DC’s Absolute Superman has the hero refusing to use generative AI

When DC Comics’ Absolute line was leaked, then announced in 2024, one arresting picture sucked all of the air out of the room: the widest, square-est model of Batman anybody had ever seen. The concept when veteran Batman author Scott Snyder had the chance to remake Batman from the bottom up in a darker setting, his first directive to artist Nick Dragotta was to make him frick-kin’ yuge was intriguing, to say the least.

The visuals of Absolute Batman’s sibling books, Absolute Surprise Lady and Absolute Superman, weren’t fairly so shocking. Surprise Lady has carried a sword and worn pants earlier than; Superman has had shaggy hair. Batman was so huge, he made his fellow heroes’ reimagined designs look regular by comparability. It’s no surprise Absolute Batman grew to become the guide to fixate on.

However three months into the run of every guide, Absolute Surprise Lady and Absolute Superman are sprinting towards all-time-great comedian guide standing, partly as a result of the writers and artists had been capable of hold their largest, most of-the-moment twists on two very previous superhero tales an entire secret till simply the proper second. Possibly they had been hidden behind the youthful Batman’s outstanding girth?

A brand new yr is a time for reflection. I’ve been doing a little reflecting, and I’m keen to say it: DC Comics’ Absolute Universe guidelines a lot more durable than I ever anticipated it to, in a manner I assumed was not possible. It’s giving me a darkish timeline that really feels good to go to.

[Ed. note: This piece contains some spoilers for the first three issues each of Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Superman.]

I get now why author Kelly Thompson and artist Hayden Sherman wished to maintain the small print of Absolute Surprise Lady on the down-low through the preliminary challenge announcement. Despite the fact that their first difficulty actually takes place in hell, it’s splendidly quiet, sluggish, and comfortable in a manner that month-to-month superhero books hardly ever ever get to be, and in a manner that might undergo in abstract. They ship a Diana who has been separated from her Amazonian heritage by divine edict, however who is decided to be a bulwark between humanity and horrible monsters, even when that requires spitting within the face of gods. Additionally, I gained’t spoil it right here, however #3 reveals one thing about Diana’s… physicality… in such an informal manner that it hits like a Mack truck.

In the meantime, within the first three problems with Absolute Superman, author Jason Aaron and artist Rafa Sandoval have drummed out a gentle sequence of subversions to the Superman story we predict we all know. Higher but, they’ve taken the time to point out these variations have which means, exterior of the shock of the surprising. Their Superman nonetheless grew up on a farm — a farm on Krypton, an especially stratified society wherein his household is from the laborer caste.

Superman’s relationship to his doomed homeworld is historically distant, however Kal-El the curious preteen offers Aaron and Sandoval a automobile to show the failings of Kryptonian society from a close-up view, opening Absolute Superman #2 with little Kal getting written up in school (distant class solely) for writing an essay himself, as an alternative of utilizing the pc to AI-generate one, based mostly on the Kryptonian database of all accredited information. They set up all this element in a mere two panels that can hit any school-age child, mum or dad of such, or instructor with the chilling punch of an efficient ghost story.

The third difficulty, launched on the primary day of 2025, offers the acquainted Superman origin story one other trenchantly fashionable twist. On this model of the story, the leaders of Krypton don’t refuse to imagine the warnings that their planet is dying, thus perishing together with it. Right here, they help the phantasm that every thing is regular and below management, whereas secretly constructing huge escape ships for the elite castes alone.

Kal-El’s mother and father, in the meantime, have been establishing their very own ship for the paltry few laborers they will match on it. What occurs subsequent? Do the elite Kryptonians survive? Do Kal’s mother and father? To date, they’ve solely been seen in flashback, so I assume I’m ready for Absolute Superman #4 to search out out.

For comics readers, the Darkish Timeline is among the oldest methods within the guide. Possibly there’s a dark future the heroes need to avert, or a factor may have gone terribly unsuitable if only What If…? Or it’s the long run and nothing’s as good or easy as it used to be. Or perhaps there’s an entire multiverse where things turned out so bad that the universes inside it are good for nothing greater than kindling in a cosmic forge. “A well-known setting, however shockingly worse” is a simple nicely to return to.

When the Absolute setting was introduced as a darker model of the DC universe, created by the evil god Darkseid for someday-to-be-revealed darkish functions, it felt like mere repetition. “On this universe, the heroes come up in ways in which make them underdogs,” Scott Snyder stated in an announcement video, making the case that direr origins would make it resonate much more when Batman, Superman, Surprise Lady — and upcoming Absolute heroes like Inexperienced Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and the Flash — inevitably made the choice to fight against the darkness anyway.

I didn’t assume Snyder and the remainder of the parents on DC’s Absolute books would have the ability to execute on that concept so shortly and persistently throughout three inventive groups and three very completely different revisionary ideas. These first three Absolute books aren’t simply strong, they’re incisive, significant, and gorgeously advised. Thompson and Sherman’s Surprise Lady is about love within the face of self-denial, and claiming your identification even within the face of divine censorship. Aaron and Sandoval’s Superman is about motion and striving and tragedy, but in addition the enjoyment of writing and the ability of telling the reality.

In an period the place companies are censoring references to queer or trans characters out of fear of backlash, there’s a resonance in having Surprise Lady defy divine regulation to talk the phrase “Amazon” aloud. Particularly, there’s resonance in giving that second to a queer-coded character. (And sometimes, recently, thank goodness, a straight-up queer one.) I do need to see Surprise Lady defying guidelines imposed on her from above. I do need to see Superman rejecting generative AI as a homogenizing, lie-spreading pressure. I do need to see him navigating a metaphor for the billionaire-backed push to escape Earth’s climate problems by constructing a Mars base on the backs of indentured labor.

Absolute Surprise Lady and Absolute Superman are going there: Not simply making up harsh alternate futures for the sake of grim-and-gritty storytelling, however presenting them as our harsh futures, with the promise that they’re shaping heroes to struggle again. I get sufficient “darkish timeline” vibes from life within the 2020s. The least my comedian guide darkish timelines can do is punch the true ones within the face on occasion.