICv2.com”), considering just how utterly insane its opening is as both the Dark Knight and Alfred Pennyworth attempt to escape a horde of heavily-armed, homicidal Party Animals on board “a giant, bat-themed dump truck”. In fact, many a reader probably didn’t want the “sweet smell of kerosene” to ever fade, as the unlikely alliance pair together to blast the skull-mask wearing goons to pieces using a variety of electrically charged mini bat-projectiles.

Impressively however, Scott Snyder then manages to keep up with this sense of pace, despite the spotlight turning away from Bruce Wayne’s headlong drive down to Gotham City’s waterfront and turning to Harvey Bullock’s dialogue-driven encounter with Mister Roman Sionis instead. Ordinarily such a meeting might contain some nose-to-nose face-offs so as to suggest the hidden menace behind the Black Mask’s offer for the police officer to support Hill’s election bid to become the metropolis’ next mayor. But on this occasion the villain is perturbingly shown wrestling the former Champ Bibbo Bibowski to the death as they talk; “Don’t worry about him, Commissioner. He’ll be fine. Now, come. Let’s talk about peace.”

Likewise, the American author is able to genuinely ‘sell’ the sheer weight of the mass-murdering megalomaniac’s offer to Batman, who in simply standing down from crime-fighting for a week will receive two hundred million dollars. This almost unfathomable sum of money, as Pennyworth quickly points out, could easily be used to help the Caped Crusader establish himself as Gotham’s primary protector – as well as ensure that the young man’s mother, who has foolishly agreed to be Jim Gordon’s deputy mayor, is kept safe from harm.

Truly excelling at pencilling all this twenty-five page publication’s high octane moments is Nick Dragotta, who does an incredible job of showing just how exhilarating a ride Alfred has standing atop the Bat-dozer. In addition, you can arguably hear the desperate, sweaty smacks on the floor as Sionis and Bibowski grapple with one another, as well as the former title-holder’s desperate taps to signify he surrenders as the astonished man is quite literally choked to death.

Writer: Scott Snyder, Artist: Nick Dragotta, and Colorist: Frank Martin