Some thoughts about Absolute Batman #1

What would happen to Batman in more brutal circumstances?

In a different universe and after the death of his father, Bruce Wayne was raised to be more violent and is necessary to face the terrible horde of crime that happens in Gotham City and even fight the recently arrived Alfred Pennyworth.

The Absolute Universe officially begins here with Scott Snyder returning to write Batman and I must say, while his Batman work had its ups and downs, I would say that it was overall a pretty satisfying era for the character (or at least better than what came immediately after) so I'm not particularly against him returning to the franchise despite that I would prefer new voices in it but I suppose this is compensated because Snyder is twisting the classic formula here.

The unique thing about the Absolute Universe is that the heroes supposedly face a much darker, more violent world (Mind you, not that "unique"since that's pretty much what Snyder has been doing for years during his tiring "Dark Multiverse" stories) so that provides a few necessary changes for the characters and Snyder uses this to create a few surprises to the origin of Batman to fit in these events. 

The first thing that you will notice is that this Batman is less of a detective and more of a brawler which is appropriate considering the more upfront criminals that are threatening Gotham. In fact the city itself is about to collapse with Commissioner Gordon and his police force being unable to solve the problem and that forces Bruce to become the kind of vigilante this place needs.

There are a few interesting twists to Bruce's backstory which is best seen in his relationship with his classic rogues gallery who are much closer to him than ever before which presents an intriguing potential for development. I do wish their relationship was shown instead of told however and that is one of the typical problems with Snyder's writing, to be fair though, while his narration can be a bit overwrought at times, is not as bad as in some of his worst works. There is also the changes to Bruce's parents and his new dynamic with Alfred which makes their interactions considerably different from the ones in the main universe.

I would say that Snyder doesn't go "different" enough though since for example while this Batman is more violent than usual, he still has his "no killing" code which is fairly ridiculous considering how brutal he can be (including cutting his enemies in many ways) and this doesn't even work for the whole "shock value" direction that I think Snyder is going for. I feel like Garth Ennis went for a much more interesting route during his Batman: Reptilian miniseries in which he played with the basics of the character to make him much more cruel.

Nick Dragotta handles the art and is pretty solid creating kinetic and bloody action scenes and bringing enough expressions to the characters.

Decent enough beginning but nothing spectacular. I guess it all depends on how well Snyder will develop some of the elements here.