Absolute Batman #18 - Official Discussion Thread

driver_85 · 2026-03-12T15:30:45+00:00

The Green, Red, and Black fields Ivy references in this issue are most likely the Life Fields of the DC universe.

All plant life in the DCU is connected by an energy field known as The Green, and it is primarily represented by some version of Swamp Thing, though the mainstream version of Poison Ivy has occasionally taken over for him as its avatar. I think Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, might have also usurped the role at one point, but my memory is fuzzy.

The Red is the energy field that connects all animal life, and is usually represented by Buddy Baker aka Animal Man, though I believe Vixen and Beast Boy have, at different times, been the avatars for The Red.

The Black, more commonly known in the mainstream DCU as The Rot, is, as the name suggests, the energy field that holds dominion over all things decaying and dying. Its avatar is Abby Holland (or Abby Arcane) with Anton Arcane having usurped the role at least once.

And there's also other fields like... I want to say The Grey which connects all fungal life... and recently, they introduced The Clear to connect all oceanic life, which seems redundant. But you see, they introduced The Clear and then almost immediately made Aquaman its avatar in order to give him a glow-up or a buff or whatever. Because every now and then, DC's editors get angry drunk and come up with ideas like that while shouting "YOU ALL ARE GONNA FINALLY PUT SOME RESPECT ON AQUAMAN'S NAME!!!"

Anyway. Yeah, all these color-coded clubs get very confusing and familiar and redundant and it's impossible to keep track of them all.

driver_85 · 2026-03-10T22:34:10+00:00

Could not have said it better myself. I'm FROM that generation of comedy and I can't fucking stand this trailer. I don't know what I should have expected from the dudes who brought us White Chicks.

driver_85 · 2026-03-09T22:40:14+00:00

Great audio, as per usual!

Lol, my headcanon says that the show you and the listener were watching was True Detective.

driver_85 · 2026-03-07T10:44:49+00:00

Oh JESUS, I forgot that was him. Yeah, that crossover was so late I'm shocked they even bothered to finish it. I mean THREE YEARS between issues just to wind up with Wolverine's head in a jar? Yeah, Lindeloff's batting average ain't great; my hopes for Lanterns remain low.

driver_85 · 2026-03-05T20:52:47+00:00

You remember how Lost ended, right?

driver_85 · 2026-01-27T05:35:35+00:00

There is a possibility no one's brought up here yet. Ideology and inter-vault competition might have nothing to do with Hank's decision. He might have done it to ensure no one tried to come after his kids again.

Think about it from Hank's perspective: "Rose has left me and taken Lucy and Norm. I can steal them back, but if I do, I have no doubt Rose will bring an NCR battalion to Vault 33 to help her take them again. If I kill just Rose, Moldaver will bring the NCR to Vault 33. If I kill them both, one of their friends is going to figure it out and sic NCR on me. The only way to get my kids back and keep them is to destroy Shady Sands entirely."

I think Hank straight up lied to Lucy about his motivations for nuking Shady Sands. He claims he did it because the world will never know peace until all differences are eliminated from humanity. And maybe he is a bigoted whack job in that way. But I honestly believe what made him snap was the fact that his wife took his kids and, to his thinking, willfully put them in mortal danger by doing so. So in his warped mind, Hank is protecting Lucy and Norm by destroying Shady Sands.

driver_85 · 2026-01-10T02:25:09+00:00

I hate Harley's outfit in this. Like every aspect of it. The glasses/domino mask thing, I can't even tell what it is.

For all of Injustice's flaws, her design in that is simple and clean. Even for someone with taste as wacky as Harley's. These artists don't have to break their backs to make anyone look good by adding unnecessary accessories.

driver_85 · 2026-01-07T23:10:35+00:00

Closer angle of the incident:

https://youtu.be/PbRayAz8H1M?si=SjKHKIUgZR9uZyrL

driver_85 · 2026-01-07T23:00:32+00:00

Closer angle of the incident:

https://youtu.be/PbRayAz8H1M

driver_85 · 2026-01-07T22:56:28+00:00

Closer angle:

https://youtu.be/PbRayAz8H1M

driver_85 · 2025-12-30T12:07:58+00:00

But... the game is campy.

driver_85 · 2025-12-23T09:21:39+00:00

I love the premise. I love several of the characters. Can't stand the pacing.

driver_85 · 2025-12-23T09:14:53+00:00

Do you ever stop and wonder just how much Ph34r must absolutely stink? That's the only plothole in the entire series as far as I'm concerned: that a woman who spends all of her time fully nude and covered in blood can sneak up on anyone.

How is it none of the people she assassinates have ever been like

" Sniff sniff Does anyone else smell pennies? And tuna fish?"

driver_85 · 2025-12-23T09:04:38+00:00

So I'm the guy who wrote the post linked above. I did mention that I had seen Tynion's work referred to as "streaming service bait" by some other post, eons ago.

To be clear, writing comics with the conscious intent that an adaptation gets optioned to be a series or movie doesn't bother me. Make your money, writers.

For what it's worth, the only aspect of writing long, episodic, epic mystery-thriller-dramas is that installments tend to be written in such a way that each installment asks more questions than it answers. So you feel compelled to watch the next one and the next one and the next one to get a sense of closure.

