Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities DC Comics' Absolute Universe

I only heard about it a little while ago. It seems to be a similar premise to the original Marvel Ultimate line (before Millar f_cked everything up.)

Scott Snyder is the "showrunner," overseeing scripts by such writers as Kelly Thompson and Jason Aaron.

To reiterate, I think Ultimate Marvel got off to a good start with the early Bendis/Bagley Spider-Man stories, before Millar took it down an ugly path.

Sorry there's no links yet (I worry about my device's security too much), but I'm sure others can provide them.

The S on Superman's chest doesn't stand for France, that's for sure.

LOL

So I read the first issues of the new Absolute versions of the Trinity. They were interesting takes, but I'm not sure any of them impressed me enough that I really want to read them on an ongoing basis.

They all have a similar idea of taking the characters and moving them to a much less "privileged" background. So, Superman's Kryptonian parents were part of the labor caste rather than the science caste on Krypton, and apparently the Kents didn't adopt him on Earth. Batman's dad was a teacher and his mom a social worker. And Wonder Woman was taken from the Amazons as a baby and raised in exile by Circe.

Superman was by far the best of the three, with an interesting present-day story that returned him to his Golden Age "champion of the oppressed roots", mixed with the flashbacks to his background on Krypton. My favorite bit of the Batman story was the fact that he apparently hangs out with many of his traditional villains, but I found the whole rivalry between him and Alfred as a government agent a bit annoying. The Wonder Woman backstory was fun, but the present-day story was mostly her fighting a bunch of monsters, which didn't really seem all that interesting.

So, yeah, it was kind of a fun Elseworlds sort of thing, but long-term... I don't know. I'll probably check out the rest of the first issues. The Martian Manhunter one actually looks really cool.

Thanks for the reviews, EDE. Much appreciated.

Superman and Wonder Woman will definitely get a look from me (Diana's Absolute writer is my heroine Kelly Thompson.)
No interest in Batman, no matter how the concept is tweaked or who the creative team is.

And I'm going to do a search for Absolute Martian Manhunter right now.

The Wonder Woman origin felt like it was influenced by Madeline Miller's Circe, which was cool.

Excellent!

Yeah, I thought they were alright, but have to wait to see if they will be really interesting.

Absolute Wonder Woman is a breath of fresh air after the past year of Tom King's mess. Like why is it so hard to get a writer on Wonder Woman who actually cares about her AND knows what to do with her in a story in a main universe book?

I don't have an opinion on Batman or Superman, but Kelly's Wonder Woman was enjoyable from beginning to end.

After reading Sarky's review of Absolute Wonder Woman, I'm more excited about reading it than ever.

I've read the Batman and WW, but not Supes yet. Hopefully soon.

I really liked both of them. Very well written from a narrative and visual perspective, IMO.

I just finished reading the first issue of Absolute Wonder Woman.

I so, SO wanted to love this book, not just because it's Kelly, but also because the themes and subtext of Kelly's reinvisioning of WW are very dear to my heart. As well as timely and relevant in these difficult times that are a-changing.

I can forgive the occasional awkwardness in Kelly's dialogue, but I just cannot abide such horrible artwork and coloring. If this were an Elseworlds prose novel, I would feast on it and enjoy every bite. But it's comics, it's visual, I'm a visual person by nature, and I just don't connect with it.

The best I can do instead of investing in this series month after month is to passionately recommend it to readers who are not put off by the visuals like I am. I plan to tell everyone I know to give this series a chance and, if they connect with it, to please spread the word.