Batman is a character who fights crime by scaring miscreants with the fearsome persona he’s constructed. So, he’s always been horror adjacent, but on October 23, the cinematic world of the Dark Knight moves into full-blown horror with the release of DC Studios’ Clayface. The Mike Flanagan written movie is a body horror film, and the titular character is a shape-shifting Batman villain.
The first look Clayface teaser trailer just dropped, and you might be wondering if there are Batman comics that deliver the body horror the trailer promises, along with other frights. I’m happy to report the answer is yes.
Plus, these comics are easily accessible, feature some truly unsettling imagery, and offer a contemporary and refreshing take on Batman and his related characters while staying true to the qualities that have made the Dark Knight such an enduring pop culture icon. Intrigued? Then, read on to discover why DC Comics’ Absolute Batman series is a perfect blending of horror and super heroics and how to get started reading it.
As a character, Batman has existed for over 80 years, but Absolute Batman launched in 2024. It’s part of a whole Absolute line of comics that takes DC’s iconic heroes like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman and reintroduces them into a darker, more dangerous, and more corrupt world.
If you’re a fan of “One Percent” style horror like Ready or Not, where unscrupulous billionaires subject people to vicious machinations and depredations, that’s baked into the foundation of DC’s Absolute Universe.
What about Batman, though? Isn’t Bruce Wayne a billionaire? The Absolute incarnation of the Dark Knight is not wealthy. That’s because the heroes of DC’s Absolute Universe are starting off on the back foot, and for Batman, that means removing the wealth that funds his crusade against crime.
What this version of Bruce Wayne lacks in resources, he more than makes up for in cunning, power, and endurance. This incarnation of the character is a 24-year-old engineering genius who stands 6’9 and weighs 421 lbs. So, essentially, he’s Saw’s John Kramer in the body of Jason from the first few Friday the 13th movies.
Like a good slasher, this Batman wields a signature weapon in the form of a battle axe that is brought into play by removing the bat symbol on his chest armor and attaching it to the handle. His pointed ears detach and can serve as daggers and throwing knives. He also has retractable shoulder and wrist spikes, along with a multifunctional cape of his own design made of flexible fabric that can be used to glide, grab people, and shield against bullets.
This Batman used his engineering intellect to design his gear, which partially warrants the John Kramer comparison. The other major reason is that, while this Batman may wield a collection of blades and has no problems using them to horribly maim criminals who cross his path, he refuses to kill them directly, like Kramer and the classic incarnation of Batman.
Also, like Kramer and Jason Voorhees, this Batman’s mission of vengeance is motivated by the loss of a family member. When he was a boy, his father, a school teacher, took his class on a field trip to the zoo. During their visit, a mass shooter struck, and Bruce’s dad died saving him and his classmates. Bruce’s friends and his social worker mother helped him deal with the immediate trauma of his father’s murder, but his pain ran deep. So, as a teenager, he began training his mind and body to fight back against the crime and corruption in Gotham.
In Absolute Batman Volume One: The Zoo (which collects the series first six issues) writer Scott Snyder (American Vampire), and artists Nick Dragotta (East of West) and Gabriel Hernández Walta (Phantom Road) kick off the series with a story that pits Batman against, the Party Animals; a murderous gang armed with bladed weapons and assault rifles who commit crimes while wearing fine clothes and ape skull masks.
They do so at the behest of a reimagined version of the old Batman foe, Roman Sionis, AKA Black Mask, who uses them and his vast fortune to destabilize Gotham and make it ripe for corporate and political takeover.
The Zoo is a fast-paced, over-the-top, visceral story where Batman wreaks bloody vengeance on a gang of masked murderers who are manipulated by a wealthy patron into committing atrocities for fun and profit. It shows off why comics are a perfect medium for action-horror stories.
Also, in many ways, it feels like it could be a big-budget installment of another action-horror franchise where people are manipulated into committing crimes for the benefit of political and economic elites, The Purge.
While investigating the Party Animals in The Zoo, Batman uncovers the existence of a secretive, black site-style, private prison floating in Gotham Harbor known as Ark M. And in Absolute Batman Volume Two: Abomination (a collection of issues 7-14, which make up the second and third arcs of the series) Snyder, Dragotta, and guest artists Marcos Martin (The Amazing Spider-Man) and Clay Mann (Batman-Catwoman) chronicle the Dark Knight’s investigation of Ark M.
If the trailer for Clayface has you craving a body horror Batman tale, this is the story for you, because in the subterranean levels of Ark M, the Dark Knight uncovers a whole host of utterly horrifying experiments.
