Comic Book / Absolute Batman

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Absolute Batman is a 2024 DC Comics series written by Scott Snyder and with art by Nick Dragotta. It is the first title in the Absolute Universe initiative.

Batman was born out of violence – a horrible tragedy that shaped the trajectory of his future. But this is a Gotham where Batman finds himself without his mansion, without his wealth, and without his extended family of vigilantes. With a new wave of crime on the rise, Gotham gets its new Dark Knight.

All the while, a vigilant MI6 agent returns to Gotham and starts tracking the lonely life of Bruce Wayne.

The first issue was released October 9th, 2024.

General trope examples:

• Mythology Gag

Absolute Batman contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Bruce begins the series as a 24-year-old while a mugshot lists his birth year as 2004, placing the events of the first issue in 2028.
• Adaptation Name Change: Black Mask's Malevolent Masked Men organization is named the False-Face Society in main continuity, but here they're called the Party Animals. Probably Zig-Zagged since it's heavily implied the Party Animals aren't Sionis' sole asset, having similar terrorist groups like them all over the world.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Oz Cobblepot and Waylon Jones lack the disfigurements or deformities that affect their mainline counterparts, instead being rather handsome men. However, once they become closer to their supervillain personas, the opposite trope ocurs.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • Bruce and the Waynes aren't part of the Gotham elite. Instead, they come from middle- and working-class backgrounds. Bruce grows up in the area known as Crime Alley. Furthermore, while Bruce's father still dies in his childhood, his mother is still alive and well in the present day.
  • Joker in this world seems to have taken aspects of Bruce Wayne's backstory. Being a very wealthy individual, who has traveled the world to train with Henri Ducard and the League of Assassins...and then killing them once he didn't need them anymore.
  • Major backstory changes already occurred due to Killer Croc, Penguin, Two-Face, and the Riddler all being close friends with each other and Bruce in this continuity. Then Bane and the Ark-M project got involved, becoming the reason all four of them were disfigured just to stick it to Bruce.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In most versions, the Joker's status as a physical threat is not focused on much, with him usually relying on his intelligence, gadgets or just dirty tricks for his schemes. In this version, he trained with Henri Ducard before killing him, then got extra training from the League of Assassins' before managing to kill them as well.
  • Roman Sionis has never quite managed to become anything more than a Gotham crime boss, with his attempts to raise his profile and involve himself with teams like the Teen Titans or the Suicide Squad having ended very poorly for him. This version of the character is a legend in the criminal world, an international Psycho for Hire who works for some of the world's richest men, controls multiple terrorist organizations and works by forcing governments to accept his corrupt help to stop the crime he hires his gangs to cause.
  • Mr. Freeze often relies on his gadgets and armour to pose a threat to Batman, but he himself is a regular man with a vulnerability to above-zero temperatures. His Absolute counterpart is a brutal Lightning Bruiser with a Death Touch who can hold his own unarmed in a physical match against Batman.
• Adaptational Curves:
  • Whereas Batman is usually depicted with an Olympic athlete physique, here he is the most beefed up he's ever been outside of Frank Miller's work.
  • Oswald Cobblepot is almost usually portrayed as short and stocky. This version is not only thin, but is also surprisingly muscular.
  • Harvey Bullock, usually an overweight slob, is instead tall and built like a football player.
  • Exaggerated with Bane, who starts off as already looking even more gigantic than ever (even Batman looks small in comparison), and only grows even larger when he takes Venom, to the point he can grab Batman with only one hand.
• Adaptational Friendship: Bruce is Childhood Friends with Harvey Dent, Ozzie Cobblepot, Eddie Nygma, Selina Kyle, and Waylon Jones. This isn’t the only canon where Bruce had this dynamic with Two-Face, the Penguin, or Selina, but it’s a first with the Riddler and Killer Croc. Issue #7 reveals they were also friends with Matches Malone.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change:
  • Alfred has hair, a full beard and a moustache, while his mainline counterpart tends to be depicted as bald and sporting either a pencil moustache or have no facial hair at all.
  • Deathstroke wears his hair in a mullet.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • The Red Hood Gang of the mainstream DC universe is a criminal enterprise whose members either willingly join or are blackmailed into joining. Here, the Red Hoods are a hacktivist resistance group, similar to DedSec from the Watch_Dogs franchise. Alfred suspects Batman might be working with them, but surveillance later indicates they are not involved in his crusade. It's later revealed that their leader is Harley Quinn, who has no ties to Joker this time around.
  • Bane’s dad in the main canon was Edmund Dorrance, a racist, drug-dealing mercenary known as King Snake. Absolute Bane had a loving father who was the unnamed leader of a group fighting for Santa Prisca’s freedom.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • Jim Gordon, traditionally depicted as Commissioner of Police, is the Mayor of Gotham City here. Though he still has a backstory as a veteran cop.
  • Thomas Wayne, in addition to being a billionaire philanthropist, is usually depicted as a doctor prior to his murder. Here, he is a schoolteacher. He explains to Bruce that he had planned to become a heart surgeon after his father died of coronary artery disease, but Martha's pregnancy changed things and he decided to become a teacher after realizing that his main goal was preventing kids from suffering like he did. He does a bit of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, suggesting to Bruce that "Maybe in some other life I am a doctor," but he's perfectly happy in this one.
  • Bruce Wayne, a billionaire industrialist, playboy and philanthropist in most iterations, is a middle-class city engineer.
  • Alfred Pennyworth is a covert MI6 operative, as opposed to being the Wayne family's butler. Though being a military/intelligence operative has often been part of his pre-butler backstory in other versions.
  • Barbara Gordon, traditionally shown working as a librarian for her day job in adult life, is now a police officer. Although this is not the first time she has been depicted as part of law enforcement like her father.
  • Roman Sionis/Black Mask is traditionally depicted as the former CEO of Janus Cosmetics turned ruthless, ambitious criminal warlord seeking to dominate Gotham's underworld by any means necessary. Here, as leader of the Party Animals, he's a terrorist who seems to have little ambitions besides watching the world burn. Issue #3 reveals he's a really a mercenary who does a Monster Protection Racket for his employers in order to build the Ark prisons. And in Issue #5, he mentions that he grew up working on his family's pig farm, something no other version of Sionis has done.
  • The Joker, despite not having a concrete backstory, is usually depicted as having started as a small fry crook. In an inversion to his usual dynamic with Batman, here he is the owner of a MegaCorp named JK Holdings.
  • Harvey Dent working at the DA's office is a downplayed example, as Harvey is typically depicted as being the DA himself before the tragedy that transforms him into Two Face.
  • The original Julia Pennyworth was a reporter. In modern canon, she’s an SRR agent. This Julia is an elementary teacher.
  • Lucius Fox is typically the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, who invented much of Batman’s tech. In this continuity, he’s the boss at the construction company Bruce works for. Since Bruce “borrows” tools from his jobs for his afterwork activities, Lucius is still providing Batman with tech.
