Perhaps the most talked-about and consequential of all the changes made to Bruce Wayne for “Absolute Batman” is his financial background. Unlike the multi-billionaire from the mainstream continuity — whose seemingly infinite inherited wealth is the most consistent aspect of his characterization across over 85 years of comics history, the “Absolute” Bruce Wayne is a working-class civic engineer. Neither of his parents was wealthy, nor were they in any position to leave him with a mansion, acres of land, an advanced company with access to cutting-edge technology, or even a kindly butler to stitch up his wounds.

Bruce still has versions of these assets as part of his arsenal, though the creativity through which he has to create and/or obtain them because of his lack of money and connections is core to the brilliance that is “Absolute Batman.” Pithy critics have blithely remarked for years with varying credibility that Batman’s only superpower is his money. By removing this money from the equation, Scott Snyder asks the reader to consider what makes Batman who he is. At the end of the day, the conclusion he comes to is that Batman isn’t gadgets and resources, but imagination, resilience, and an unyielding determination to protect Gotham’s most vulnerable. This change also serves to draw a solid line between Bruce Wayne and the moneyed elites of the criminal overworld who serve as the ultimate enemy for “Absolute Batman.”

It isn’t exactly novel to depict Alfred Pennyworth — usually the polite and congenial butler of the Wayne Family, who essentially raises Bruce after the deaths of his parents — with a military background of some kind. “Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler,” the best-named show in the history of television, is an action thriller entirely about the character serving in the British Air Force and working as a private security contractor. But readers have never seen an Alfred as violent, calculating, or flawed as this.

In the Absolute Universe, Alfred Pennyworth is an MI6 agent — a foreign spy, originally sent to Gotham City to observe and report on the anarchistic crime spree of the Party Animals (a gang of heavily armed killers led by Roman Sionis — the Black Mask). When he first encounters Batman, Alfred is ordered to kill him — and he may well have gone through with it, had Batman not outsmarted him several times. As he continues to monitor Batman’s activities, waiting for the right moment to strike, Alfred is utterly entranced by him. And though he eventually encourages Batman to be more pragmatic — even to the point of compromising with his enemies — Alfred can’t help but admire his ferocity, ingenuity, and foolhardy commitment to carrying out justice. Without spoiling more, this complicated, morally gray take on a character who normally works as Batman’s moral backbone introduces refreshing wrinkles into this universe.

We all know the story by now. Even though it’s been rewritten time and time again, across countless films, comics, and TV shows, the basic elements remain the same: at the end of a night out on the town as a family, Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down in Crime Alley in front of their young son, catalyzing his lifelong, pathological need to prevent such tragedy from coming to anyone else.

As we alluded to above, however, Bruce Wayne’s parents in the Absolute Universe have been entirely rewritten. His father, Thomas, specifically, was changed into a public school teacher who taught Bruce’s class. While he had originally wanted to become a heart doctor — similarly motivated by a desire to prevent others from suffering the sudden and traumatic loss of a loved one to a massive coronary, a fate suffered by his own father — Martha’s unexpected pregnancy caused him to change course. This further inspired him to reconsider his own identity and what his values were beyond a job and a mission, which led to a touching formative moment between him and Bruce shortly before his death.

Indeed, Thomas Wayne is still dead in the Absolute Universe, having been gunned down during a class trip to the Gotham Zoo. And while this event still serves as the foundational trauma of Bruce Wayne’s life, this spiral of anguish is newly balanced by the fact that, in this reality, Martha Wayne is still very much alive. Because Thomas died on a class trip, Martha was safely at home at the time of the shooting. She is thus able to be there for Bruce in the direct aftermath of the tragedy, helping him process his grief in a healthier way than most mainstream iterations of the character. Iin fact, one could argue she’s a huge reason an adult Bruce has a solid support system that extends beyond her — though we’ll get to them in a moment.

In the present day, Martha is heavily involved in the movement for social progress and political reform in Gotham City. Having been a rebellious protestor in her younger years (she was once even arrested by a young James Gordon), she now works in the Gotham City mayoral office, and — without spoiling anything — is presently poised to have a long, purposeful life in the Absolute Universe.

Speaking of Jim Gordon, one of comics’ most popular and absurdly idealistic cops is no longer a cop at all. When the story begins, Gordon is the mayor of Gotham City, having retired from the Gotham City Police Department after attaining the position of commissioner (a position he almost perpetually holds in the mainstream DC Universe). This isn’t the first time that DC has imagined Gordon as mayor, with the animated “Harley Quinn” series most recently writing a storyline in which he runs for office against the Joker, of all people.

