Review: Absolute Batman Incorporated

Absolute Batman Incorporated by Grant Morrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This volume concludes my run through Morrison's work on Batman, and finishes up the larger story he began way back in "the Black Glove."

Set immediately following the events in Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn, this volume sees Batman taking his war on crime international in order to fight against a mysterious enemy bent on ruining everything that Batman holds dear.

This book builds on a lot of the threads that Morrison was playing with in the earlier volumes. The international club of heroes from the "Island of Peter Mayhew" arc are brought back, this time as invitees to Batman Incorporated. The identity of the mastermind behind the plot that Batman is trying to unravel is closely tied into events from the earlier volumes, as well. Morrison continues to mine Batman's long and varied history for characters and plot points (the reintroduction of Death Man/Lord Death Man, made popular by the Japanese version of the character, is pretty fun). This book is a solid send-off for Morrison, and, by the end, everything is tied up pretty well, leaving the character fresh for a new writer.

Morrison again pushes the character of Batman in a new direction that still feels like it makes sense to the character. While Batman is often presented as a grim loner or an outsider, the fact remains that this is a character who has gone through more sidekicks than most other heroes combined. He has a whole "bat family" that he surrounds himself with, and he's constantly pushing for better ways to fight crime. Given that, the idea that he might create a whole network of Bat-vigilantes around the world to keep an eye on things is... weird, but not unbelievable.

As with his previous entries, Morrison also introduces a new villain: the enigmatic Doctor Dedalus. Dedalus is fantastic. He's essentially the anti-Batman. A Nazi war criminal super spy turned super villain who is every bit as obsessed with planning and preparation as Batman is. He makes a compelling nemesis for Batman, even if he is only an agent for the larger Leviathan organization.

While I did enjoy this volume, it's not without some flaws. First, the original publication fell during one of DC's attempts to reboot (this time, as "New 52"). To that end, there are some changes that occur midway through without any real explanation. The most obvious/glaring was Dick Grayson losing the Batman identity and becoming Nightwing again (this, despite Bruce Wayne insisting that he wanted Dick and Damian to continue being Batman and Robin in Gotham. *sad trombone*). The change is never mentioned or explained in text. Instead, one chapter has Dick and Damian teamed up as Batman and Robin, the next it's suddenly Bruce and Damian again. To add more confusion: the artists in previous volumes had been careful to distinguish between Dick and Bruce by the costume. Bruce's costume has the yellow oval, while Dick's does not. New 52 dropped the yellow oval, which makes Bruce's costume look a lot more like Dick's costume did.

Messy.

Additionally, the art in this volume is not nearly as strong as in previous volumes. There's an obligatory computer generated chapter (set in Web 3.0), and, while there are some standout chapters, I generally didn't appreciate Chris Burnham's work on the title. Under his pencils Bruce Wayne looks... weird:

Is that a child manning the Wayne Industry's lobby?

It also has to be noted that, perhaps by design, there are some pretty confusing chapters in this volume. In particular, there are some puzzling jumps around during the early chapters of the Doctor Dedalus arc, especially when the Batman Inc team is investigating his headquarters. There are a few places where an additional issue or two would probably have been helpful to make the story flow a little more smoothly.

The book itself contains a number of fantastic extras, including some side stories, unreleased covers, and some story boards. It does not, sadly, contain an introduction of any kind, nor is Morrison's farewell letter from his final issues included (you can read it here, though). Overall, as with the rest of Morrison's run, this is highly recommended reading. This is pretty definitive Batman stuff, despite a few small flaws.