This 1 Thing About DC’s Absolute Universe Doesn’t Make Any Sense (& It Needs to be Explained ASAP)

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Posted 10 hours ago by inuno.ai

Category: Animations & Comics

The all-new Absolute Universe from DC Comics has proven to be one of the most exciting and successful revamps in recent comic book history, and many fans find themselves more enraptured with books like Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman than they are with the mainline versions of the same books.

While the Absolute Universe has been a rousing success so far, there are still aspects of the new world’s creation that haven’t sat well with some fans. There are certain things surrounding the logic of this brand-new universe that don’t quite add up with longtime readers, and it’s something that DC needs to address soon.

The Absolute Universe Was Created By Darkseid

The Terrifying Villain Created a Brave New World to Mirror the Mainline DCU

Featured in the pages of DC All In Special #1, the creation of the Absolute Universe came about as a result of the villainous Darkseid and his schemes to take on the heroes of the DC Universe. Finding a way to merge with the ultra-powerful Spectre entity, Darkseid finds himself facing a new kind of power. Less interested in the total ruling of the DC Universe and much more interested in creating something new, Darkseid finds himself forming a new universe, one built from the ground up as something bold and different from the mainline DC Universe that fans know and love.

The new universe created by Darkseid was supposedly created using negative energy as opposed to the mainline universe’s positive energy, and this basis for a brand-new universe meant that goodness and justice would have to try much harder in order to prevail. In other words, this new universe is built on negativity itself. With this, Darkseid set out to create a world that would be almost impossible for heroes to pop up within. Hopeless, terrifying, and all-encompassing, the Absolute Universe was designed by the villain as a place free from the righteousness of characters like Superman and Batman.

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What Darkseid didn’t consider, however, is the fact that goodness often shines through in even the darkest of places. Something that a character like Darkseid simply cannot understand is the idea that goodness will always triumph over evil, no matter how long it takes. The core ideas of comic book superhero storytelling are rooted in this idea: that the heroes will prevail over the villains. So, even with Darkseid creating the Absolute Universe, and designing it specifically so heroes won’t appear, characters like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have arrived on the scene, to some fans’ confusion.

The Absolute Universe Was Meant to Strip Its Characters of What Makes Them Heroes

Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman Were Never Meant to Become Heroes Because Their Circumstances Were Drastically Changed

Darkseid’s plans for the Absolute Universe haven’t been fully revealed as of yet, but it is clear that the early days of his creation were designed around the idea of doing away with heroes and their actions. In order to do this, Darkseid created a world where the circumstances for heroes to appear were changed drastically.

For example, in the Abolute Universe, Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, did not grow up as the child of uber-rich socialite parents. Instead, he grew up in a humble, working-class family, with no access to the crazy technology and immense pool of resources that the mainline Batman has. Kal-El found himself stripped of his major emotional connection to Earth, instead becoming a lonesome drifter, longing for the past he remembers vividly on Krypton. Diana of Themyscira found herself without an island, without her fellow Amazons, and quite literally stuck in Hell.

These shocking changes to iconic characters were enough to draw in longtime fans and curious new readers, as well as convince Darkseid within the universe that they would be enough to dissuade the characters from ever becoming what they would have been in the mainline universe. Taking away Batman’s money seemed to be enough, in Darkseid’s eyes. Severing Superman’s close ties to humankind was adequate to the ruler of Apokolips. Cutting off Wonder Woman from everything she’d ordinarily hold dear was apparently acceptable for his plans.

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Many fans have found themselves confused and searching for answers about why, despite these changes, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman don’t seem to have fundamentally changed as much as expected. However, the fans questioning this are making the same crucial mistake Darkseid made when he created the Absolute Universe—they are underestimating the power of heroes. The Absolute Universe so far has featured so many epic moments that prove that these heroes are more than their circumstances.

Darkseid Doesn’t Understand What Truly Makes a Hero

The Tyrannical Villain Cannot Comprehend the Utter Goodness of the DC Trinity

Sometimes, the greatest weakness of a supervillain is their innate failure to understand what is often so obvious to readers and the heroes of the story. Why does the Joker act the way he does? Why can’t Doctor Doom just make peace with Reed Richards? Why doesn’t Darkseid understand that the changes made to the Absolute Universe aren’t going to be enough? The answer is simple: these characters are inherently broken, misinformed individuals who cannot comprehend ideas like altruism, empathy, or goodness.

It’s not a matter of them not wanting to do those things; they simply don’t get them. The Joker can’t act any other way, Doctor Doom is too single-minded to ever make peace with the Fantastic Four, and Darkseid is so far on the other end of the heroic spectrum that he could never understand that circumstances are almost never the end all, be all of superheroes and their stories.

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Taking away Bruce Wayne’s money and influence doesn’t take away what makes him a hero. The recent era of mainline Batman stories has proven he’s much more than his wealth. Superman doesn’t need to have been raised by Ma and Pa Kent in Smallville to have goodness in his heart and a desire to help the less fortunate. Wonder Woman doesn’t need her island of Amazons or a connection to her people’s past to be a beacon of hope, optimism, and peace.

These heroes are so much more than their advantages. In fact, these heroes are so much more rooted in their own disadvantages. Batman is who he is because of what he doesn’t have. The same applies for Superman and Wonder Woman. They are outsiders, loners, and outcasts in society—in the Absolute Universe or in the mainline DC Universe. It doesn’t matter. Either way, these heroes are characters who are stuck on the outside of the world, on the fringes of society, looking in. They are simultaneously desperate to have what any ordinary person has, while also understanding that they have a responsibility to protect and watch over those who cannot do so for themselves.

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So, while it is understandable for fans to be a little confused at the seeming lack of major change between the Absolute versions of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman and their mainline universe counterparts, these fans are missing the point. They’re doing exactly what the villain of the story is doing. DC Comics might want to go out of their way sooner rather than later to outwardly express this idea and get it across to the unconvinced readers, but as of right now, the ways in which the Absolute Universe has handled the stories of its alternative heroes have been nothing short of excellent.

There have been countless moments in the Absolute Universe that had fans utterly gripped, and with new books like Absolute Flash, Absolute Martian Manhunter, and Absolute Green Lantern coming soon, fans will be able to see just how wrong Darkseid was about the nature of heroism in the DC Universe.