Despite having the seeming support of the GCPD, however, Gordon’s mayoralty is under fire for the uptick in violent crime in Gotham (though he’s actually the victim of astroturfed outrage, manufactured by the very interests that benefit from flooding the city with guns while robbing it of resources). “Absolute Batman” explores what role Gordon might serve in the fight against injustice outside of law enforcement or politics, and his friendship with Martha Wayne plants the seeds of a compelling counter-plot to Batman’s physical war on crime. Barbara Gordon is also in the Absolute Universe, though she has yet to receive a major role as of writing. She is herself a member of the GCPD, though one uniquely uncorrupted by exterior forces.

In the mainstream DC Universe, the closest thing Batman ever gets to a support system is a trauma-bound, dubiously ethical “family” of orphans he trained as child crimefighters. Assembling this family isn’t the worst thing Batman has ever done – but it has led to some questionable moments across the DC multiverse.

In contrast, the “Absolute” Bruce Wayne has adult friends with whom he shares a history beyond crimefighting, in large part because his mother seemingly made an active effort to keep Bruce’s childhood friend group in his life after the death of his father. As Bruce’s classmates, they were, after all, subjected to the same tragedy of surviving a mass shooting.

Each of his friends is individually interesting, empathetic, and exciting to learn about — admittedly because they’re all characters that normally make up Batman’s rogues gallery. When the story begins, the core group consists of Edward Nygma (a brilliant computer scientist and inventor who’s developing a very creepy super-intelligent robot-A.I. that tells riddles and definitely won’t turn evil), Oswald Cobblepot (a blue collar criminal who, despite his sharp attitude, genuinely cares for Bruce), Harvey Dent (an up-and-coming state attorney, torn between his black-and-white life in court and his morally gray mix of friends), and Waylon Jones (Bruce’s best friend, an immediately lovable amateur boxer).

Just because Batman’s foes have become Bruce Wayne’s friends (at least in the meantime), that doesn’t mean “Absolute Batman” is inventing entirely new villains for its Dark Knight to face. As of writing, this universe seems to be largely separating the characters into two worlds based on their origins in the traditional DC Universe — the struggling people of Gotham (which mostly encompasses the Waynes, their allies, and even those villains who were historically victims of poverty) and a network of unimaginably wealthy sociopaths who invisibly control their lives. The latter group has been reimagined just as dramatically as the former, creating a new rogues gallery more unpredictable and terrifying than anything we’ve seen from contemporary DC Comics (akin to the dark tone established by the villains of “The Batman”).

The primary antagonist of the series’ premiere story arc, “The Zoo,” is Roman Sionis / Black Mask, whose sadistic personality is translated from a ruthless mobster to a harbinger of this dominant criminal conspiracy. The dialogue Scott Snyder writes for the character is regularly chilling, particularly a monologue Sionis uses to inspire the citizens of Gotham to take up arms against one another in nihilistic hedonism. He represents a depressingly tangible sense of entropy related to the world at large that feels relevant and even seductive at times, which makes Batman’s defiance of this “truth” all the more thrilling and cathartic.

As terrifying as Sionis was throughout “The Zoo” (alongside a handful of other villains we’ve seen so far that are best left a surprise for readers to uncover themselves), he’s nothing compared to the dreadful vacuum created by the Joker, whose sparse appearances nevertheless loom over the story like a terrible yet exciting threat to be carried out. Having only been shown in two panels across ten issues so far (climaxes of hauntingly reserved scenes expertly crafted by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta), you can still feel his presence throughout the story.

As of writing, we know very little about the Joker. We know he’s been connected to countless murders around the world, has a profile hot enough to attract the attention of Alfred and MI6, and is one of the 30 richest people alive (if he existed in our world, his net worth would have to be north of $50 billion to achieve such a feat). Finally (and fascinatingly), while the Bruce Wayne of this universe went to college and seemingly trained in martial arts the normal way, it’s the Joker who embarked on a globe-trotting pilgrimage to learn everything he could from the world’s most reclusive and skilled combatants, killing each of them when he’d mastered their craft.

Though the Joker’s plot remains shrouded in secrecy, each issue divulges a tiny bit more about what his grand scheme might be. After all, it was he who financed the activities of Roman Sionis and his Party Animals, and his company, J.K. Holdings, has been buying up vast swaths of land (making use of the space above and below the earth) for a plan that somehow connects to Gotham’s police force, business world, and local government.

