what's going on guys this is Rob and we are here with absolute Batman in DC's New absolute Universe which is just DC's version of The Ultimate Universe in Marvel Comics but Scott Snider killed this story it's amazing so what this does is this opens up with Gotham City and initially we follow this guy on a motorcycle and he has this really really cool monologue right where he says hello again Gotham it's been a long time so who are you these days who have you become while I was gone you're prettier I'll give you that taller
and brighter my third lap around and I still cannot find it where's your heart you used to have a center hot and beating but something's hollowed you out in fact I barely recognize you anymore I'm not sure I like this new you Gotham but that's okay I don't think you're going to like me much either my name is Alfred pennyworth and I'm here to do some bad things this is so cool because I'll tell you guys right now yes this is a Batman story Alfred pennyworth is amazing in this story I don't think he's ever
been better in DC Comics than he is in this story and it's solid and so what he does is he basically makes his way back to his house which isn't really much of an apartment at all because he's not part of the Wayne family at least he's not the kindly Butler that we're traditionally used to Scott Snider leans very heavily into Alfred's military history which is to say that in DC Comics Alfred has a history largely associated with the military sometimes he was a soldier sometimes he was a medic it depends on what era of
DC Comics were talking about in this instance he has not left it behind and in fact he's really more a soldier of fortune than anything else of course he is still estrange from his daughter Julia just like he is in a lot of the other stories that exist out there the difference here is that unlike Batman Eternal in the main DC Universe where she ultimately seemed to reconcile with Alfred here none of that happens right she's just like don't ever contact me again and so for Alfred himself he signs into a secure connection to basically
his Handler the folks that pay him in order to do whatever it is that he needs to do and so what he does is he asks what's the assignment and they say in the past 3 months a gang known as the party animals has been sewing chaos butchering citizens at random raising the murder rate by 700% almost singlehandedly a daycare was torched yesterday they danced outside while 32 people died and so Alfred just kind of like I read the docket right but like why did you pull me out of Singapore I was this close to
the Target I'd been chasing him for like 5 years and that's where they say you're needed here now the cool thing is they also give him another piece of information and they say there might be another player in town we've only caught glimpses but he seems to be circling the gang as well now of course based on the little image they give him clearly it's Batman and I'll tell you guys right now absolute Batman is amazing dude oh my God I love the way that Bruce Wayne is handled in this story it's phenomenal and so
what they do is they send him coordinates to do two things the first is to monitor the party animal gang and the second is to seemingly keep tabs on Batman and that's when you switch over to Bruce Wayne himself now this is also another big difference between the main DC Universe and this absolute Universe in the sense that you pick up in Croc's gym when Bruce Wayne basically starts practicing with a punching bag and you get a little bit of a throwback to his childhood where he's spending time with his father now there is a
kind of lesson that goes back and forth where after studying the Lions and everything his father's like you know what did we learn and the response of really Batman is it says that he sleeps 20 hours a day plus he gets fed prime rib three times a day and never has to be afraid of anything this kid's living the life now what interesting here is he addresses his father as Mr Wayne there's a reason for that and it's actually a really really really cool reason but at the end of the day Thomas Wayne asks him
are you excited for the movie later on tonight of course Bruce Wayne says well you know I'm more excited for a nap than anything else and so ultimately it's just kind of like cool right let's get going class and so that's when you realize Thomas Wayne in the absolute universe is a teacher right he teaches elementary school kids he's not the ultra wealthy industrial like guy that we're familiar with with in the main DC Universe but then shots start ringing out in the zoo now of course this leads to kind of flashing back to the
moment Bruce Wayne punching the bag basically breaking it and then meeting with what you and I know is Killer Croc now he's not really the villain that we're familiar with in fact one of the other cool things as the development here is that there is a kind of conversation back and forth where they talk about how like Aussie or Oswald Cobble poot effectively hooked up Killer Croc with an exotic pet license so that's why he walks around with crocodiles and snakes and all kinds of cool reptiles but the other thing is they aren't really criminals
in fact Killer Croc seems very very active within the city of Gotham as somebody trying to improve the city which is really really cool and again we'll see how far reaching that goes here in a minute but you end up learning that like Selena Kyle Killer Croc seemingly Oswald cobblepot and most likely the Riddler just the redheaded kid in the glasses they all go back to being childhood friends right so like it's not as though they just kind of met each other indiscriminately along the way as Batman was being a villain or at least being
