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DC Comics' Absolute Universe has been a runaway success. For once, I'm seeing people make memes about how much they love Martian Manhunter on the internet, thanks to Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez's Absolute Martian Manhunter. I am literally knitting an Absolute Superman sweater right now, while Absolute Batman has galvanized me to not forget Leg Day. 

I've been a DC fan for as long as I can remember, and there's an undeniable difference to being a DC fan right now than at any other point in my life. There's a sense of excitement radiating from the success of the Absolute Universe and the DC All-In initiative (not to mention how James Gunn's Superman film connected with both longtime comic book fans and casual viewers at the box office this summer) that feels momentous. In short, DC feels fresh, thanks to the Absolute Universe. So how did we get to this point?

Speaking to Publishers' Weekly, DC Comics executive editor Chris Conroy explained that for Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's Absolute Batman, the best-selling comic bok of 2024, the publisher wanted to reel in manga fans.

"We knew that the Western superhero comics audience and the manga audience were overlapping like never before. There is a vast pool of readers out there who are experiencing serialized comics through manga and not through Western superheroes. Their first reference point either starts with manga, rather than with our material, or the elements of our material that have already been reflected through manga, like Chainsaw Man or My Hero Academia," said Conroy. 

It's worth noting that manga has exploded in popularity over the last few years in the West, since younger millennials and older Gen Zers have gained a sense of the financial freedom that comes with age. But as Conroy suggests, manga and Western comics aren't created in a hermetically sealed vacuum: characters like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman have influenced manga, just as stories like Kentaro Miura's Berserk, Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, and more have influenced Western comics. Absolute Wonder Woman wields a massive sword that resembles the hunk of metal that Guts from Berserk carries around, for instance. 

Thanks to the internet, readers are more informed than ever about all that Western comics and manga have to offer them. So it makes perfect sense that Absolute Batman would want to tap into this moment in time by wearing its manga influences proudly on its sleeve. 

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