Written by: Scott Snyder
Art by: Jock
Colors by: Frank Martin
Letters by: Clayton Cowles
Cover art by: Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin (cover A)
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: December 10, 2025
Absolute Batman #15, by DC Comics on 12/10/25, trades the venom-soaked cage match with Bane for a historical deep dive into a shadowy new threat: a man named Jack Grimm.
First Impressions
The opening pages hit with immediate tension. Bruce and Alfred's quiet conversation in the cave establishes stakes without a single punch being thrown. What strikes hardest is how Snyder frames information delivery: instead of action sequences, the emotional core becomes Alfred's weariness and Bruce's hunger for answers. The choice to make dialogue the weapon here works because it shifts the entire story's energy into cerebral dread rather than physical conflict.
Recap
The previous issue culminated in Batman's ideological victory over Bane. Despite losing his venom infusion, Bruce refused to be broken, choosing to fight on his own terms while Waylon's boxing match mirrored the main event. Batman won by staying true to his code, with Catwoman delivering the final blow that sent Bane into the bay. The issue closed with a dangerous tease: someone visiting Bane in prison, promising him that conflict and chaos would continue, setting the stage for larger forces at play.
Plot Analysis
The issue opens with Bruce and Alfred in the cave, where Alfred finally reveals information he has held back for three years. He explains his investigation into a man named Jack Grimm, owner of hundreds of remote, uninhabited islands across the globe. Alfred has been unable to determine what's real and what's fabrication about this figure, describing him as "The Man in White" who never laughs. Bruce pushes Alfred to move past facts and into belief, and Alfred complies with a historical genealogy of the Grimm family, stretching back to 1888.
Alfred traces Jack Grimm I from his origins as a street orphan in Gotham who became a vaudeville clown and silent film producer. The first Jack leveraged laughter and spectacle into wealth, became a philanthropist devoted to children's causes, and supposedly died in 1938. His descendants, Jack Jr., Jack III, and Jack IV, continued expanding the family's entertainment empire into television, gaming systems, and now global charitable initiatives. Jack Grimm V, the current figure of interest, has become a trillionaire through online gaming platforms and GPU investments. On paper, he is an American success story. Alfred's tone remains skeptical throughout, as though the official narrative is a cover for something darker.
Bruce grows impatient with the sanitized biography and demands the truth. Alfred then shifts his investigation into the realm of speculation and conspiracy. He reveals that people who encountered the Grimm family often came to mysterious ends: suicides, disappearances, deaths among business rivals, politicians, and journalists. He references an FBI associate named Harvey Harris who began investigating the Grimms in the 1990s and died in a boat accident. Alfred theorizes that Jack Grimm may have discovered some form of life extension or immortality through cellular manipulation, possibly using research from his so-called "Arks." Alfred believes there is no Grimm family at all, but rather a single immortal entity who has perpetuated a family legacy as a cover for centuries of manipulation, investment in weapons, bioweapons, and chaos across all sides of political and military conflict.
The island properties, Alfred posits, are repositories for enemies left to rot for years. The real smoking gun arrives when Alfred reveals his belief: Jack Grimm is the Joker. A final page reveals Alfred's internal monologue, in which he acknowledges his cowardice in unloading this burden onto Bruce. A coda shows a mysterious figure arriving at a Gotham Manor, greeted by the house system, only to reveal he is "Master Grimm" returning home. The issue ends with him descending into the cave below the mansion to formulate a plan.
Writing
Scott Snyder's approach here is unconventional for a Batman comic, and the pacing reflects that gamble. The first two-thirds of the issue consist almost entirely of dialogue and exposition, with Alfred delivering a methodical breakdown of historical records, financial investments, and conspiracy theory. This is a choice that works in Snyder's favor because it establishes a sense of dread through information accumulation. The dialogue feels organic to Alfred's character, a man who has spent three years building a case against a phantom threat. His verbal rhythms shift between formal historical recitation and colloquial British skepticism, maintaining engagement even as paragraphs of exposition flow. The structure mirrors a briefing or a detective's case file, which grounds the speculative conspiracy in procedural seriousness. Where the pacing falters slightly is in the back half and the repetition of the Grimm history. The revelation of Jack Grimm as the Joker happens abruptly, with the visual reveal of a mysterious figure at a Gotham Manor and his arrival at the cave feeling somewhat rushed in contrast to the meticulous buildup. The shift from dialogue to silent action in the final pages is jarring but intentional, designed to snap the reader into sudden terror. The final coda, showing "Master Grimm" arriving home, lands with genuine unsettling weight.
Art
Jock's artwork in this issue is deceptively minimalist, prioritizing clarity and emotional impact over spectacle. The use of shadow and negative space creates a pervasive sense of unease. When Alfred is speaking, Jock frames Bruce and Alfred in close quarters within the cave, using tight panel layouts that feel claustrophobic and confining, mirroring the weight of the information being delivered. The historical flashbacks are rendered in a limited color palette, with muted tones that suggest age and distance. The film still from 1888 is rendered with period-appropriate grain and degradation, adding authenticity to the historical anchor of the conspiracy. Martin's coloring choices here are deliberate and sparse, using cool tones to emphasize the investigative tone and warm, unsettling hues when Jack Grimm is finally revealed and makes his approach to the manor. The visual language of the artwork shifts from conversational intimacy to horror in the final pages, with the mysterious figure's arrival rendered in ominous silhouette and shadow. The clarity of each panel's composition is excellent, with Jock's linework ensuring no confusion about who is speaking or where characters are positioned, even in heavily dialogue-driven sequences.