a Superhero fighting villains and that they just kind of did their villainous thing and that was it it's cool that you get this history here and so after that you switch over to this just giant yacht out there in the water where you basically have a meeting between the Falcone crime families and the head of the party animal gang and what's interesting here is that this party animal leader is absolutely insane I mean this dude is really really dark because of course with the Falcone and crime families they've ran Gotham for years and so some
third party suddenly showing up here out of nowhere and quote unquote upsetting the apple cart that makes a lot of enemies out of people and so they ultimately tell them like go away or we're going to kill everybody in your gang that's just what's going to happen and so what happens is that this guy tells them that he's a huge fan of what are basically death masks and in fact he says friends I'm afraid you have me all wrong history is what I'm all about that's what we're celebrating here and so when more masks are
shown to the Falcone and crime families that this guy says not just any masks Death Masks I collect him that one is rumored to be Socrates himself this of course is Martin Luther of course those of you guys who know your history know that Martin Luther is best known for the Protestant Reformation but then the head of the crime family is shown that it's not actually s who's leading it instead it's the brother of Sal who as far as I'm aware doesn't exist in any of DC Comics outside of this but one of these masks
essentially the head of Sal is held by this leader of the party animal gang along with the cousin of Mr Falcone and he's like and all the rest so in essence this guy came into town before the Falcone and crime families even UND OD what was going on and started killing everybody like killing all the other heads of the crime families in Gotham so by the time these guys come to the seat of the table and say you need to stop all your criminal activities it's too late the demons are at the door there's no
way to stop what's happening and so these guys are immediately killed on the spot and their heads are going to be mounted up just like everybody else I told you this story is amazing like it's so phenomenal and so again following that you pick up with Bruce Wayne officially daunting the Batman mantle now one of the things that had happened during the conversation between Killer Croc and Bruce Wayne is Croc had told him hey like mayor Gordon is calling a kind of town hall meeting later on tonight to address the concerns of the citizenry in
relation to the party animal gang and all the things that are going on and so again this demonstrates the fact that Croc is very very much active in the community and where one of the citizens speak up and really just kind of chastise Jim Gordon as mayor about how ineffective he is the fact that he ran on his position as a cop but he really hasn't shown any of the backbone he traditionally showed as a cop meaning he's not willing to do whatever needs to be done to protect the city of Gotham from the party
animal gang that this guy says at least mayor Hill did something and so where killer stands up and says like Hamilton hill was a crook the response this guy gives is yeah but at least he was tough and it kind of makes sense right the citizens of Gotham are desperate and in times of desperation people will believe what they want to believe it doesn't have to be rational and it doesn't have to be reasonable it's just what they choose to think and so in turn you have this other guy who tells a story and he
says I run finger tailor on 27th Street every single weekday for 71 years I've walked to my shop except the day my son was born and the day my wife died 18,32 times I've walked there but I don't walk there anymore I don't walk anywhere because I'm scared and that's really what it is when it comes to the citizens of Gotham here's the kicker about all of this while this entire town hall meeting is being conducted by mayor Jim Gordon Alfred pennyworth is staking the whole thing out and he's watching all of this and that's
when he's basically in contact with his Handler and kind of filling them in and they're giving him information different things like that the party animal gang is surrounding town hall and there's dozens of them because their intention with all these people in one place is to go in here and shoot the place up kill everybody and one Fell Swoop now where you transition back to Mayor Jim Gordon who talks about how he's going to bring these guys to Justice and that he's working around the clock with the police people call him out right and they're
like the cops man the party animals just torched a police station 2 hours ago right the cops can't do anything because these guys are not afraid of cops whenever cops meet someone with an equally capable Force the only real Ally that police have on their side is fear the fact that that person is just either too afraid of Authority or has too much respect for authority to challenge cops but when they have the means to challenge police officers and then they have no fear that's when cops serve no useful purpose in society and so that's
why a lot of these folks are so terrified now at that point seemingly Selena Kyle stands up of course most of you guys know her as Catwoman and she says look at us all of us right this is what they want all of us fighting scared blaming each other but Jim Gordon served this city honorably for a long time I work with his office and I trust him I also trust us to be better than this because it's not just up to him or commissioner bulock it's up to all of us to stop these killers
this is our city and before she can finish her sentence a grenade comes flying in really more of a flashbang and just everybody's blinded by this thing the party animals come busting in and they're just like so does anybody want to beg right like does anybody want to talk about how they have a family or you know they have kids to take care of or like a sick old grandma because we love that kind of stuff right like we absolutely love those things not only that they fire off a shot at Jim Gordon they don't