• Adaptational Mundanity: Waylon Jones lacks the skin-condition and various Killer Croc mutations of his mainstream counterpart, having the appearance of a regular black man. He does own a pet crocodile, procured with help from Oswald Cobblepot. However, this is later subverted when Waylon is kidnapped and taken to Ark M, where he is forcibly transformed, through genetic experimentations, into a horrifying-looking crocodile monster more in line with his mainline counterpart. If anything, it's far more monstrous-looking.
• Adaptational Nationality: Julia Pennyworth was French in her first pre-Crisis appearances. The version of her introduced in Batman Eternal is British. In this continuity, she was born and raised in Gotham.
• Adaptational Ugliness:
  • In mainline continuity, Mr. Freeze looks like an average man with blue skin. The design for Absolute Freeze shown in Issue #7 has him as an emaciated Humanoid Abomination akin to a wendigo.
  • Although Bane's exact appearances Depends on the Artist, ranging from a bestial brute in Batman: Legacy to an Innocent Fanservice Guy in Secret Six, this version of the character is the most grotesque he's ever been (and reminiscent of Bane's appearance in Batman: Arkham Asylum), with the use of Venom having left his body overly swollen to the point that he looks at the brink of collapsing from his own muscle mass, and a disproportionately small head. And that's before he turns on the pump.
  • Killer Croc in most continuities has the appearance of a crocodilian Beast Man that either resembles a human given a croc's scaly hide and sharp teeth or a bipedal crocodile. Here, he's a grotesque mishmash of man and crocodile with a gigantic maw that reaches down to his chest and a much smaller head at the end of a long neck.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Rather than being a mugger who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne in a robbery, this version of Joe Chill is a mass shooter who was just indiscriminately killing anyone he came across that day and would've slaughtered an entire class of elementary school students, including Bruce, had Thomas not done a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Zig-zagged in the case of Black Mask. The mainstream version of the character is a complete psychopath whose crimes range from mass murder, to horrific torture, to forcing Catwoman's sister to eat her dead husband's eyeballs. But at the end of the day, he's still an earnest member of Gotham's mafia whose main focus is expanding his empire and gaining control of the city. Here, Black Mask is an utterly ruthless terrorist directly responsible for dozens to hundreds of uniquely brutal murders, including women, children and the elderly. Through which his only ambition is to make the people of Gotham suffer just for the hell of it—though it's implied that there may be more to his agenda than what first appears. This is revealed to be true by Issue #3, where it's confirmed that he's really a mercenary working for governments and corporations to create black sites known as Arks where various experiments are carried out.
  • Victor Fries Jr. isn't a Tragic Monster Anti-Villain like most depictions of Mr. Freeze following Batman: The Animated Series, but a Mad Scientist working in Ark M and who gets a sadistic pleasure out of putting innocents on ice.
• Adaptational Wealth:
  • The central premise of this series is Bruce Wayne growing up and becoming Batman as a Working-Class Hero instead of Crimefighting with Cash.
  • The first issue's epilogue reveals that in this continuity, the Joker has Bruce’s typical backstory of being "one of the thirty richest men on the planet" and has traveled and trained across the globe.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • Issue #11 reveals that the Joker was the one who bankrolled the surgical procedures that turned Bane into a venom-enhanced Super-Soldier, and that KGBeast and Deathstroke's enhancements are incomplete versions of the same procedures. None of these characters were this connected in the mainstream comics or other media.
  • In Issue #12, Bane inflicts horrific injuries on Bruce's friends that leave them permanently disfigured and looking eerily similar to how they look in the mainline comics; Oswald's permanently crippled and disfigured and lost two feet in height and half of Harvey's body has been destroyed. Assuming the two fall into villainy, it's Bane who's responsible for creating the Penguin, Two-Face, and the Riddler in the Absolute Universe.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Bruce is childhood friends with Oswald Cobblepot, Selina Kyle, Harvey Dent, Edward Nygma, and Waylon Jones.
  • Rather than being his butler, closest confidant and (since the post-crisis era) surrogate father, Alfred here first crosses path with Bruce Wayne while encountering the latter in the field as Batman, and then investigating him to deduce his Secret Identity.
  • As opposed to being bitter rivals, Falcone and Maroni appear to be business partners—or at least have put their differences aside long enough to try and talk some sense into Black Mask.
• Affably Evil: Despite being a Psycho for Hire, Bane remains as eloquent and sophisticated as ever. He is introduced quoting Sargon, apologizing for both interrupting a conversation and receiving a phonecall right in the middle of business, and trying to encourage Omar by telling him his backers and him trust his leadership skills. And during his Curb-Stomp Battle with Batman, he calls him "friend" and compliments his fighting skills even as he is breaking his arms.
• Agony of the Feet: During a battle at the Gotham Aquarium against a group of Party Animals, Batman cracks the glass to flood the room with saltwater, jumps into the rafters, and then uses a special chemical tablet in his belt to turn the water into hydrochloric acid. Several dozen men and women are sent running out of the building grabbing at their legs and screaming about melted toes, and right into the waiting arm of the law.
• All Just a Dream: A variant. Issue #11 reveals that its depiction of Batman's disastrous second fight with Bane was nothing more than a hypothetical scenario thought up by Alfred based on what he knows about Bane.
• And I Must Scream: Mr. Freeze describes being put into cryo-sleep like this. You are awake the entire time and your mind will eventually start to make you relive your regrets and shame; while the cold makes you experience so much physical pain you'll wish death for the next thirty or so years (by Victor's own admission).
  I am nothing but agony.
• And Some Other Stuff:
  • Batman breaks a saltwater aquarium and adds "a chemically concentrated version of vinegar", to make an "hydrochloric acid" that incapacitates his foes. This does technically create acid, but it wouldn't exactly be dangerous. Or anyone who ate a pickle, or fish and chips, would be in serious trouble.
  • In issue 10, the bad guys capture Batman. He goes on a hunger strike, so they install a feeding tube directly into his stomach. He uses it to hurt the doctors with his stomach acid. Again, stomach acid is dangerous, but it wouldn't work quite as fast or hard as the comic depicts. Or anyone who was ever puked on would be in serious trouble.
• Arc Villain:
  • Issues #1-6 ("The Zoo"): Black Mask.
  • Issues #7-8 ("Absolute Zero"): Mr. Freeze.
  • Issues #9-14 ("Abomination"): Bane.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In issue 13, Bane expresses relief that his work underneath the Joker is finally going to come to an end soon, once they break Batman and turn him into a Superior Successor to replace Bane. Dr. Arkham has to ask Bane if he really believes that the Joker is actually just going to let him go back home after all of this. Bane is silent for a moment before he replies that Joker "has to", sounding far more like he's trying to convince himself it will really be that simple than genuinely believing it to be the case.
• Ascended Meme: It can't be a coincidence that Bruce says "Because I'm Batman." when revealing his secret identity to Waylon in issue #6.