Character Development
Alfred emerges as the emotional core of this issue, and his character work is nuanced. He is motivated by burden, by guilt over holding information he cannot share, and by the desperate hope that telling Bruce will somehow absolve him of responsibility. His dialogue reveals a man fractured between his duty as a butler and his instinct as a protector. The decision to have him explicitly question his own motives in the internal monologue at issue's end is strong character work, suggesting that Alfred is aware of his cowardice but powerless to resist it. Bruce, by contrast, is reactive and exhausted. He just fought Bane and likely expected a reprieve, but instead faces a revelation that opens a new, potentially larger threat. His refusal to absorb Alfred's conclusion and his need to check on Waylon feels authentic to a Batman who is emotionally burdened but still oriented toward protecting those in his orbit. The introduction of Jack Grimm as a character is more abstract at this point, but his silhouette presence in the final pages and his casual greeting to the house system suggest a figure of unruffled menace, someone who moves through the world with the confidence of an immortal predator. The cliffhanger of him arriving at the manor is designed to challenge everything Batman thought he understood about power and threat.
Originality & Concept Execution
The concept of reframing the Joker as an immortal force orchestrating chaos across centuries is not entirely original, as Batman mythology has long played with the Joker's agelessness and symbolic nature, as well as facing off against similar immortals such as Ra's Al Ghul and Vandal Savage. However, Snyder's specific execution, tying the Joker's existence to a centuries-long financial empire and a family lineage of calculated moral relativism, is a fresh approach to the character. The idea that the Joker has been funding both sides of every conflict, maintaining his wealth while sowing chaos, adds a layer of systematic menace that transcends the typical "agent of chaos" archetype. The execution here succeeds in establishing a sense of scope and inevitability. By framing the threat through Alfred's investigation rather than through the Joker's own perspective, Snyder emphasizes the detective work and the emotional toll of uncovering such a conspiracy, making the reveal feel earned rather than arbitrary. The final image of the Joker arriving at Gotham Manor, descending into a cave, is a power statement that immediately recontextualizes the threat level of the series.
Positives
The standout achievement of this issue is its tonal shift and atmospheric execution. Snyder and Jock have taken what could have been a flat exposition dump and transformed it into a genuinely unsettling mystery briefing. Alfred's dialogue carries emotional weight because it is delivered with weariness and doubt, as though he is confessing to a crime of knowledge. The historical framework for Jack Grimm, from street orphan to trillionaire philanthropist, is detailed enough to feel plausible while remaining suspicious, allowing readers to see both why the official story works and why Alfred's conspiracy theory is credible. The artwork reinforces this perfectly, using shadow and composition to create dread without relying on action. The final reveal is masterful: after all of Alfred's speculation and theory, the simple arrival of "Master Grimm" at the manor, followed by his descent into the cave, transforms everything into tangible threat, while flipping the villain's world against Batman's familiar trappings from the Prime universe. This demonstrates strong understanding of visual storytelling, where a silhouette and a series of location changes carry more impact than dialogue or narration.
Negatives
The issue's primary weakness is its pacing imbalance. The lengthy exposition in the first two-thirds, while character-driven and thematically sound, risks losing readers who came for action and punch-driven narrative momentum by effectively repeating the same story three times, albeit with impactful changes in each retelling. Batman comics, especially in the Absolute line, have been marketed on spectacular kinetic action sequences, and this issue deliberately abandons that in favor of conspiracy thriller conventions. This tonal shift, while deliberately chosen, may feel jarring to readers invested in the Bane storyline's physical stakes.
Additionally, the conspiracy theory presented by Alfred is so extensive and detailed that it strains credibility in places; the idea that one immortal has maintained a family cover for centuries while also being tied to weapons development, war profiteering, and now arriving at Gotham Manor feels narratively convenient. The issue also lacks a clear sense of what Jack Grimm's immediate threat is or what he wants, beyond vague suggestions of using children and maintaining chaos. This ambiguity is intentional for mystery purposes, but it leaves the reader without a concrete sense of stakes beyond Alfred's speculative dread. Finally, the visual reveal of the mysterious figure approaching the manor could have been more visually distinctive; the silhouette approach works atmospherically but provides minimal new information about what the Joker wants or how he has transformed in Snyder's reimagining.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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The Scorecard
Writing Quality (Clarity & Pacing): [3/4]
Art Quality (Execution & Synergy): [3/4]
Value (Originality & Entertainment): [1/2]
Final Verdict
Absolute Batman #15 is a calculated risk that mostly lands. Snyder's decision to pivot from kinetic action into conspiracy thriller territory is bold, and the execution demonstrates skill in building atmosphere and emotional weight through dialogue and visual restraint. However, the issue sacrifices narrative momentum and tangible stakes in service of setup. Readers looking for payoff will find this issue frustrating; those willing to sit with mystery and speculation will find it intriguing. Whether the promised threat justifies the slow burn remains to be seen. For a reader with limited resources and finite pull list space, this issue is a qualified recommendation only for those already invested in the Snyder Absolute Batman line and willing to tolerate a full issue of setup before the confrontation begins.
7/10
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