Without spoiling too much, it’s quickly revealed by Alfred that these plots of land are now the locations of facilities called “Arks.” While it is unknown what exactly goes on within the massive buildings, they are publicly disclosed as private penitentiaries that operate with no government oversight — a franchise of black site prisons that just so happen to pop up near cities overcome by crime. Each is lettered, and “Ark M” has been constructed right next to Gotham.

“Absolute Batman” is already a more thoughtful, blunt, and occasionally radical examination of the justice system than most “Batman” comics you’ll read. But as the currently unfolding “Abomination” story arc unfolds with Bruce descending further into this private prison network, it has the potential to go to such genuinely transgressive places that good comics often find true greatness within.

In taking away the riches of the Wayne family, “Absolute Batman” has to reimagine how this version of the superhero is built. Normally, as mentioned, Bruce Wayne leaves Gotham for an extended period of time to train almost supernaturally gifted fighters, most famously Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Shadows. When he returns home to begin his war against Gotham’s criminals, he isn’t immediately good at Batman-ing (as we saw in “The Batman”), but is able to rely on a level of fight training so unattainable and unimaginably comprehensive that he can at least rely on sheer skill to provide him the upper hand. Not so for the “Absolute” Batman.

In this universe, Bruce Wayne’s quest for answers was largely focused on academics. As Alfred notes, he attended a premier state university on a football scholarship — he then deliberately gave himself a “career-ending” injury so he could spend his time extensively studying applied mechanics, chemistry, criminal psychology, military theory, and sociocultural history. But while we don’t know as much yet about where Bruce learned to fight (outside training with Waylon Jones), we can see through Nick Dragotta’s gorgeously brutal art that he’s a wonderfully inelegant combatant.

Standing at 6-foot-9 and weighing well over 200 pounds, this Batman is a total beast, relying on raw strength and determination as much as he does fighting skill. On an “Absolute” Justice League, he wouldn’t be playing support or DPS — he’d be the tank. He’s an unstoppable force in battle, more than willing to maim and permanently injure his enemies, with the help of his new arsenal of gadgets.

Batman wouldn’t be much without his gadgets and toys. The character’s iconic utility belt has been a staple of his design and “power” set for decades, with most writers using it as something of a get-out-of-jail-free card when Batman finds himself up against a difficult-to-solve situation. Sometimes, that means being in a literal jail; sometimes, that means fighting a shark.

The Batman of the “Absolute” universe still has a noticeable utility belt, but he clearly favors the numerous gadgets hidden in his suit. Batman’s cape now has hooked ends and the ability to become rigid, allowing him to grab villains from afar and hurl them in any direction; the “ears” of his cowl conceal small blades, which he can use as melee weapons or projectile Batarangs; and, as one villain discovered when pouncing in his back, Batman’s shoulders are outfitted with retractable spikes that can impale an enemy if they attempt to get the jump on him. Most notable (and the sickest new toy of all, in our opinion) is Batman’s insignia, which can now be removed, attached to a handle, and swung like a Bat-tle ax.

This might seem over-the-top to some fans — it isn’t hard to imagine comparisons between “Absolute” Batman and the memorable but occasionally over-designed characters created by ’90s artists like Rob Liefeld or Todd MacFarlane. But Batman’s new gadgets make total sense, considering he now has the background and mindset of an engineer. They are creative, efficiently and economically designed, and most importantly, reusable (he isn’t a billionaire anymore, after all).

Above all else, the most exciting and refreshing change brought about by “Absolute Batman” — indeed the one that keeps us coming back to read every single month — is that, for the first time in decades, the future of Bruce Wayne and Batman is totally uncertain. Obviously, this is a huge deal from a narrative standpoint. As of writing, Bruce has essentially spent two issues of “Abomination” trapped in an environment unlike anything we’ve seen from recent “Batman” stories, fighting for his life against the next emissary of the Joker dispatched against him — Bane.

We really don’t want to say any more than that here, but suffice it to say that Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta have miraculously created life-or-death tension with this arc; it doesn’t seem like a given that Batman makes it out of this one alive. Arguably even more important than maintaining dramatic suspense, however, is preserving the possibility for Bruce, his friends, and his enemies to change and grow as characters. Already, Bruce has learned valuable lessons since Issue #1 that have changed the way he fights crime now, further differentiating him from the mainstream Batman. 

At this rate, there’s no telling who the Dark Knight will be when he overcomes his next challenge — and yet, Snyder and Dragotta leave no doubt that through overcoming it at all, he will move one step closer to being the hero Gotham, the “Absolute” universe, and perhaps even the comic book industry at large needs and deserves right now.