• Asshole Victim: This version of Batman has no problem dishing out extreme violence to every Party Animal he fights, brutalizing them in ways that the mainstream Batman would never dare. However, given that they're all morally bankrupt scumbags responsible for rampant chaos and mass murder, with victims ranging from innocent children to the elderly, it's safe to say that nobody should really feel all that sorry for them.
• Ax-Crazy: The Party Animals. They're an ape skull mask-wearing gang threatening Gotham in the last three months that terrorize and kill people for no reason other than they enjoy doing it. They've raised the murder rate in Gotham to a whopping 700 percent, and, most notably, the day before Alfred came to town, they torched a daycare and danced outside while 32 people burned inside.
• Bad Future: Issue #11 reveals that the entire events of Bane beating Batman was in fact just what Bane and Alfred envision could happen. Could, considering that unless Bruce finds a way to defeat Bane, then his friends will be hunted and killed before Bane comes for him and finishes the job.
• Bad Guys Have Better Budgets: The Waynes in this continuity were/are only middle-class rather than old money billionaires. The first two supervillains introduced, Black Mask and the Joker, are shown to be obscenely wealthy by comparison. Black Mask hosts extravagant parties with luxurious feasts aboard a private yacht, collects very rare historical artifacts as a hobby, and it's revealed he's the head of a mercenary organization working for the world's richest plutochrats, while the Joker is explicitly one of the top thirty richest people in the world.
• Bait-and-Switch: Done multiple times to manipulate reader expectations and familiarity with the Bat-Mythology:
  • The comic's present day scenes begins with a masked figure riding a black motorcycle and having an inner monologue about their relationship with Gotham — only it's not Bruce, it's Alfred, who in this version is still a secret agent.
  • After the introduction with Alfred, the story cuts to a man exercising at a gym. His appearance and monologue both make him appear to be Bruce Wayne...up until the actual Bruce steps forward to take the sandbag, revealing both his massive size and very different personality.
  • A flashback in the first issue shows Bruce and his father talking about heading to see a movie after school, clearly setting up the traditional shooting in Crime Alley. It's only at the end that we learn that that never happened, as Thomas was in-fact killed at the zoo while protecting his son and the rest of his class, while Martha is still alive.
  • Issue 7 opens with a boy named Victor traveling through a rainforest in Tanzania with his father, who is on his way to explore a glacier. Later, Batman, investigating Ark M, goes after the only connection between the place and Gotham, Dr. Victor Fries, a pioneer in cryotech who started a business called V-Core. When Bruce visits the man's office, he encounters the director, who looks like an older version of the boy from the beginning. He asks if Victor and Nora Fries still oversee things, to which the man responds "I guess you could say that, yes...", and pressing a button to reveal a hidden cryopod, seemingly setting up Nora's terminal illness. Instead, we see that there are two figures in the pod, Nora and Victor. The man then reveals that he is their son, Victor Fries Jr.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Subverted. When Alfred confronts Batman in one of his secret sky-rise lairs, Batman raises the combat shotgun that he had earlier stolen from Alfred against him. Alfred chides Bruce for so quickly abandoning his sense of morality when cornered, and assumes it must be a bluff. He's half-right: it isn't a bluff, but he also didn't abandon his sense of morality; Batman had modified the shotgun to shoot non-lethal ammunition.
• Big Bad: As part of the Joker's Adaptational Badassery, it's revealed at the end of the first arc that every single member of Bruce's Rogues Gallery is on his payroll with him and his underlings masterminding all the tragedy that's befallen Gotham since the beginning of the story. He then helps found the Legion of Doom in the Absolute Evil special.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: This Batman fights much more brutally than most other Batmen; although he still doesn't kill, he isn't afraid to permanently cripple and carve up criminals in a fight, and uses much more violent tactics. However, most of the criminals he starts out fighting are a terrorist organization called the Party Animals, who are so absurdly bloodthirsty and evil (it's mentioned that they've caused the homicide rate in the city to rise almost 700% and one of their crimes was burning down a daycare and then openly celebrating all the children that got killed), that Batman seems like a saint by comparison.
• Blatant Lies: In the beginning of Issue #4, several members of the Ten Thieves criminal organization are threatening three citizens who refuse to pay their protection racket. However, the leader of the group frames them as being the selfish ones and the protection racket as being a community fund that helps keep Park Row safe. When one of the citizens refuses to be cowed into sucking up to a gang, the leader has the audacity to reply that the Ten Thieves isn't a "gang", right before kicking her off the roof.
• Body Horror: One of the traits that sets this continuity a part is it's focus on this trope.
  • In the epilogue to Issue #6, the Joker is revealed to have a kind of wasting disease so severe that his face is distorted into a horrific grimace, his veins are almost bulging through his ash-white skin, and there's exposed bone in his legs; he in turn stabilizes himself with stem cells by wearing a shroud of living fetal tissue, which is shown crying as he moves slightly.
  • Absolute Bane is a nine foot tall mountain of a man whose muscles are so large he just looks uncomfortable. then he uses Venom, after which more muscles burst from his body like tumors and he triples in height
  • Ark M houses the K.L.A.Y. biome created by Dr. Death, which is an entire room made of Clayface (and manifests arms and a face), and the Langstrom Experiments, a series of nightmarish genetic aberrations that look barely human, with some of them showing exposed bones and organs and malformed body parts—and that's the ones that look recognizably human.
  • Absolute Killer Croc is a horrific mishmash of man and croc sporting a massive maw of teeth that stretches all the way down to his chest, a proportionately tiny head on a long neck, and an elongated body more suited to running on all fours despite retaining very human-like limbs.
  • Issue 12 reveals the state of Bruce's other friends after they were attacked by Bane, and they are not pretty. While Eddie got off relatively easily, only sustaining brain damage which he was able to repair by fusing himself with the Riddler program, Ozzie had every bone in his body broken whilst keeping his organs intact, reducing him to a grotesque, misshapen blob, while Harvey's body was half-destroyed, not just being set on fire, but apparently even having the brain split in half.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Deathstroke's cameo in issue #9 has him working as the Joker's bodyguard. The Joker of this universe has been described as a Badass Normal who killed the entirety of the League of Assassins after finishing his training with them, so it stands to assume that, if the situation arose, he would be perfectly capable of defending himself without Wilson's aid.
• Brits Love Tea: Apparently there's only a single tea shop in Gotham that can satisfy Alfred's needs.
• Bookends: Done twice in Issue #1.
  • The very first panel shows a young Bruce Wayne ogling a cartoonish infographic at the zoo that states "Bats are CRAZY!". At the end of the issue's main story (excluding the epilogue), that same infographic is shown again as Batman evades Alfred by riding his stolen motorcycle from off one of the top floors of a one-thousand foot tall high-rise.
