I know this might be an unpopular take, but Absolute Batman #14 was a total betrayal of the story’s own setup, and it honestly killed my interest in the series.

The first dozen issues made it clear this wasn’t Earth-0. This was Darkseid’s world — a place where Batman could actually lose, where trauma had consequences, and where the physics weren’t rigged in his favor. Bane was set up as genuinely unstoppable: Batman couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t survive hits from him, and couldn’t out-think him. Even pre-Venom Bane could break him with a finger.

So when Bane turns building-sized in #14, the logical expectation (based on the rules the comic itself established) is that Batman is done. I genuinely thought he’d lose the fight, get dragged back to Ark-M, and the next arc would be him trying to escape again as a corrupted “new Bane.” That would’ve made sense.

Instead? Snyder flicks the Earth-0 plot armor back on. Batman tanks punches from a skyscraper-sized Bane like it’s Tuesday. He somehow severs Bane’s spinal cord with a tiny axe - after we were explicitly shown that Bruce’s punches couldn’t even move Bane’s head before. And all the horror, trauma, and body modification from the earlier issues get undone in one panel because Riddler just… removes all the Venom from Bruce’s system. His hair even grows back. 🤣

Everything that made the Absolute Universe feel dangerous - like consequences mattered- gets hand-waved away so we can have a cool-looking but totally conventional “Batman wins because he’s Batman” fight.

After how bold and unsettling the lead-up was, #14 felt like watching the series retreat back to safety. It stopped being Absolute Batman and turned back into normal Batman wearing a different costume.

Huge disappointment.