Absolute Batman #7: The Doom That Freezes in Gotham

A facet of superheroes and their stories being adapted is that better designs, ideas, or even backstories become more interesting than the source material. At the core, a good idea is a good idea, and the comics will incorporate what is working in the adaptation. For Batman, the animated series proved to be one of these cases. Aspects of the series have been incorporated into mainline continuity, including the character of Harley Quinn.

One of the more interesting alignments resulted from the episode Heart of Ice. The animated series revamped the origin story for Mr. Freeze, turning him into a tragic figure from a one-note pre-Crisis villain. Since then, the character’s comic history has been some play on the animated series origin, keeping the character firmly planted in the realm of a tragic romantic searching for hope. 

Absolute Batman #7 – written by Scott Snyder with art by Marcos Martín, coloring by Muntsa Vicente, and lettering by Clayton Cowles – kicks off a two-issue interlude by dealing with the fallout of Black Mask’s attempts to rule Gotham through anarchy. The vigilante is left to heal with a little too much time on their hands due to the Marshall Law enacted in the city, pausing the projects that would fill Bruce’s days as an engineer. The death of Matches Malone, an old friend of both Bruce and his rogues gallery, sets Bruce on course to investigate Ark M, the black site sitting in Gotham Bay with connections to the absolute Joker. 

Batman takes out some of the police drones infesting the city while Bruce is confronted by his friends, deflecting their attempts to find out more about the bat vigilante. Bruce gets the group caught up about Matches’s death and what the former criminal was working on before dying. Since Matches died of a bacterium before he could secure forged credentials for Bruce, the engineer had to make quick arrangements to inspect V-Core, an associated company. Victor Fries Jr. meets Bruce and welcomes him into the business, revealing his work in preserving living beings through blocks of ice. Victor also shares the detail that he was frozen as a child to survive long enough for a cure to a mysterious illness, revealing that something existed in the ice that altered the man. 

The scripting for this issue wastes no time in jumping into the mysteries lurking in Gotham, utilizing the momentum of Bruce’s restlessness to propel it into the next arc. Snyder continues to use a similar narrative framework for the interlude, jumping around in time to create a disorienting effect in the reader. As the story moves to Bruce making his way into V-Core, the narrative puzzle thaws, using Victor Fries Jr. as the cipher for Matches’s mysterious death. It’s a consistent and dynamic structure that keeps the engine going while laying the foundation for the new interpretation of Mr. Freeze. 

Mr. Freeze and his reinvention offer tension at the core of this book on a craft level, as the story leading to him feels worn and familiar while the artwork is allowed to experiment. Employing these interlude stories in the Absolute line felt like an opportunity for the creators to explore different narrative conventions or formal structures for the stories. Snyder’s story mechanics open with a childhood flashback before alternating between the recent past and present. It’s a natural continuation of the structure used in The Zoo, connecting the past to the present through echoing dialogue and imagery. While the consistency is appreciated, not making a bigger leap in the plotting sensibilities or narrative flow works against the more innovative aspects of the book. 

Innovation is no more apparent than Martín’s approach to the Mr. Freeze design in the final few pages. Rather than the mechanical, precise costuming for the mainline villain, Martín brings an ethereal, otherworldly aspect to the design. This is an eldritch beast released from the ice, warped by the passage of time and under the influence of horrors beyond comprehension. Rendering Freeze in this way allows Martín to instantly create a delineation in reality before any concise details are revealed about the character. Absolute Freeze is not the byproduct of hubris and self-inflicted tragedy but instead, he’s the carry of infection due to his parent’s work. The implications from the design alone allow for a chilling canvas of what is to come in the next issue. 

Throughout the issue, Martín does an excellent job of calibrating to the visual language established by series regular artist Nick Dragotta. Even as Martín shifts into the familiar territory of Gotham, the artist retains a clear sense of self and story. Whether it be an expansive splash page or the use of larger paneling, Martín’s pages maintain a consistent look that doesn’t steal from Dragotta’s signature flourishes. The result of this makes the interlude story feel of the whole while being a distinct shift from the action seen in The Zoo. Sticking with the larger paneling also allows Martín to stretch time, adding to the ethos of ice and freeze by allowing the pacing to feel a bit slower and more deliberate. 

A key contributor to the feeling of being familiar yet distinct is Vicente, whose coloring is a perfect match for the art and story. The palette for issue #7 is a natural continuation of what Frank Martin established in The Zoo, down to the slightly faded colors during the childhood flashbacks. Using that as an opening page orients the reader and confirms they are seeing something they instinctively know before switching into tones that read as brighter than Martin’s work. While the colors in The Zoo lingered in the dark underbelly of Gotham, Vicente brings light to the streets even as the cold threatens the city. Vivid pinks and chilly blues stand in opposition to the light falling snow, creating an effect of figures in silhouettes against the stark backgrounds. 

Martín and Vicente create deliberate spaces within the issue thanks to the paneling and framing of shapes in each sequence. The scenes at Matches’s memorial, using the backgrounds mentioned above, create the effect of deliberating hiding Bruce’s face, underscoring his obfuscation towards his closest friends. To do so in the lush hues of Vicente’s coloring adds bitterness to the beauty of Gotham in wintertime. The Batman action sequence blends tight spaces like the underside of an upper train line with wider panels, built around a dynamic double-page splash page. In the sequence, Vicente brings hints of neon to the Gotham alleys and streets, giving a visual sensation that evokes a blacklight approach to Batman. It’s a striking change to the aesthetic language, underscoring the different worlds that Batman and Bruce live and operate in.