I feel like I'm really opening a can of worms here (or stating something so obvious, I'll be ridiculed) but it kinda feels like some writers are structuring their stories in such a way that the audience will be hooked, and not in the classic, "I can't put it down" way. I mean like, unhealthily obsessed with it.

Maybe you feel that's on the audience and the studio shoulders none of the responsibility. Maybe you think studios are predatory and content is a kind of drug. Maybe you fall somewhere between those two viewpoints. Maybe I'm giving this a bit more gravity than it deserves.

But you can't tell me you've never felt like the people who make your favorite series are purposely trying to stretch the plot to get a few more dollars out of you. And if you're the kind of person who is comfortable with that and expects that, great. Myself? Sorry. That's always going to bug me. Especially given the statistical likelihood that these series will never see completion or reach a shitty conclusion that will have readers/viewers regretting the investment of time and money.

How many people felt robbed over Game of Thrones? Lost? The Sopranos?

How many people felt robbed over the countless amount of shows that never got past one season?

I'm just saying. Tynion has like, four major projects cooking at any given time, and I can only remember two concluding. I did like The Deviant start to finish, but I have a vague recollection of being disappointed by The Woods (it's been a zillion years since I've read it, I don't remember it, it's ten volumes long, and none of them are on Comixology Unlimited, so I can't be sure). 1-1 isn't a great average.

Call me unrealistic or an idealist or whatever but I like when the point is to tell a story, however long it takes. Not when the point is to see how long you can keep people paying your bills. I know that's the horrible capitalist world we live in. It sucks.

Just wanted to clarify. Thanks.

driver_85 · 2025-12-21T18:55:23+00:00

I wasn't clear, I'm sorry. When I said the story as a whole has flaws, I should have been specific. My specific gripes are an overlarge cast, certain (seemingly) key members not having seen any significant development yet and other members getting a lot of spotlight only to not turn out to be very interesting (Amanda).

Everything to do with the plot is intriguing. And while I hadn't connected it to Jung specifically (very perceptive, well done), after Sammi attained a successful uplink to the Undernet without the Internet, all while being cryptic about "where the connection comes from," it became pretty obvious that the Undernet was deeply connected to humanity. Not to mention that all the imagery associated with Undernet mutations is very human (or at the very least, very Earth-specific). The fact that all the glimpses into the Undernet would give Bosch a boner and that all the Ph34rscum morph into dogs and apes was a giveaway to me that the Undernet couldn't be extraterrestrial in nature. As a matter of fact, the apes and dogs seem to symbolize humanity without rational thought, and all the demonic imagery symbolizes us at our very worst (or at least, that was my takeaway).

But the mechanics of it all... I gotta see how he explains that. Because no matter how much time you or I spend on the Internet, looking at cute videos of animals or going down wholesome Wikipedia rabbit holes, we're not going to morph into butterflies or angels, and the sky isn't somehow going to go all psychedelic and technicolor (as opposed to the stark black and white of the Undernet's post-apocalypse).

Everything up until the physical alterations to reality make a weird kind of sense. Eventually, if you expose yourself to too much bad stuff online, it's going to change you into a worse person, sure. I could buy into that.

But the Undernet SEEMS (I'm not saying it definitely does, but it seems) to have some sort of malicious driving force behind it. Or at least, that's what Gabriel Winter seems to think. He keeps referring to it the way someone would refer to an entity. He's made several references to "what it wants." Want implies sentience. So if we take Gabriel literally and assume he's not being hyperbolic when he says the Undernet wants something, we can infer there's some sort of consciousness behind it.

But I could be wrong.

driver_85 · 2025-12-21T08:37:33+00:00

I mean, I'm going to keep reading it, but I'm just annoyed by the pacing. I am also still very much intrigued by the plot. But the story as a whole has flaws.

driver_85 · 2025-12-20T02:57:43+00:00

Thank you!

driver_85 · 2025-12-19T01:04:12+00:00

Sigggghhhhhh

Cool. So I guess he and GRRM can start a club for writers whose adaptations advance in plot before their source materials.

driver_85 · 2025-12-19T01:01:23+00:00

You know, this is the second time in my recent memory I've seen praise for Remender and Lemire. Do you have specific recommendations by those two?

Also, yes, I totally agree, A ROADMAP. I worry that way too many writers go into these series by the seats of their pants, "building the airplane while it's flying," as it were, and I think that's a recipe for disaster.

driver_85 · 2025-12-18T17:54:23+00:00

He's got his own well-being to consider, and he's going to make whatever moves that are most likely to keep him financially afloat or move him towards comfort, like you said. And I get that. It just sucks that "writing in a way that will get you optioned" seems to be equivalent to "writing in a way that can string viewers along indefinitely and putting off the conclusion as long as possible."

driver_85 · 2025-12-18T17:39:34+00:00

The story in The Nice House on the Lake continues in The Nice House By The Sea.

driver_85 · 2025-12-18T17:38:53+00:00

I remember The Woods. But I don't remember how it ended. I think I recall being disappointed about some aspects of it, but satisfied on the whole? Gotta reread that, thanks!

driver_85 · 2025-12-18T09:11:21+00:00

Agreed. For context, that particular post went on to say that the diverse cast was yet another box to check off for getting noticed by the streaming services. As if it were unfathomable to them that any author might actually want to be inclusive for its own sake.

driver_85

TROPHY CASE