DC Just Revamped Its Flagship Team for the Absolute Universe

This article contains full spoilers for Absolute Evil #1.

How would Absolute Green Arrow be different from his mainline counterpart? That was the question many readers had going into Absolute Evil #1, which hit comic book stores today. Turns out, that was the wrong question.

Like its sister over at Marvel, the Ultimate Universe, the Absolute line of DC Comics features a new universe in which familiar characters are rebooted and reimagined. Thus far, we’ve had an impoverished (and physically huge) Batman who was raised by his single mother and a Wonder Woman who uses the magic she learned while being raised in Hell instead of Paradise Island.

But our first glimpses of the Absolute version of Oliver Queen a.k.a. Green Arrow looked very similar to the mainline version. Here we had a liberal-leaning rich guy with a bow and arrow and a Robin Hood haircut. How would he be different?

Midway through Absolute Evil #1, writer Al Ewing and artists Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Nesi, working with colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. and letterer Tom Napolitano, answer the question: the mainline Green Arrow did not get his head caved in by Hawkman, while the Absolute Green Arrow did get his head caved in by Hawkman.

Yes, Absolute Green Arrow dies immediately after his introduction.

But the bigger issue is the identity of the group that did the killing, a group of villains who call themselves the Justice League. How could a quintet of bad guys—Hector Hammond, Veronica Cale, Elenore Thawne, Ra’s al Ghul, and the Joker—call themselves the Justice League?

The answer comes from a speech given by the Joker, who has thus far only been seen in fleeting glances in the pages of Absolute Batman. The Joker, reimagined here as a normal looking businessman who, emphatically, never tells jokes, explains how his researchers found a mysterious particle at the center of the universe, a particle that is a foundational part of all life in their universe. To the Joker, the particle proves that the order of their universe, in which powerful capitalists like himself and the other members of the League, is natural. Or, to put it in other words, is just.

Thus, the Joker explains, people like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and the quickly-departed Green Arrow, are unjust for trying to that order.

While that sounds like the type of twisted logic one would find in a mainline Joker story, the Absolute version of the Clown Prince is correct. As we saw in last year’s Absolute Power crossover, the death of Darkseid resulted in the birth of a new universe, the Absolute Universe, formed by the essence of that dark god. Darkseid’s evil is the reason that so many heroes suffer in this world, and it’s the reason that the villains thrive again and again.

Between the death of Green Arrow and the formation of the Justice League, it seems like nothing will change in the Absolute Universe. But we already know that Batman and Wonder Woman will be joining forces soon. Certainly, other team-ups will happen too. Will these rebellious heroes be enough to take down the Joker and his allies? Or will the Absolute Universe mirror its mainline counterpart, in which the Justice League always prevails?

Absolute Evil #1 is now on sale at comic stores nationwide.