Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: absolute, Absolute Batman, Absolute Scarecrow, nick dragotta, scott snyder

Nick Dragotta And Scott Snyder On Creating Absolute Scarecrow

Nick Dragotta and Scott Snyder on creating Absolute Scarecrow for Absolute Batman #19, on Final Order Cut-Off tomorrow

Artist Nick Dragotta has teased more looks at the Absolute Scarecrow ahead of the Absolute Batman #19 FOC on Monday, being published in April on his Instagram, saying, "Absolute Batman 19 FOC next week. Kicking off a new arc. No spoilers, but there's farming, Alfred gets pissy, a new Bat toy, and Scarecrow. That and about 10 other way more important things. Scott and I had a blast making this one. 24 pages of story w/ two covers by me." Writer Scott Snyder says on his Substack newsletter, "It's seven issues as opposed to six, so it's literally our biggest. And it also has super major stuff happening in it. #19 is one of my favorite issues we've ever done and Nick agrees. I think it's some of our best work in the way that it typifies everything we love about the series. It has all the elements that I think make it something we love working on. It's got big over-the-top action, a lot of horror and violence, but it's also got a lot of heart. It's one of the more emotional issues that I've written for the series. So I'm really excited for you guys to check it out. It's even got a little bit of humor here and there, hopefully."

And talking about the creation of villains, Scott talks about Absolute Scarecrow. "I think one of the hard things over the years was what is fear today? What am I afraid of? How do you encompass that in a way that feels broad enough and also acute enough to speak to this moment for you? And it really was when we were forming a series that it came to me, where I was reading a couple of different books about the moment. I was reading a book called Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobson. I also read a book called Bunker: Building for the End Times by Bradley Garrett, which is really good about super-rich people building bunkers. And another one, more recently called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky. And it's all of these pervasive fears. What you realize is that you're expected to go through your day while also knowing that all these giant seismic terrors are happening all around you, whether it's war or genocide or climate disaster or economic collapse coming or political turmoil or the possibility of pandemics."

"But all these things that you're aware of, you're not in a tribe anymore on the grasslands or in a small town or any of it. Over the years, we're subjected to this massive flood of information constantly. So you're aware of all of this. And the feeling it creates, I was trying to articulate it for myself, but it's anxiety. It's a feeling of dread. So one of the books I was reading was talking about dread as a modern concept because being afraid of something is being afraid of something acute. Dread is the pervasive feeling that something bad is going to happen and you don't know what. And the thing that really creates dread today, for me, is a lack of certainty, a lack of knowing."

"So what Scarecrow is to me, he's a straw man, right? Which is another term for someone who's blamed, for someone who can be pushed over, all of that stuff, and yet is really scary, who walks out of the field and scares things away. Why are the crows afraid of the scarecrow? Not because they think he's a person, because crows aren't really afraid of people, but because they don't know what he is. And so he's the one that gets you lost in the corn maze, right? He's the one that makes you feel like "if I only had a brain." He's the one that shows you all the things that you thought were true or not true. Things that you hoped weren't true, might be true. And so that, to me, alongside his violent and murderous tendencies, make him so potent and so fun to write. He's sort of like a country gentleman who just sort of walks around barefoot with this face and a hat and his crows and in this little brown suit. And he comes out of the fields and you don't know what he's going to do. Is he someone who is wearing a mask? Is he not? Is he an operative of the Joker? Is he just a simpleton? He's terrifying in that way. And I love writing him. So that's kind of the process through which I try to travel when I make a new take on a classic villain. What are they about? What does it mean to me? How do I employ that or weaponize that in the book as strongly as possible?"

At Megacon, talking Absolute Batman #19, Scott Snyder revealed that Harley Quinn will name the new Batmobile it it… So here is the FOC listing. The main A front cover for Absolute Batman #19 is now the Nick Dragotta cover that was previously hidden as the C cover. While the A cover, also by Dragotta, is now the C cover…

ABSOLUTE BATMAN #19
(W) Scott Snyder (A/CA) Nick Dragotta
ABSOLUTE SCARECROW EMERGES FROM THE SHADOWS OF ARK M AS A NEW STORY ARC BEGINS… Poison Ivy proved to be just one of the many horrors within the bowels of the ARK M facility, and as Joker sets his sights on Absolute Batman, he decides to enlist the help of one of the center's most terrifying doctors, Dr. Jonathan Crane. While Bruce Wayne tries to align himself with Barbara Gordon, there's more than one alliance formed in this issue. New debuts, new villains, new arc starts here. $5.99 4/15/2026

And from that A cover, we have the Absolute Joker with a R for Robin badge, underlining the idea that in Absolute Batman #20, he will have a cadre of Absolute Robins under his control. We have Absolute Deathstroke looking larger and more robotic than usual. Maybe to go up against Absolute Batman? We have an Absolute Scarecrow that looks like something out of a shrunken-head version of Coraline. Absolute Batman seems to have a shadow… is that Absolute Clayface? Is that the teased Absolute Man-Bat flying in the back? Is that a Jokerplane in the sky? There is the Absolute Court of Owls, possibly Absolute Dick Grayson on a motorcycle in the background, a chest wound, or something that has ripped through his costume from the front, and Mayor Jim Gordon up front. Given the tragic loss promised in Absolute Batman #20… does this mean the death of Absolute Jim Gordon in #19? Of course, it could be none of that… Published on the 15th of April, hitting FOC tomorrow. As Scott Snyder also says, "Monday is the last day to order it from your store… order it because every issue so far has basically sold out. What ordering it means is they'll reserve a copy for you at your store so it can't sell out for you."

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