With the release of Absolute Batman #1, DC has officially kicked off the Absolute Universe. Similar to Marvel's Ultimate Universe line, the Absolute Universe is devoted to exploring streamlined, modernized versions of iconic heroes,

Why can’t you see the funny side?” Joker asks Batman in The Killing Joke. “Why aren’t you laughing?” In Wednesday’s Absolute Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta — a reinvention of the Dark Knight set in the new Absolute DC Universe — it’s the Joker who isn’t laughing.

Absolute Batman #1 by writer Scott Snyder (author of some of the best Batman comics) and artist Nick Dragotta, colorist Frank Martin, and letterer Clayton Cowles introduces us to a 24-year-old Bruce Wayne. He still lives in Gotham, but pretty much everything else about his life has been flipped on its head.

Part of the brief, veteran Batman writer Scott Snyder tells Polygon, was modernization. “The challenge with the Absolute Universe was: If you think about the world as it is now, and if you had the ability to change any of the contextual elements about the character,