Was Absolute Pyg Hiding in ‘Absolute Batman’ #1 All Along?!

One of the smartest things about Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman isn’t just how radically it reinvents Gotham – it’s how meticulously everything appears to have been planned from the very beginning.

Unlike the main DC Universe, where Batman’s rogues gallery has grown organically over more than 85 years of publishing history, the Absolute Universe was built as a single, unified story from day one. Rather than introducing villains one at a time over decades, Snyder has hinted that the entire mythology was mapped out before the first issue ever hit shelves.

That’s become increasingly apparent as the series has unfolded.

Early on, readers learned this version of Bruce Wayne isn’t a billionaire but a blue-collar construction worker forced to build his own tools and weapons. We also discovered that the Absolute Joker is the wealthy architect manipulating Gotham from the shadows, with the mysterious Ark M serving as the birthplace of many of the universe’s monsters and villains.

As the story has progressed, each issue has peeled back another layer of Joker’s grand design. Recent revelations have even suggested that Joker orchestrated the chain of events that ultimately created Batman himself, while earlier issues have been filled with subtle Scarecrow imagery that only makes complete sense in hindsight.