Scott Snyder/Nick Dragotta: Absolute Batman vs. Bane
Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast
Friends, Rogues, and Moral Complexity
Nick explains how Bruce's peer group and shared trauma create complex relationships that shape future villain origins.
Everyone has a Batman opinion. Inside your imagination is a definitive Batman: a Batman who should behave this way, and a Batman who should not behave that way. Your tight grip on your Batman is why Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's carefully considered Absolute Batman works so damn well. They fully understand and appreciate how the character has congealed over the last eight decades into a rock-solid idea.
For the last eight months, alongside collaborators like Gabriel H. Walta, Marcos Martín, Frank Martin, Muntsa Vicente, and Clayton Cowles, Snyder and Dragotta have chipped away at the quintessential Dark Knight. They've altered elements of his origin, removed his social position, and rearranged his relationship with his rogues. Their Absolute Batman is a Bruce Wayne in motion, moving toward the impenetrable idea in your head, but struggling to match it. Here is a character growing into something, evolving into a recognizable hero for 2025.
After confronting Mr. Freeze in issues seven and eight and facing the final days of Matches Malone, Bruce Wayne must reassess his war on Gotham City crime. What lessons did he learn from that awful day at The Zoo? Do his nights as Batman honor his father's sacrifice? As he fights to find himself, a grotesque demonic doppelganger appears - Bane, the nineties sensation who once broke a bat from another universe.
FOC for Absolute Batman #9 is today (5/19/25)! Tell your retailers to order a copy for ya. With this comic, Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta have cooked an undeniable banquet. As the best alternate reality stories should, they've weaponized your knowledge of these characters against you, subverting in radically compelling ways, while delivering what should never be manipulated.
Today's podcast features two conversations. Up first, Scott Snyder joins us for a lengthy look back at the last eight months of Absolute Batman. We discuss Bruce Wayne's continuing development into the Dark Knight, his complex relationship with Joe Chill, his father's killer, and why Bane had to arrive sooner rather than later. Secondly, Nick Dragotta pops in for a conversation about his ultra chonky Bane design, and how what we've seen so far is only a hint of his true monstrosity.
Absolute Batman #9 will finally arrive in stores, courtesy of DC Comics, on June 11th. Follow Scott Snyder on Bluesky and Instagram, and subscribe to his Substack. Follow Nick Dragotta on Bluesky and Instagram.
This Week's SponsorWe're sponsored by 2000 AD, the greatest comic you're not reading! Within its pages is a whole universe of characters, from Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog to Rogue Trooper, Shakara, Halo Jones, and the poor sods slogging across the Cursed Earth in The Helltrekkers. Get a print subscription at your door every week - and the first issue is free! Or subscribe digitally, get free back issues, and download DRM-free copies of each issue for just $9 a month. That's 128 pages of incredible monthly comics for less than $10.
Other Relevant Links to This Week's Episode:Final Round of Plugs (PHEW):
Support the Podcast by Joining OUR PATREON COMMUNITY.
The Comic Book Couples Counseling TeePublic Merch Page.
And, of course, follow Comic Book Couples Counseling on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Bluesky @CBCCPodcast, and you can follow hosts Brad Gullickson @MouthDork & Lisa Gullickson @sidewalksiren.
Send us your Words of Affirmation by leaving us a 5-star Review on Apple Podcasts.
Continue your conversation with CBCC by hopping over to our website, where we have reviews, essays, and numerous interviews with comic book creators.
Podcast logo by Jesse Lonergan and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.
The AI-powered Podcast Player
