Hey guys, it’s Scott.
It is Friday, June 19th. Sorry I haven’t done a post in a little while. I’ve been meaning to do this class on cold opens, but full disclosure, I had a bit of a health thing. Not really serious, but I cracked a tooth a while ago at a movie with my kid, with our 15-year-old. And it was sort of fixed, but I was supposed to go back. I didn’t have time to go back and ultimately, I had to get it fixed. I had to get it pulled out of my head. So... it’s been a bit of a odyssey. Anyone that saw me at Charlotte at HeroesCon saw, by the end, that I was in some pain. It should be all better but it’s kind of eaten up some of the time on the side, so apologies. But I have a moment right now. Next week I’m away, I’m going to visit and pick up our oldest son from a summer program he’s doing in England, so I’m excited. I’m hoping to see Jock and possibly Frank Quitely and couple friends over there when I go get him.
But yes I have a moment right now, so I wanted to do a quick post as an anatomy of a scene. I’ll be talking about that scene in the context of making something that you’re passionate about. Right now there’s a lot of talk about what makes the Absolute Universe work. I see it online and I see it from other companies and sometimes I just see the wrong stuff. And I know that it’s sort of too simplistic, but my feeling is that what makes the Absolute Universe really work is that it’s a group of creators making books that they believe in deeply, because they are trying to say something with those books. When I was going out to people, asking them to pitch for it or if they were interested, Kelly and Jason and everyone, it was not about “what’s a cool edgy take?” or “what can you do that hasn’t been done before?” or “what’s going to shock someone?” It was more about “how can you make this character even more heroic and exciting to you, given the moment that we’re in right now?”
And Jason’s pitch about having Superman live on Krypton to age 13, so coming here with a lot more of a Smallville experience on an alien planet just felt so appropriate. He’s less pampered here. He doesn’t come here and have an ideal experience. He comes here and immediately has a mixed experience with the Kents as a good factor, but he’s also hunted and so his relationship on Earth were troubled at first. Diana being the last of an Amazon race that were the secret heroes of history rather than apart from history, and her being raised in Hell as somebody who is going to be misunderstood by everyone. It just felt so timely. And then for Batman, obviously, the idea was instead of being this generationally wealthy guy, he’s working class and it allows Batman to be more of a collective, to give different kind of emotional connections to people that he grew up with and that he works with because he’s not isolated as someone with such a rarefied experience that nobody can relate to it. Batman in the main universe, when he says “anyone can be Batman,” you really can’t. Because part of the power fantasy of Batman is that he has billions of dollars to make everything Batman has. But when Batman is built from the ground up by somebody who has what you have, it’s more of a Spider-Man feeling (even though Spider-Man has powers). That message of “anyone can be Spider-Man,” that’s kind of where we’re headed with that.
But beyond the books, again, the overarching thesis of Absolute was—let’s make books we love and let’s say something. Let’s have these characters feel like underdogs and make them as heroic as possible given the world that we’re in right now. Pit them against things you’re afraid of right now. Pit them against things that make you worried about the future, about your kids, but make it fun and bombastic and over the top. Translate it into that comic book language. So for us, Absolute Batman isn’t explicitly political in the way that it’s not addressing issues in the news necessarily, even though there are echoes of things in the news like people disappearing into prisons and like Arkham and all kinds of stuff. But it largely is about the ways in which rich and powerful people are pulling too many of the levers of control over everyone and everything these days. And it’s about fighting that feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that you get as somebody who doesn’t have a lot of means. When you look up at someone who has a trillion dollars and doesn’t care about you or someone who’s leading your country and seems to only care about themself. And that feeling, again, it doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, I think is palpable for all of us. And so that’s the idea with Absolute. That’s what we’re going for. It’s not, “oh, it’s edgier. It’s darker. It’s indie artists.” All those things are there, but that’s all springing from this core set of values, which is creators having something to say that they believe will make these characters feel especially heroic right now. That’s the way all of them are developed—Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Catwoman, Green Arrow… That’s the assignment when you pitch for Absolute.
So anyway, this scene in #21 is right up there as my favorite so far. So if you haven’t read #21 yet, you can stop listening or look away from the rest of this post.