  • The beginning of the main story has Alfred in a call with one of his superiors complaining about being pulled out of a five-year mission in Singapore tracking down a very elusive target. The epilogue at the end of the issue ends with the superior letting Alfred know the target evaded them in the Philippines, and only then is it revealed said target is the Joker.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Alfred seemingly abandons Batman to flee Gotham with his estranged daughter, who refuses to abandon her loved ones and tells him that if the plane takes off he's dead to her. Alfred relents, and fishes Bruce out of the water after he sinks Black Mask's boat with himself on it.
• Chekhov's Skill: While wrestling with his personal trainer Bibbo Bibbowski, Black Mask uses a move to dislocate his arm. When he faces Batman, he uses the same move again.
• Childhood Friends: In a surprising change in this universe, Bruce is childhood friends with his Rogues Gallery, namely Edward Nygma (Riddler), Oswald Cobblepot (Penguin), Harvey Dent (Two Face), Selina Kyle (Catwoman), and Waylon Jones (Killer Croc). There's a picture of them in Croc's Gym, all looking happy. And all five of the guys still meet up for poker games when the series first began.
• Child Prodigy: Bruce excelled in school at a young age, with his parents finding his tests to rate his intelligence at near genius-levels. The glider he uses as Batman was based on a project he created for a fifth-grade science contest.
• Clothing Combat:
  • In this universe, Batman's cape has built-in wires and hooks, allowing him to not only glide and scale walls, but use as a weapon in combat.
  • Issue #1 reveals that Bruce's costume's "chunky bat symbol" can detach from his chest and turn into an axe when he clips on the handle. He uses it effectively to slice off the hand of one of the Party Animals when they storm city call. Also, the ears on his cowl are removable knives.
• The Conspiracy: Discussed in the second issue. Bruce theorizes that the rampant, random violence the Party Animals are perpetrating is politically motivated, with Harvey suspecting that it has something to with money. The fact that Maroni makes mention of Black Mask having agents around the world and connections to "some global, sick, illuminati" supports this. This turns out to be true, as Black Mask is secretly a mercenary employed by mysterious, shadowy benefactors looking to build a massive "Ark" prison within Gotham where they can perform illegal genetic experiments. And Black Mask attacking the city with his Party Animals is actually all part of an elaborate Monster Protection Racket that will allow them to take complete control.
• Composite Character:
  • This version of Black Mask is a composite of both bearers of the identity, Roman Sionis and Jeremiah Arkham. It has the former's name and obsession with masks and the latter's involvement with the Absolute Universe's version of Arkham, the Arks.
  • This version of the Joker, ironically enough, takes some beats from Bruce Wayne. He is a billionaire CEO and he trained with the League of Assassins and with Henri Ducard.
  • With her father being the mayor of Gotham, it's Barbara Gordon who becomes Batman's Friend on the Force.
  • Harley Quinn becomes the leader of the Red Hoods instead of the Joker.
• Construction Vehicle Rampage: Since Bruce Wayne in this continuity is a construction worker, the Batmobile is a modified haul truck, capable of easily plowing through a huge police blockade.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Harvey Dent proposes having Waylon put into witness protection and moved to Metropolis in issue #9.
  • And in issue #12, besides Metropolis, Harv also mentions Gateway City.
• Cop Killer: Among the Party Animals' many crimes are killing police—including setting fire to an entire police station.
• Cops Need the Vigilante: As usual the more, shall we say, theatrical criminals are clearly beyond the GCPD's ability to deal with, and it's shown that Batman is so effective at countering them that the civilians have more faith in him then they do the Police Department. In fact, the Gotham City police are actually jealous of this.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Joker here is the head of the JK Holdings company, and the one responsible for hiring the Party Animals to target Gotham in the first place.
• Corrupt Politician: Hamilton Hill is said to have faced problems with corruption in the past, and many of Gotham's citizens appear to think of him as a crook. He's also implied to be in some way caught up with the Party Animals' rampage across the city.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Issue #6 sees Batman effortlessly dispatches what little security is aboard Black Mask's yacht, then mercilessly batters Black Mask himself, refusing to give the villain so much as an inch to breathe while knocking him around the yacht. The one time Black Mask is able to properly fight back, Batman wastes no time putting him down for the count by stabbing out his eyes with the cowl's bat ears.
  • Fittingly, Batman vs Bane at the conclusion of issue #9. Bane is able to defeat Batman with a grand total of six moves. Without the use of Venom
• Daydream Surprise: Issue #11 has Alfred describing Bane's origin story and what is happening now that Batman's escaped Ark M and Bane is after him. It ends with Batman pulling a futile last stand where Bane tanks everything Batman throws at him, then breaks him by outright dismemberment, brings him back to Ark M to be remade under the same surgical procedures that created Bane. Only, the end of the issue reveals none of that actually happened; Bane realized he could never truly break Batman through physical violence... so he decided to target his friends instead.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • In Issue #3 ends with Bruce deciding to submit and accept Black Mask's offer of partnership in exchange for him decreasing the Party Animals' attacks on Gotham. However, the following issue reveals, unsurprisingly, that it was all part of a ruse to expose Black Mask to end his reign of terror over Gotham.
  • Issue #11 reveals Bane's origin story, where he was trained from birth to fight as a rebel in a Forever War for Santa Prisca's independence. He, his father, and the surviving rebels are imprisoned in an offshore Hellhole Prison, but eventually manage to escape after eleven years. Arriving back on the shores of Santa Prisca, Bane is greeted by the Joker, who offers him everything he ever dreamed of for Santa Prisca for the apparent price of renouncing his rebel past (including killing his own father) and becoming his personal Super-Soldier assassin. Bane accepted this offer without hesitation.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Henri Drucard and the entirety of the League of Assassins are stated to have been killed after making the mistake of training the Joker.
  • Bibbo Bibbowski, a long-time supporting character of Superman, appears in Issue #3 as Black Mask's personal trainer—and is promptly murdered by the crime lord during a sparring match. Though, according to Sionis, he'll be just fine.
• Death Seeker: When Bruce tries a third time to escape a third time from Ark M, he finds many victims who were unleashed and ask for his help. Bruce admits that he can't, having no ability to help them. So they ask for him to just end their pain.
• Decomposite Character:
  • The Riddler is an A.I. Ed Nygma invents as his answer to the riddle of immortality, not his supervillain identity.
  • Mr. Freeze is split between Victor Fries Sr., who married Nora Fries, and their son Victor Fries Jr., who becomes a villain.
• Decoy Protagonist: At the beginning of the story, we're introduced to a fit young man with black hair punching a bag in Waylon's gym. Based on physical appearances alone, it seems like this is the character being set up as Bruce Wayne. However, the real Bruce shows up soon after and he's much more physically imposing.
• Deducing the Secret Identity:
  • Alfred deduces Batman's secret identity and where he lives within a day of first encountering him by studying his fighting style, tailing his movements, and looking into his background.
  • Nygma also figures it out, with Bruce coming to him for intel on the Party Animals being all the confirmation he needed.
• Demoted to Extra: By virtue of not being police commissioner and Absolute Batman being much more rogue, James Gordon isn't featured very prominently throughout the comic.
