Absolute Batman Makes Huge Changes to Bruce Wayne’s Origin Story

After months of hype and some surprising teases, DC’s Absolute Batman #1 arrived in comic shops on Wednesday. Long before the first issue was even released, it was confirmed that Absolute Batman‘s fresh new take on Bruce Wayne would be fundamentally different than what fans were used to, having grown up in the working class instead of among the wealthy. Now that the issue is out into the world, fans have gotten a more in-depth look at what that entails — including a surprising new backstory. Spoilers for Absolute Batman #1 from Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, and Clayton Cowles below! Only look if you want to know!

Absolute Batman #1 largely concerns the present-day status quo of Bruce, a civil engineer who decides to moonlight as a vigilante to take down a dangerous cartel in Gotham City. Throughout the issue, readers are shown scenes of a young Bruce visiting the Gotham Zoo on a class field trip alongside his father, schoolteacher Thomas Wayne. (The field trip, as it turns out, was a prize that Bruce won as a child in a student engineering competition, in which he created a collapsable bridge resembling a bat wing.) When a gunman attacks the zoo, Thomas rushes Bruce and the kids into the bat exhibit, instructing his son not to open the door for any reason. Just like Earth-Prime Bruce’s situation with Joe Chill, we are not able to clearly identify the gunman, and it is implied that Thomas died in the fray.

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From there, Bruce grew into a troubled teenager, but attempted to turn his life around by accepting a prestigious football scholarship. After seemingly faking an injury the first week of the season, Bruce then focused his studies on a litany of subjects, so he could return to Gotham prepared to fight for his city. As he does so, the issue also reveals that Bruce’s mother, Martha Wayne, is still very much alive and is a social worker.

This could not differ more from the Batman origin story that fans know and (begrudgingly) love, of the ultra-wealthy Waynes being gunned down in an alley by an unknown assailant, and Bruce being orphaned as a result. Even the way he acquires his skills in his origin of becoming Batman differs from the globe-trotting adventures of him learning from the best fighters around the world. While there’s no telling exactly how this origin story will impact future issues of Absolute Batman, it helps make it abundantly clear that the Absolute universe is subverting fans’ expectations.

What Is Absolute Batman #1 About?

BATMAN LEGEND SCOTT SNYDER AND ICONIC ARTIST NICK DRAGOTTA TRANSFORM THE DARK KNIGHT’S TALE FOR THE MODERN AGE! Without the mansion… without the money… without the butler… what’s left is the Absolute Dark Knight!

“The idea is to do a new Batman for today, and the challenge is when, like, I’m a fan and I’m so beholden to the nostalgia and the 80-plus years of comics behind it that I didn’t want to, I wanted it to still be Batman, in a sense,” Dragotta told ComicBook in a recent interview. “So, like, you don’t mess with the silhouette. You don’t mess with the core of who Batman is. The ears, the cowl, the symbol on the chest, and then within that, then you mess with it.” 

Absolute Batman #1 is now available wherever comics are sold.