kill him but they do injure him of course you also find out that his daughter Barbara Gordon is very much here and is basically just A Beat cop but after all this is done suddenly these guys are yanked back out the door the door slams shut and like Barbara Gordon walks up cracks the door open and Batman's just waiting there and he says whatever you hear do not open this door and son son son do you guys remember that scene in hellrazer 2 when like everybody was locked in the nightclub and you were on the
outside you could hear them all screaming for their lives as they died that's basically what happens here man son son Batman lets loose and it's amazing so like Alfred pennyworth is watching all this unfold and he's told like if this third party disrupts the intelligence you're supposed to be gathering you are to engage and so pennyworth is like okay then he shuts his eyes right because he can't stop what he can't see plausible deniability and so all these guys right these party animal dudes just start firing it up at Batman who's just like hanging from
the rafters and then like it turns out his entire outfit is bulletproof and this guy descends on them like a demon and without saying one word starts taking out every single one of these guys now while all this is going on Alfred pennyworth who's really more listening to everything than physically watching everything gives this really cool monologue and this amazing insight into the nature of this version of Batman and he says look at you go whoever you are you've got flare I'll give you that so let's see what you can really do and so in
watching Batman fight he says you're fast you're steady above all you're focused you've been waiting for this haven't you you have you've trained to mixed martial arts which is your own blend Muay Thai Brazilian jiu-jitsu but you're a striker Above All Else brutal yet precise you're putting on a show a leg stomped on so everyone hears the crack an arm snapped over your knee sending a message to every single person you're enjoying it too and the knife work my God so bloody yet so precise each artery is missed by just enough no fatalities at all
not one so that means you're an idealist now this leads to this guy called the hand or at least seemingly he just addresses himself and saying this hand has killed more people than you can count now I'm going to give you one chance to get out of our way now it's kind of a cool thing because I'd like to think this guy is just called the hand of course this guy breaks out the biggest meat cleaver I've ever seen so what does Batman do he returns in kind and he brings out the Batman battle axe
which is dope and just cuts this guy's hand clean off right just like that and he just tells him even kind of taunting him he's like there's a hospital around here somewhere but I can't remember which direction it is so you better start running unless you want to bleed to death and then he tells the rest of them which really kind of reveals more that the party animals kind of rely on numbers and really threat of danger for their schemes than any actual backbone Batman tells them like get out of my way and like they
all just take off running now Alfred watching this he says well done but if you were a true tactician you'd have set up a trap for those that were fleeing the scene only to find out that he did right Batman seemingly activated this whole thing and blows this place to pieces now it's not enough to kill everybody here but it is enough to get the job done and so Alfred is told by his contact right they're said what's going on there the satellite makes no sense whoever the player is you are to engage and Alfred
says okay so Alfred moves up on Batman and then he says this is the sound of a dc34 automatic shotgun son there are only three of them in the world could blow your brains all over the sidewalk before you even blink what does Batman say man son you better come strong kicks Alfred knocks the gun out of his hand and then takes off with the gun right he's just like it sounds dangerous and he just leaves and so after that you have Alfred who basically does this huge deep down investigation on who this Batman guy
is and in effect he gives us the modern-day origin of absolute Batman in the absolute universe and he says the next day everyone's talking about it who is the Batman so who are you really Bruce Wayne you hide your tracks well but it's easy when you're no one just some guy 24 years old your mom is a social worker your dad is a teacher you grow up in Crime Alley High Friends in Low Places a tight group you're smart excel in school your parents have you tested and you score near genius level then in the
fifth grade you win a student engineering competition creating a mobile collapsible bridge that can be used to bring Aid to locations hit by catastrophic damage from war and cataclysm the design is origami like based on the anatomy of a Batwing and the prize is a trophy and a trip for your whole class to the Gotham Zoo where it all starts because somebody starts firing into the crowd people are literally perishing here and so Thomas Wayne grabs all the kids and takes them into the bat house where he tells them all to stay safe but in
the midst of it he seemingly shot and so what happens is Alfred says after that you lose yourself for a while you lash out you rage at the world but then you find yourself again something inspires you you straighten out you go back to school and get a scholarship to the best university in the state but when you get there you get injured in the first week a soft tissue tap hair and he says I've seen the x-rays though and I've been in command of men who fake injury to escape Duty and I suspect that's