• Destroying a Punching Bag: Bruce shows off his immense physical strength before he's introduced as Batman by punching a punching bag in half. The owner of the gym and Bruce's friend, Waylon Jones, is not amused and makes Bruce pay for a replacement punching bag.
• Diabolical Mastermind:
  • The Joker of this universe is a secretive businessman who has mercenary organizations like the Party Animals and mercenaries like Bane and Deathstroke on his payroll, as well as sinister corporations like V-Core. His motives aren't clear yet, but it's clear that they go far beyond the accumulation of wealth and power.
  • This is ultimately what Black Mask is, an international criminal with armies of terrorists and mercenaries at his disposition and whose services are employed by the ultrawealthy and corrupt governments, usually in the form of organizing seemingly random terrorist attacks.
• Didn't Think This Through: In Issue #5, Batman turns his back on his deal with Black Mask, using his money to build a makeshift Bat-Signal for the people of Gotham to see and then streaming him confessing to all of his crimes to all local news stations, intending for this to rally all of Gotham against him. However, Black Mask quickly points out that Batman doesn't understand how cynical Gotham's people are and that he isn't a hero—promptly beating the crap out of him and then taking advantage of his tactic to speak directly to Gotham's citizens, encouraging them to give into their worst impulses and join his Party Animals, which some do.
• Dies Differently in the Adaptation: Thomas Wayne died protecting his classroom from being killed by Ax-Crazy mass shooter Joe Chill during a trip to the zoo. It's mentioned he could have survived if he locked himself alongside the kids, but he stayed behind to rescue Matches Malone, who was left behind during the chaos.
• Disappeared Dad: In a drastic difference from other continuities, only Thomas Wayne was killed by Joe Chill instead of both parents. It still ultimately had the same effect on Bruce having one parent being gunned down rather than two.
• Disowned Parent: Nothing about their relationship is known, but Julia Pennyworth in this continuity wants absolutely nothing to do with her father; ordering him to never try and contact her again after he texts her in the first issue.
• Dramatic Irony: Oz Cobblepot, in issue #9, suggests that the Crime Alley gang should all move to Metropolis to escape the madness that has become Gotham City. Over on Absolute Superman we've been shown the city is the headquarters of Lazarus Corp and its director, the Not-So Well Intentioned Omnicidal Maniac Ra's al Ghul—hardly a safer place than Gotham.
• The Dreaded: Bane. In a world where Batman isn't as strong and lacks his cutting edge technology, Bane roughly conserves his skillset as a Strong and Skilled Genius Bruiser. The result is that in their first ever fight, Batman is visibly intimidated by him. And when Bane actually decides to use the aid of Venom and grows to an even larger and more grotesque size, Bruce falls on his knees in fear and whispers "what are you?"
• Early-Bird Cameo: While getting his students to safety during the mass shooting in the first issue, Thomas Wayne stays behind to pick up a kid who tripped. The "Absolute Zero" arc reveals the boy is Matches Malone.
• Elaborate Underground Base: What Ark M turns out to be, a massive facility that the prison is a cover for.
• Enfant Terrible: Black Mask's young son is just as depraved and psychotic as he is, being the one to kill Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni by stabbing their eyes out and strangling them, respectively.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being vicious gangsters, Falcone and Maroni are both disgusted by the sheer brutality of Black Mask and his Party Animals.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Similar to Falcone and Maroni above, every single person in Gotham is mortified by the Party Animals' rampant murder and mayhem.
  • After Alfred deduces Batman's civilian identity and tracks him down to his home, he considers killing him for interfering with his investigation into the Party Animals, as authorized by superiors. However, when Alfred sees Bruce meet with his mother right as he gets a text from his own daughter demanding that he never contact her again, he decides he doesn't have the stomach to kill "just a &$#% kid".
• Evil Gloating: When Batman claims he got Black Mask busted in Issue #5, Roman mocks Batman and simply makes clear that he will win and goes live, making a big speech to get people to join in on the chaos to prove that the system they rely on is broken.
• Evil Pays Better: This is implied to be the reason why so many people have joined up with the Party Animals, as it provides and easy way for them to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short amount of time.
• Eye Scream:
  • Black Mask's son murders Maroni by stabbing him in the eyes with straight razors.
  • Batman gets out of a close range grapple with Black Mask, who's garroting him, by making the ears on his mask point forward so he can stab them through Sionis' eyes.
• Fanservice: Our introduction to Black Mask's girlfriend is her swimming in a pool with a very small bikini.
• Flashback Effects: The flashbacks to Bruce's backstory are coloured in a much warmer and softer palette than the present day story, and have blue outlines instead of black.
• Foreshadowing: During the town hall in the first issue, the main person defending Mayor Gordon is a woman wearing a pearl necklace. Near the end of the issue, it’s confirmed she’s Martha Wayne.
• For the Evulz: Why do the Party Animals terrorize Gotham? Apparently for no reason other than them thinking it's fun. Subverted later when it turns out they're only doing it so they can get paid.
• From Bad to Worse: The end of Issue #5 may be the darkest, as despite Bruce's efforts, his decline just has Black Mask decide to make an open invitation to everyone in Gotham to join his cause. Gordan and Martha finding supplies dropped off by Black Mask having weapons and animal asks so that anyone can join the Party Animals' side, with some accepting it.
• Genius Bruiser: Bane, natch. He is introduced crushing a man's skull with a single blow and musing about the nature of peace and quoting Sargon of Akkad immediately afterwards. His fight with Batman exemplifies this even more: He spends half of it identifying Bruce's fighting styles as he is blocking each of his strikes and breaking his arms through applied taps in points of pressure.
• Good Is Not Nice: Bruce is still a hero, but as Batman, he takes a much more brutal approach when fighting crime. During The Party Animals' attack on city hall, he uses his arm blades to cut through the army of criminals, uses knives to stab someone, chops a goon's hand off with his bat-symbol axe, and blows the retreating gang members with a bomb. All non-fatally, of course, but still very brutal.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Batman defeats Black Mask by using the sharpened ears of his cowl to gouge out his eyes. Fortunately for the sensitivity of the readers, Black Mask's domed helmet blocks any sort of blood or direct contact from being visible.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Joker is the Diabolical Mastermind behind most of the comic's villains. Black Mask and the Party Animals were hired by him to facilitate the construction of Ark M, while Mr. Freeze and Bane serve respectively as a high-ranking scientist working on Ark M and as his international agent, who ultimately report to the Joker.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Barbara claims the main reasons Bullock and others within the GCPD have such a problem with Batman is that he's making them look incompetent, due to the fact that unlike them, he can effectively combat the Party Animals.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: After Batman steals Alfred's shotgun and shoots Alfred in the face, Alfred narrates that Batman had “modified my prized shotgun to be nonlethal. Ruined it”. That simply isn’t how shotguns (or any firearm) work. The damage is determined by the type of ammunition fired, and less-than-lethal options are relatively common and require no modifications to the weapon. ^note Of course, the specific modifications (tiny Batarangs) in the story are non-standard and may have required some sort of major modification, but Alfred can't actually know for sure without checking.
