‘Absolute Batman’ Goes Full-On Body Horror and Twists Poison Ivy Into a Horror Icon
One of the best scenes in Batman Begins is when Batman shoots Scarecrow directly in the face with his own fear toxin, causing him to perceive Batman as a demonic, distorted figure. The trilogy never gets that scary again.
While Batman is often viewed as the darkest corner of the DC Universe, the comics have rarely ventured into outright horror the way Absolute Batman does (yes, yes, I’m aware of Dark Knights: Metal).
The best way to understand Absolute Batman is to look at Dante’s Inferno, which famously charts a descent into Hell level by level, with each successive circle revealing a more grotesque and inescapable form of moral rot.
Co-creator and series writer Scott Snyder has Absolute Batman operating in much the same way, presenting Gotham not as a city with isolated criminal pathologies but as a layered underworld that grows more hostile, surreal, and fundamentally broken the deeper Batman goes.
As Dante descends through Hell and encounters increasingly twisted versions of human sin, Batman’s journey here becomes less about solving crimes and more about pushing deeper into a Gotham that feels broken beyond repair, with each level stripping away the idea that the city can actually be saved and replacing it with something far more nightmarish.
Snyder has completely reinvented Batman, changing nearly every aspect while keeping the core names and characters intact. Relationships shift, origins are reworked, and those changes are explored in ways that feel genuinely unsettling and fresh, with a heavy dose of horror throughout.
Snyder has taken his decades of Dark Knight experience (his Batman New 52 series is near-perfection) and refined it into the best storytelling DC has ever witnessed, and soaked it in horror
Each arc pushes Batman further and further into the depths of hell, or in this book’s case, Ark M, funded by a billionaire Joker. He already found himself trapped there once, beaten daily by Bane, and barely escaped with his life.
This week’s mega hot Absolute Batman #17 fully introduced Poison Ivy, who has been teased as a luscious redheaded beauty over the past three months. It’s a hilarious red herring that even throws Batman off the case: Ivy is actually nightmare fuel. A hideous monstrosity of Biblical proportions (see below), issue #17 goes full-on body horror, something the Absolute Batman series has already tormented readers with (you have to see what Bane did to Cobblepot). And as promised, Batman went full-blown Evil Dead, carving up a bunch of mutated police officers with his trusty chainsaw.
Snyder has teased a return to Ark M – and if history tells us anything, it’s that Batman hasn’t even scratched the surface of what it means to be bruised and beaten.
Things kicked off with Black Mask, who barely registered as a warm-up for what came next. Mr. Freeze nearly condemned a young Bruce Wayne to an eternity of agony in the cold, while Bane pushed him past his limits in a defining arc. Snyder and Nick Dragotta are putting Wayne and this new take on Batman through a kind of hell the character has rarely faced, and it only keeps escalating.
His battle with Ivy has just begun, and Scarecrow is waiting in the wings (Issue #19), which promises to be even more horrific than anything Batman has faced. Shit, Batman hasn’t even squared up yet with Joker, who is basically a Biblical dragon that’s been around for hundreds of years.
Absolute Batman has yet to break into the mainstream, but it will, and it’s not too late to jump on the train to Absolute Gotham. Horror fans are in for a treat.
Each and every issue sells out, so make sure you pre-order at your local comic shop. Come find me and thank me. Absolute Batman #17 is out now.
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