The Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin — in Absolute Batman, the rogues’ gallery is all guys that Wayne grew up with. Wayne wasn’t raised in a mansion but in Crime Alley. Wayne’s father is not a rich doctor and philanthropist but a school teacher at a state university. The Batman is created not as a result of a botched crime but by a mass shooting — at a zoo.

As comic book reporter Joe George put it, “In other words, this is a complete reinvention of Batman for a new generation of readers. Not the tony crimefighter of the 1930s, but a rough and tumble underdog who sees chaos, not order, as a way to deliver justice.”