• Half-Human Hybrid: By issue #10, Waylon Jones has been mutated by the scientists of Ark M into a reptilian humanoid, although he fortunately is still able to recognize Bruce as his friend and help him escape Ark M.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Thomas Wayne was killed locking his son and other students inside the zoo's bat enclosure during a mass shooting, protecting the children at the cost of his own life.
• Hero Insurance: Notably averted. During his first battle against a horde of Party Animals, Batman takes out a large group of them by detonating a stone staircase underneath them that he had rigged with explosives. By the very next day, he's helping repair the staircase he blew up in his civilian identity as a construction worker.
• Hidden Agenda Villain:
  • Very little is known about who Black Mask's employers are, what their goal is in building black site Ark prisons around the world and why they want to build one in Gotham. The epilogue of issue 6 heavily implies, if not outright confirms that its the Joker.
  • The same arguably applies to Alfred's superiors, who are interested in studying the chaos caused by the Party Animals but not in actually doing anything to stop them.
• Home Base: Since Bruce isn't rich, nor does he have his Batcave or manor to shack up in, he instead uses the abandoned highest floors of skyscrapers as a base of operations. Wealthy companies and oligarchs own the top floors but never use them; they are hollow investments. Bruce knows this because he's worked on them, making them the perfect place for a secret hideout.
• Honest John's Dealership: The Oswald Cobblepot of this universe is implied to make his living by selling things that "Fell Off the Back of a Truck". However, he offers discounts on quality merchandise to his most trusted friends and associates.
• Hope Spot: When it looks like Batman has exposed Black Mask to the city, Roman mocks Bruce as he maims him with his men all while he plunges Gotham into further chaos by letting anyone join the Party Animals for money while making a speech on why people should hop ships. The end of the issue suggests this is working.
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • By the start of the series, the Party Animals have Gotham locked in a state of terror, unleashing violent anarchy with no regard for human life. But then, they meet Batman, and quickly find the tables turned on them.
  • And in turn, Batman becomes terrified of Bane after he finds out just how unstoppable and powerful he is.
• Horror Hunger: After his transformation into Killer Croc, Waylon asks Bruce to Mercy Kill him because the hunger he now feels is too painful and terrible to bear.
• Humans Are Bastards: As revealed by Issue #3, all the Party Animals aren't just doing their vile actions for no reason. They're doing it for money, and have no problem committing their horrendous crimes willingly for the cash. With hundreds, potentially thousands, doing so across the world as Bruce discovers. Then in Issue #6 the entirety of Gotham is invited to join the Party Animals, and the only thing that stops them is Batman denying them the financial incentive by destroying the servers broadcasting their bounties.
• Icon of Rebellion: Bruce tries to invoke this trope in Issue #5 by creating his own Bat Signal. It fails as Gotham is too beaten down and cynical to be inspired to rise up to corruption.
• I Have Many Names: It's mentioned that the Joker has many aliases, from 'Jack' to 'Arthur'. Even a longtime associate of his says he has no idea what the Joker's true name is.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even with the drastic changes to Bruce's background, Thomas Wayne still loses his life to Joe Chill when Bruce is just a child. And, in spite of still having one surviving parent, Bruce still grows up to become Batman.
• I Own This Town: Falcone and Maroni call a meeting with Black Mask to remind him that their organization reins supreme in Gotham and he should show respect. It doesn't work out for them.
• Lack of Empathy: One of the defining traits of Black Mask and his minions. Though this also extends to Alfred's unnamed superiors, who do not care when the Party Animals threaten to gun down everyone in Gotham City Hall—only concerned with gathering data about them.
• Lesser of Two Evils: Referenced by name in Issue #2. The attacks by the Party Animals have escalated to such a degree that many Gothamites are supporting Batman's extremely violent and frequently destructive vigilantism. Former Mayor Hill states to a news channel that this shows that things have gotten so bad that the citizens are willing to throw their hopes behind another criminal to take out the worse criminals. The same trope also applies to Hill in the first issue, who has a history with corruption but people are still willing to vote for him if it means getting rid of the Party Animals.
• Let Them Die Happy: After making a deal with the Joker, Bane asks his father if he can see his “dream of peace.” His father tells his son that he sees it in him. Bane embraces his dad (who had just thought that hugging his son was the only thing he wanted in the moment) and then kills him. Considering how quickly Bane can crush people to death, his father likely didn’t even have the time to realize what his son was doing.
• Made of Iron: The villains and thugs of Gotham are even tougher than their Arkham counterparts, with Batman subjecting them to dismemberment, impalement, explosions, being crushed under his fall from airplane height, repeated head trauma from a bowling ball, and more, all somehow without violating his no-kill rule.
• Make Way for the New Villains: Like in other iterations of the Batman mythos, Gotham's two most prominent mobsters—Falcone and Maroni—are swept aside by the new villains in town.
• Malevolent Masked Men: In the first arc, Gotham City is being terrorized by a group of domestic terrorists wearing animal masks named the Party Animals lead by Black Mask, who seem to be causing mayhem and chaos purely For the Evulz.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": How the Party Animals react once Batman effortlessly defeats their strongest member by slicing his hand off, before demanding that they all get out of his way.
• Meaningful Background Event: In issue #10, during Bruce Wayne's multiple attempts at escaping Ark M, a massive egg can be seen in the background after every escape, with it having opened at one point. The ending of that issue confirms Waylon Jones was inside and being turned into a crocodile-human hybrid.
• Monster Protection Racket: Black Mask's true goal is actually this. He utilizes the Party Animals to spread chaos and fear throughout Gotham. Then, he offers his services to Commissioner Bullock to help clean up the city, effectively allowing him to take over so that his employers can build Ark M.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Black Mask is left dumbfounded by Batman's attempt to expose his crimes to all of Gotham, and almost immediately proves to him why it was a bad idea.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: In trying to expose Black Mask and his crimes to Gotham, Batman not only fails but accidentally gives him the perfect opportunity to speak directly to the broken and cynical people directly, inviting them to join his Party Animals in razing the city to the ground.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Batman is decimated by Black Mask and his "family" in Issue 5, getting his arm broken, stabbed multiple times, set on fire, hit by his own axe and thrown off a building and landing on a car. Miraculously, this Rasputinian Death somehow doesn't kill him.
  • Batman returns the favor and then some in Issue #6. The second he gets his hands on Black Mask, the Dark Knight straight up pulverizes the villain, relentlessly beating Sionis throughout the yacht and even using a couple of bowling balls as makeshift bludgeons. Black Mask manages to properly retaliate exactly once, to which Batman responds by bringing the fight to a swift end via stabbing his eyes out with his cowl's razor-sharp bat ears.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Apparently, Catwoman once did something in Penang that made her criminally infamous.
