Image via DC Comics
Published Jul 21, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT
Annie Banks is a Rotten Tomatoes–approved critic, and CBR editor and writer specializing in anime, comics, and superheroes. Her work has also appeared in Collider and The Mary Sue, where she covered pop culture, fandoms, and entertainment trends. A lifelong fan whose love for storytelling began with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Annie blends critical insight with genuine passion for geek culture, from sci-fi to K-pop.
Absolute Batman's twisted rogues' gallery still fails to include his now-declared "biggest" enemy: streaming.
With the rise of superhero media leaping the pages of comics onto small screens, this ongoing trend has absolutely caught the attention (and concern) of creatives in the industry. Longtime fan-favorite writer and Absolute Universe creator Scott Snyder spoke up about his interpretation of how streaming adaptations have influenced comic books. “I realized that we’re the only format that makes you wait a month and pay for every single episode,” Snyder said during an appearance on AIPT Comics Podcast. “Every single issue, you’ve got to pay essentially the price of a third of a streaming platform for a month. That's like, three comics. You can get thousands of stories for the price of three comics. We have to deliver. You have to embrace some of the things that make our medium extra fun.”
At the same time, Snyder isn't completely rejecting the notion of streaming, as he admits to tuning into series on different platforms himself, yet there's still apprehension around streaming threatening today's state of comics. “So many of us are immersed in streaming all the time, and streaming to me is actually like the enemy of comics. I love streaming, don’t get me wrong, and I have plenty of shows that I love that are streaming," he clarified.
Snyder then continued to add, “It’s a completely different medium because, ultimately, the way it works is that you’ve already bought the whole season through your subscription. There’s no urgency to move from one episode to the next, so their priorities can be creating a long, immersive, slow-burn sort of cumulative, almost novelistic kind of structure to a series. They have recaps at the beginning.”
To cap off his true feelings about the rise of streaming series while reiterating how there's a threat to the pureness of comic books, Snyder noted, “All these things that sort of undercut the things that make our medium fun. I actually find it to be antithetical to the way we should write.”
Absolute Batman Is Heading To Streaming
Even though there's some uncertainty about comic books being asked to compete for audiences' constantly divided attention among countless pieces of entertainment media to choose from, Absolute Batman will be undergoing the page-to-screen treatment as an animated series. The announcement was first made in June 2026 at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.
Nick Dragotta will also join Scott Snyder in overseeing how Absolute Batman is brought to life. Snyder addressed the series' confirmation on another episode of the AIPT Comics Podcast, saying that "We want it to be as though the comic is just almost a bigger, better, more robust version of the comic on the screen... It really looks like the comic book comes to life three-dimensionally in the coolest way."
While the Absolute Batman animated series doesn't have a set release date yet, all Absolute Universe comics can be read wherever DC Comics are sold.
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Writer Scott Snyder
Penciler Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Nick Dragotta
Colorist Frank Martin
Publisher(s) DC
A fresh take on the Dark Knight mythos evolves in the run of Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder, where Bruce Wayne is recast not as a billionaire playboy but as a 24-year-old blue-collar civil engineer wearing the cowl at night.
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Created by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
DC Comics follow the adventures of iconic superheroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and more.
English (US) · 