In this review of Absolute Batman #6, Batman battles Black Mask as his attempt to take over Gotham focuses on Martha Wayne and Jim Gordon.
Absolute Batman #6 main cover by Nick Dragotta (DC Comics)
ABSOLUTE BATMAN #6
Written by Scott Snyder
Art and Main Cover by Nick Dragotta
Variant Covers: Simon Bisley, Alex Maleev, Frank Quitley, John McCrea
Page Count: 24 pages
Release Date: March 19, 2025
This review contain spoilers
Absolute Batman #6 begins as Black Mask has made his move and supplied the citizens of Gotham with weapons to join his Party Animals. Waylon Jones is ready with a bat in hand, just waiting for someone to bust into his gym for a fight but finds that a beaten up Bruce has wandered in. Bruce tells Waylon that he’s Batman and he needs his help.
Flashback to Bruce waking up from a nightmare after his father had been shot and he goes to his mother to be consoled. In the present, Gordon and Martha find the crate of masks and are being surrounded. Martha puts on one the masks which has a heads up display that lets the wearer know how much money they’ll make for certain crimes.
Next we see Batman being berated by Ozzie as now his whole friend group knows hes Batman. Ozzie is flying him in a plane as Batman has to leap onto a boat to take a serve that Black Mask is using. Batman leaps and Absolute Batman gets his Dark Knight Returns moment with lighting in the background.
Batman lands and takes out one of Black Mask’s men as the thug’s son tries to stab Batman. Batman then becomes an NFL punter and boots the kid off the boat (don’t worry they had squid looking heads). The mom sees Batman and then leaps off the boat. Batman tosses her a life preserver. See, he has a heart.
Martha and Gordon are trying to talk Gothamites down from playing Black Mask’s game but the Party Animals see that they are worth 1,000,000 dollars if they are killed. Batman and Black Mask meet on the boat and Batman hands Black Mask a beating but quickly gets the tables turned as Mask has a wire wrapped around Batman’s neck. While this is happening, we flashback to Bruce with his mother after the nightmare and she is telling him how Thomas was always so hopeful about him. Batman then has the ears on his cowl adjust to where he can stab them through Black Mask’s helmet mask.
Martha and Gordon are still in a standoff as Batman destroys Mask’s boat and cuts down power to the Party Animal’s masks where now they think they will get no money for killing Martha. Martha punches them as she and Gordon embrace, exhausted from the night.
Batman is drowning as Alfred saves him and starts to patch him up.
As Absolute Batman #6 ends, we get an epilogue where we see Roman’s mysterious benefactor say to get Bane ready.
Analysis
This was the conclusion to the first arc for Absolute Batman. This was a pretty great opening arc. We saw all the things that Absolute Batman can do. We saw him pulled to his lowest and then able to rise up. All the great things we absolutely love about Batman.
My one criticism of Absolute Batman #6 is we didn’t see Bruce telling his boys that he’s Batman. We only see Ozzie comment on how Harvey wants to arrest him, Waylon wants to punch him, and Eddie claims he knew. I would have liked to see that scene played out but we will definitely get some fallout in the next arc. I like that dynamic of Bruce and his friends and it’ll be interesting to see how now that they know the secret, what that dynamic will be now.
There are still a lot of threads left to pull. Selina’s return and the Joker is out there somewhere.
We can only imagine how big Absolute Bane is.