  • In the same issue, Selina also brings up that she has dealt with Venom in the past and seen seen what it does to people.
• Not His Sled:
  • Falcone and Maroni are killed by Black Mask in the first issue, so if Harvey Dent does become Two-Face in this continuity, someone else will be responsible for the transformation.
  • Martha Wayne is still alive in this continuity, due to not being present when Joe Chill shot Thomas Wayne.
  • In an inverse of his usual depiction, the Joker's alias is meant to be ironic, as he's stated to be incapable of laughter.
  • Arkham, or "Ark M" is not an asylum for the criminally insane. Rather, it's a privately run black site prison which Black Mask's employers are planning to build inside Gotham. Other Arks exist around the world (Ark A in Santa Prisca, Ark B in Russia, Ark C in China, etc), and are implied to be used for bio tech, pharmaceutical, and genomic experiments.
• Oh, Crap!: Batman's expression during a single panel close-up after Bane uses Venom purely to show off.
• Old Shame: During his first outing as Batman, Bruce really upped the theatrics, with fake fangs loaded with paralytics, a voice distorter to sound more frightening, metal claws on his gloves, and even pulled a gun on a gangster he was taking down to terrify him. He immediately realized this wasn't the right way to go about his crusade, burned all of it, and started over.
• One-Man Army: In his first fight, Batman singlehandedly takes down several dozen heavily armed Party Animals in a display so vicious, that a significant number of them simply turn tail and try to run (not that he lets them).
• Only in It for the Money: This seems to be the case for the Party Animals. The masks they wear give them access to a cryptocurrency called Black Coin which hands out payments for different crimes—murder, robbery, arson, etc—allowing them to get rich very quickly.
• Origins Episode: Issue #11 serves as this for Bane.
• Prison Episode: Issue #10 has Bruce spending the entire summer trapped inside Ark M, managing to pull off increasingly complex escapes from his cell only to get curbstomped by Bane every time. After Bane gives him his gear back for a more even match, he manages to escape through the sewers with the help of Killer Croc.
• Privileged Rival: While the Batman of the Absolute Universe is working class, the Joker is a multibillionaire.
• Psycho for Hire: Black Mask and Bane are violent sociopaths who are employed destroying governments and maintain wars for the benefit of their ultra-wealthy backers, including the Joker.
• Race Lift:
  • Unlike most iterations of Barbara Gordon, who are white, this universe's version of her is black, although this is far from the first time. Interestingly, her father, James Gordon, is still white.
  • Selina Kyle is once again a black woman, something that already has precedent in various adaptations since Eartha Kitt's portrayal.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Black Mask lays into Batman after he goes back on their deal.
  Black Mask: My god. You actually think you achieved something here, don't you? [...] He thinks that by burning the cash, exposing the truth, it's going to inspire them. He thinks he's the hero. I hate to tell you, pal, but you're not even the main character. [...] The only hero of this story, Batman, is money. And now I'm going to prove it to you.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Black Mask wears a red suit and a black alien skull mask, and is quite possibly even more monstrous than his Prime Earth counterpart.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • The Joker appears to be Alfred's archenemy rather than Batman's, as he had spent years trying to track him down.
  • Issue #9 hypes up Deathstroke as a villain that Batman will have to face at some point. While Slade has fought Batman in the past (and has been featured as a villain in adaptations like Beware the Batman and the Batman: Arkham Series), he debuted as a villain of the Teen Titans and is still mainly associated with them—when he's a Batfamily enemy he will more often than not go after Nightwing.
• Role Swap AU: The epilogue of Issue #1 reveals The Joker has taken on much of Batman's traditional life, being a reclusive billionaire who trained under Henri Ducard and the League of Assassins.
• Ruder and Cruder: Sort of. Character swear more frequently than they do in the main continuity, including Batman himself and Alfred, but the age rating is the same and it's still Symbol Swearing.
• Save the Villain: In Batman's first fight with Black Mask, Roman orders his snipers to fire on his own mooks, knowing that Bruce would stretch himself thin trying to protect them. Because No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, it ends with Bruce getting stabbed multiple times and thrown off the building onto a car.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Black Mask offers Batman $200 million to let him walk. Batman seemingly accepts, only to make his own Bat Signal out of the pile of money and burn it as they fight.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • When Alfred is told to just observe the Party Animals, even when they're about to kill countless people in City Hall with the Mayor and others inside, he's told to keep watching. He's also ordered to deal with anybody that interferes with the Party Animals, even if they're trying to help. Needless to say, Alfred has no problems letting Bruce beating up and driving back the Party Animals and saying nothing to his superiors.
  • When Barbara spots Bruce, heavily injured from Black Mask's attacks, she has the chance to shoot and arrest him. She lets him go, and claims to the police that she didn't find him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!:
  • Batman singlehandedly takes down several dozen Party Animals that were attacking city hall, including a Giant Mook that bragged about having a huge body count, whom he easily dispatches by slicing off the hand of. The rest of the gang are immediately cowed by this and decide to flee, but of course Batman doesn't let them get off so easily, having set bombs up behind them, knowing that they would flee.
  • After Batman blows his deal with Black Mask and unintentionally creates even more harm, Alfred finally decides to give in to his orders to leave Gotham and abandon Batman. That is until he comes back after talking with his daughter and resumes helping Bruce again.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: After Bruce's friends learn his Secret Identity, Nygma confesses that he figured it out weeks ago and implied as much when Bruce came to him for help on the case.
• Ship Tease: Martha Wayne and Mayor Gordon are implied to have a mutual attraction in the second issue, with the two sharing a cigarette.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Bruce Wayne is portrayed as much taller and bulkier than his usual depictions, and towers head and shoulders over his mother (who is still alive into Bruce's adulthood here).
• Smash Cut: Issue #13 begins with Batman angrily ordering Catwoman to leave. The next page has them passionately make out as they prepare to have sex.
• Sneaky Spy Species: At the behest of the Joker, Victor Fries Jr. created a snowcrash carrying a species of bacteria presumed extinct to secretly take DNA samples of anyone who touched the snow.
• Spared By Adaptation: Martha Wayne is alive well into Bruce's adulthood.
• Straw Nihilist: After Batman exposes Black Mask as the mastermind behind the recent violence, he broadcasts a Breaking Speech espousing how the world's doomed anyway while the rich feast on its carcass, so the public might as well join him in doing whatever the hell they want.
• Super Serum: As always Venom, which is described as a mixture of acids, proteins, compound activators, and cytokines; with the added bonus that it also grants Bane Super-Intelligence.
• Superhero Paradox: Zigzagged. Commissioner Bullock attempts to invoke this, by claiming that Black Mask and his Party Animals were escalating the size, frequency, and destructiveness of their attacks in response to Batman starting to systematically take them down. However, they were already a horrible scourge on Gotham before Batman even arrived, and the GCPD was hopelessly out of their depth in dealing with them, which forced Batman to intervene in the first place.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • It does not take Alfred, a veteran MI6 operative in this iteration, more than a day after encountering Batman for the first time to deduce his Secret Identity, learn all about his Superhero Origin, and locate his Home Base. This is in stark contrast to the impenetrability and sacrosanct status of Batman's secret identity in most other iterations; especially without the wealth and resources of almost all other versions.
