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Batman was born to stand up to bullies, to fight the corrupt... but you can imagine it's easier to do it made-up villains than real-life neo-Nazi white supremacists that have cropped up in places like Charlottesville, Virginia; Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and elsewhere. But in October's Absolute Batman 2025 Annual #1, writer/artist Daniel Warren Johnson brandished DC Comics' Batman to raze a group of militant racists, and literally run them over with his Batmobile dump truck. And tonight, that story won one of comics' most prestigious awards.

And as Daniel Warren Johnson relates in his acceptance speech for 'Best One-Shot/Single Issue' at the 2026 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards, he wasn't sure if DC was even capable of greenlighting it given that they're a huge, megalithic corporation and this kind of story could be seen as controversial.

But they did.

"So, I can only speak for my story, but when I approached Katie, I said I had one idea, i want to do it one way, and if DC doesn't want to do it, that's a-ok, but I'm not changing it," says Daniel Warren Johnson, in his acceptance speech. "She said 'I'll fight for it.' So thank you, Katie."

The 'Katie' he refers to is Katie Kubert, a group editor at DC Comics and the person in charge of the Absolute line, including (but not limited to) Absolute Batman.

"Thank you, DC, for standing with the story," Johnson continues. "It's obvious why I made it. It's a tough world out there. At least we have comics."