exactly what you did but why you were good enough to be a star even go pro because you were saving your body for last night for all of this whatever it is that you've built you studied applied mechanics chemistry criminal psychology military Theory sociocultural history everything thing to prepare you for when you came home and then you did you set up in Gotham and worked in the power grid then the water department after that you intern at City Hall studying public policy macro and micro policy learning your city the body the brain every single part
of Gotham until finally you come full circle ever the engineer creating building you even fix what you break repairing the stairs that you blew up last night you've built something here Bruce I see it now and it's truly impressive but it's really awesome because what it does is it removes Batman from the traditional plot device type character where he's like I know the city inside and out because I've been in it for a very long time and instead it provides a more practical explanation for why Batman knows the city so well which is why I
say the absolute universe is DC's version of Marvel's Ultimate Universe because the Ultimate Universe was kind of the answer to the question what what if superheroes were more grounded and existed in the modern day what would it look like and that's what the absolute universe is right it's really cool the way it's done and so what ends up happening is Alfred says I've taken men down like you before in cities and jungles and deserts all over the world because you're Crusaders and Crusaders always have a weakness because they always have something that they care about
and yours is sitting right there which is his mom that Martha Wayne seemingly never died it was just his father so you can kind of draw these almost Peter Parker parallels between this version of Batman and the one that you traditionally see in DC Comics where he lost both parents and so it's essentially them just kind of talking and Bruce saying you know you know I love you and that kind of thing and the way you would relate to your parent essentially and so Alfred kind of continues on and he says I could kill you
right here in front of her it would be that easy it's what I should do but you're just just a kid and so at the end of the day you have Alfred who shows up to Batman in what's effectively is hide up but it's not really down in the Batcave under Wayne Manor because there is no Wayne Manor it's hard to have a Wayne Manor when your mom's just a social worker and doesn't make billions and billions of dollars and so where Bruce Wayne resides here is actually on top of these old abandoned buildings almost
up in the sky and so it allows him to operate with no one batting an eye on what he's doing because the building buildings are designed to just kind of be like tax fronts right that they're really more write-offs than anything else so the buildings are unoccupied nobody actually uses them and so Alfred showing up here with his pistol is like I'm shutting you down right that's the end of it and so Batman draws the very gun that he took from Alfred right that dc34 shotgun and Alfred's like I thought you were better than this
right you're non-lethal you don't kill people right and so he's like give me the gun and Batman opens fire on Alfred right seemingly blows this guy away and then he takes his motorcycle and he rides off now here's the cool thing right again Alfred provides commentary here he's like a few things happen very fast first I realized that he modified my prize shotgun to be non-lethal basically he ruined it second I hear my very gun clatter by my side as though he's saying keep it and third I hear this Roar the Roar of my own
motorcycle and four his voice says you're not the the only one who follows people so seemingly from the first time that Alfred pennyworth arrived in the city of Gotham Bruce Wayne's been following him he's been learning about him gaining information in the same way that Alfred's been gaining information about him and so the question that really Alfred asks here is what does all this mean and where are you going right like when you ride off like this are you going to get the lay of the land is that what this is for what happens when
you basically basically become the person that you really are intending to be not only that you pick up with this epilogue which is really really cool where Alfred speaking with his contact says I'll take care of Batman the next time he interferes and his contact says okay deal but for what it's worth the Target that you were previously following in the Philippines before we yanked you out and brought you here he's in the wind nobody knows where he is we thought you should know here's the thing it's amazing because what happens is Alfred says five
years I tracked him while he studied with Henry Ducard in France then he killed the guy while he trained with the League of Assassins and then he killed them now this guy's in the wind and so you pick up in Manila and basically you have these two pilots right one of them says or really asks here to be honest is there nothing else that we call him besides sir like there's no name or anything like that and the other pilot says Nope like all the names are fake anyway Jack Arthur even I don't know his
real name when you're one of the 30 richest men on the planet you can be whoever you want to be and so this other guy says you think he'd want to be my rich generous best friend and this guy says no right don't do that do not joke and where the guy asks why the second pilot says didn't you hear the guy never laughs not at anything ever that's why they call him the Joker with that being said guys we're going to bring this to an end Scott Snider's back son and I am so excited
to see where this goes but thank you all for watching if you enjoyed this video make sure you drop a like and I will catch you all later peace