The Absolute incarnation of Clayface does not appear in this story (My guess is they’ll make a full comics debut around the time the film premieres), but they are alluded to in a particularly unsettling sequence where Batman is exploring Ark M and wanders into the “K.L.A.Y. Biome.”
It’s a place where the floor is made of undulating, veiny limbs and a face that talks about how much pain it’s in. There are also areas home to horrifying, pitiful human-plant hybrids and human-animal hybrids. In one harrowing sequence, the plant hybrids use tongue-like roots to grasp a person’s eyelids and hold their eye open. That bit leads to a panel that could be a shot straight out of a Lucio Fulci film.
The main villains of the stories collected in Abomination are new, horrific versions of Batman villains, Mister Freeze and Bane. The story with Freeze is a cautionary tale about the microorganisms that might be lurking in ice and snow. And this incarnation of Bane is a monstrous behemoth, enhanced by a drug called Venom that allows him to grow into a colossal mound of twisted muscle.
Imagine Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance if the titular chemical were designed to make brawny super soldiers, and there were no budget limits on visual transformations. Bane uses his Venom-enhanced might to inflict some truly horrific and gory injuries on his enemies.
In the first arc of Absolute Batman, Bruce Wayne meets and eventually teams with an aging British covert operative named Alfred Pennyworth (The Absolute version of Batman’s butler). Pennyworth has come to Gotham because of an enigmatic billionaire he’s been chasing for years.
That figure, the head of a corporation called JK Enterprises, is a pale man named Jack Grimm who often smiles, but never laughs. He’s also possibly been alive since the nineteenth century, and when readers first see him, he’s wearing a bio-mechanical apparatus that appears to be made of grimacing faces and squirming limbs.
Grimm is, of course, the Absolute incarnation of Batman’s arch-enemy, the Joker. He remains a figure of dread and mystery lingering in the background of the first fourteen issues of Absolute Batman. In issue #15 (first published in December 2025), Snyder and guest artist Jock (Wytches) answer some questions about the Joker, but they do so in ways that raise more questions, like revealing that the villain can shapeshift into a monstrous, almost Xenomorph-like form.
More light is shed on the origins of the Joker and the titular facility in the Absolute Batman: Ark M special (currently not collected), which was published in January of 2026. In the issue, Snyder, co-writer Frank Tieri (Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens), and artist Joshua Hixson (The Deviant) delve into the history of the building that previously stood on Ark M’s grounds, Arkham Asylum.
The Absolute Batman 2025 Annual (published in October) and Absolute Batman #16 (published in January 2026) are both uncollected standalone issues. The former features an exploitation style lead story by Daniel Warren Johnson (Murder Falcon), where Batman lays glorious waste to a marauding band of neo-Nazis.
In the latter, Snyder and Dragotta team Batman with the Absolute version of Wonder Woman, who is basically a metal AF version of Princess Diana of the Amazons.
The fourth arc of Absolute Batman was a two-part tale that ran through issues #17-18 (currently uncollected) titled, “The Seventh Kingdom.” It was written by Snyder and brought to life by guest artist Eric Canete (The End League).
This body horror heavy story introduced the Absolute version of the plant-based Batman villain known as Poison Ivy, and when it begins, she’s turned a skyscraper into a towering forest. Batman hacks his way through using massive chainsaw gauntlets.
Along the way, though, he encounters monstrous plant-human hybrids. When he reaches the top, he comes face-to-face with Ivy, who reveals her true, nightmarish form, which looks like something straight out of a Resident Evil video game or The Thing.
In April of 2026 Snyder and Dragotta kicked off a new arc of Absolute Batman with issue #19. It introduces a new version of the iconic fear based Batman foe, the Scarecrow, who steps out of a cornfield and instigates some truly gruesome murders. He does that while sporting what appears to be a mask (It might be his actual face) reminiscent of the murderous Doctor Decker from Nightbreed.
I’ve detailed how well Absolute Batman melds the superheroic elements of its titular character with body horror and other subgenres, but I’ve only hinted at the other thing it does well: refreshing and modernizing the Batman mythos.
Absolute Batman has a different relationship with a different version of Alfred, and his mother is still alive and part of his life. Other familiar characters like Catwoman, the Penguin, and the Riddler also play different roles (they’re Bruce Wayne’s childhood friends). That means there are twists and turns that will surprise even long-time Batman fans.
So, if you’re intrigued and want an easily accessible comic that takes the Dark Knight from horror adjacent to full-on horror, head down to your comic shop and pick up Absolute Batman. Most of the series is available in collected trade paperbacks or reprints of single issues. Tell them FANGORIA sent you.