SPOILER WARNING FOR ABSOLUTE BATMAN #21
But in #21, there’s a scene where Bruce Wayne, who’s reeling and reeling and reeling so much from all the revelations about how his whole life might have been manipulated by Scarecrow via the Joker, is up on a beam a thousand feet above Gotham. And he hasn’t put on a safety harness because he’s just so lost in thought. And Lucius Fox, who’s his boss, comes over and says “Bruce, we want you to meet some investors.” and Bruce barely acknowledges them and they sort of laugh it off and walk away. But one investor stays behind and walks out on the beam, and it’s Jack Grimm. The Joker. And it leads to this confrontation between the two of them that I’ve been waiting to do for the entirety of the time we’ve been doing the series. It was there in the very original pitch and I thought about doing it a little earlier, I thought about doing it a little later, but it just felt like the perfect moment to really rub it in. To me, Jack Grimm is the devil that comes to you and offers you something. And if you turn him down, he just turns your life into a nightmare. He’s that guy at the crossroads.
The whole purpose of this scene, when I pitched Absolute Batman and it was there in the original documents and pitch, was that if we’re going to do a series where Bruce Wayne feels he can change the world, then he’s going to run up against a Joker who’s like, “nobody has ever been able to really change the world. I’m the world. I’m the system. I’m order.” And the reason it felt so important to do it this way is because for me, the Joker is always like the Joker card. That card can take on any value when you’re playing cards to help you win. And in Batman, in the mythology, I feel like my interpretation of him has always been he becomes any fear that Bruce Wayne has. At any given moment, he becomes Bruce’s worst fear to attack him with. To make him stronger in the Joker’s mind. But if he’s happy to kill Batman, if Batman can’t be stronger, he’s testing him. He’s sort of the jester of the court. So that idea that Joker will always appear as Batman’s biggest fear here, to reverse that, it’s almost like Batman made Joker. And at first I think is horrified by Joker in the mainline, but also assumes that he’s something that is manageable and that is like an opposite of him. But as time goes on, he realizes Joker isn’t just another villain that he fights and that tests him, but grows into something that will always be with him.
And so I wanted a scene here where Jack Grimm says to Bruce, “I made you. And I’m happy I made you, and you’re becoming something I want to do this dance with forever.” But what’s going to happen, not to give too much away, is that he’s almost a Batman figure where Jack Grimm sees Bruce as this challenge that he thinks is manageable, but as time goes on in the series (and again, we’re not even close to halfway really right now), Bruce becomes something completely unmanageable for him and something that he is terrified of in his own way, because Bruce grows into something that he didn’t expect and that will be with him forever. Even though he says “I want to dance with you forever,” he doesn’t quite understand, I think, how strong Bruce can get. And so Bruce becomes the Joker card to Joker in this series. Bruce becomes the fear that can change into things, not physically, but Bruce’s mind and his friends and all of it helps him figure out how to constantly attack Joker in ways that Joker didn’t see coming. He becomes Joker’s biggest fear. And so it’s this full reversal where Bruce has Harley, he has the villains, he has all of the kind of characters in the way that Joker normally has in his circle in different ways. And so anyway, that was the idea. Invert it so that Bruce is the disruption. Bruce is the rebel. Bruce is the chaos and not the order.
Anyway, so what I’d say is that, to me, is the secret of the Absolute Universe. It’s that feeling of knowing what you’re saying and just trying to say something that makes these characters exciting, especially to people who’ve been around them a long time, but also to new readers to make them feel it’s their version. Don’t be afraid of redoing the origins. Don’t be afraid of rebuilding them from scratch. For me, it’s telling that in movies these days, we often avoid origins. But I think we should do origins. I think we should dive in there and make a version of these characters that isn’t based on what came before, but is true to the core. You don’t change that. But instead of echoing or assuming that the origin that we’ve said before is the same origin, do it in a way that makes it feel like it belongs to this generation.
That’s what I’m really hoping for, especially with the Midnight line. I’m really excited for those. I love everybody involved like, obviously, Jon Hickman and Phil Kennedy Johnson and Ben Percy, who are all friends. But also the artists as well. And I’m really rooting for it. I’m really excited, and my hope is that the horror in that, within the idea of the world that they’re creating with Midnight, is based on some of the real fears that we have these days. I hope that the monsters are representative of some of the things in deep and penetrating ways that really keep us up at night. That’s how you make something, I think, that really sticks. And I have confidence that they’ll be able to do that and I’ll certainly be excited to support and be in line for it.
Anyway, that’s my post. I hope you guys have a great week. When I get back from England, I will do a class on cold opens, which I’m really excited about. And thank you guys again so much for all the kind words on Absolute Batman #21. I can’t get over how awesome you all are. HeroesCon was amazing, people there were amazing, and yeah, I can’t say thank you enough.
S