  • Despite Bruce's best efforts, he finds that despite having dealt with several of Black Mask's goons, he hasn't actually hampered or impeded him in any way. In fact, Black Mask is barely affected by Batman's interference, because Bats is (mostly) acting on his own and doesn't have the advanced tech or extensive training of his Prime counterpart has.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: To truly break Bruce, Bane and Alfred realize that in order for it to work, Bane must do it where it hurts. Issue #11 ending with Bane, instead of tracking Bruce down, tracks his friends and looms over them.
• Tempting Fate: In issue #8, Victor Fries calls Malone a nobody and snarks that he doesn't expect anyone else to come knocking. This is followed by Batman breaking through his door and confronting him.
• Terror Hero: The Party Animals get a very good look at Bruce in his costume, who proceeds to maim them, injure them greatly, then runs off when Batman dares them to keep going. They don't hesitate to scatter in fear of someone who can actually fights back. Bruce's first outing as Batman is also shown to lean heavily into the bat-imagery for intimidation; hissing with a voice distorter, slashing with knuckle-mounted claws, biting on the neck with false fangs loaded with paralytic.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: As far as the people of Gotham are concerned, the Party Animals are this. A group of cruel people who maim and kill men, women, and children for the hell of it, causing many to fear just walking out in the open. Subverted in Issue #3, when it's revealed that they are seemingly Only in It for the Money.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Like most iterations, Batman doesn't kill. However, this Bruce is willing to cause some serious pain and damage to his enemies. Maiming them, brutally breaking their bones, leaving them bleeding and in agony, as the Party Animals find out the hard way. He also has no problems shooting at Alfred with a gun, though only after modifying it so it wouldn't kill Alfred.
• Underestimating Badassery: Downplayed. Alfred, after uncovering Bruce's activities, actually acknowledges Bruce as rather clever and very good at his creativity at how he utilizes his school activities to study his city. He also knows Bruce won't kill, and as such, believes Bruce won't fire his stolen gun for killing him. Bruce does shoot at him, however, the gun had been modified to be non-fatal with Bruce pointing out he (Alfred) isn't the only one who can track and runs off with Alfred's stolen motorcycle.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even after Batman saved his life from an attack on city hall by the Party Animals, Bullock decides to focus the GCPD's manpower on taking him down, in part due to the Party Animals escalating their violence in response to Batman and in part due to his belief that Batman could secretly be in cahoots with them, trying to make the police look bad. Barbara points this is all completely ridiculous given the current evidence.
• Villains Want Mercy: Whenever Batman shows up to shut their operations down, the Party Animals usually end up being reduced to begging and pleading for their lives.
• Wham Episode:
  • Issue #9. While infiltrating Ark M, Batman discovers "the real Ark M": an elaborate underground base for which the jail is merely a cover for. While infiltrating it, he finds the skeletal remains of a bat-humanoid hybrid, potentially either Man-Bat or Barbatos. Bane suddenly shows up, is able to wipe the floor with Bruce, and has him locked inside Ark M as one of its new test subjects.
  • Issue #12. Bane brutalizes and mutilates Harvey, Oswald, and Edward, making them resemble Two-Face, the Penguin, and the Riddler, all part of his ploy to turn Batman into a greater protector for Gotham City. Also, Selina Kyle finally shows up in the final page, marking her first appearance in the present day.
• Wham Line: In the epilogue of Issue #6, The Joker says two words that have never ended well for Batman
  The Joker: "Get Bane".
  • In Issue #9, Bane himself is the deliveryman for such a line. Batman accuses the nearly 10-foot mountain of a man that is Bane of using Venom, calling him "Juiced-up." Bane's response?
  Bane: "Juiced up? Friend, I haven't even used this stuff yet. But if you want to see what it does..."
• Wham Shot:
  • Bruce returns to his apartment near the end of the first issue to see his mother waiting for him.
  • The director of V-Core, in issue #7, revealing a hidden cryopod with both Nora and Victor Fries frozen inside.
• We Used to Be Friends: Alfred Pennyworth describes Deathstroke as having once been his "comrade in arms", but he eventually went rogue and now works as the Joker's bodyguard.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Issue #11 reveals that Bane works as a mercenary for the Joker in exchange for the Joker using his wealth and influence to keep Santa Prisca peaceful and relatively wealthy. And his obssession with Batman is because he wants to turn Batman into a better hero, and thinks that for that Bruce must be broken physically and spiritually and turned into a more brutal, ruthless version of himself, one with nothing to lose.
• Western Terrorists: The Party Animals. Subverted when it's revealed they're actually part of a mercenary force and their crimes aren't driven by an ideology, but by the financial interest of the man who hired them, the Joker.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Bruce meets Black Mask to finish the deal, Bruce rejects it utterly and tries exposing Black Mask for the monster he is. Not only does this get Bruce injured, but when he meets Alfred again, the man is enraged and decides to abandon Bruce as his actions have caused Roman to escalate further by giving people guns and money across the city.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Martha Wayne only survives the first arc because the would-be Party Animals menacing her and Gordon are reluctant to hurt a woman, content to split the million-dollar bounty on Gordon between themselves. She refuses to abandon Gordon and puts her own life on the line to attempt Talking the Monster to Death, buying Batman enough time to save them both.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Black Mask's gang, 'The Party Animals', are said in the news to have scorched a daycare, scoring a body count of 32 as they danced outside. It's also mentioned they did... something... awful to a mother and her baby that involved tying them both to a car bumper.
  • Played for Laughs at the end of the first arc, when Batman ties up an Enfante Terrible (possibly) with a life preserver and punts her off Black Mask's boat.
  • The treatment to counteract the Joker's sickness involves covering himself in fetal tissue, which seems to still be alive.
• You Remind Me of X: As it turns out, one of the reasons Bane seeks to break Bruce is because he sees his past-self in Bruce. Deconstructed since, due to having similar goals in protecting their home, he believes Bruce should go through the same process as him and more. Issue #11 showing the future Bane envisions Bruce could be - a duplicate of Bane himself.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Alfred tells Batman he knows he's no killer when they meet face-to-face and Batman pulls out a shotgun. It turns out Batman does have it in him to shoot Alfred, but he had already modified the gun to use non-lethal ammunition (tiny Batarangs), so it merely stuns Alfred long enough for Batman to escape.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: When discussing about Black Mask, Alfred claims that if Bruce takes his deal, then the criminal will have to make transactions that can be traced. However, while accepting the deal may lessen the attacks by Gotham, and despite Alfred promising him and his group will arrest the man, Bruce shows his dislike as it means Black Mask will still be freed and has a chance at escaping justice. Sadly, with the connections Black Mask has, Bruce has no choice but to accept it for now.