Review: Absolute Superman #7

Absolute Superman #7 came out last week and was another interesting look at the Absolute Universe, showing how different this universe's Brainiac is from the one we know from the main DCU. It also once again shows the different take writer Jason Aaron is taking on this Absolute title from books like Batman.

Aaron is doing this complete slow burn on this book, world-building and showing us this world slowly. Last issue was an almost complete flashback issue looking at Smallville and Superman's arrival. This issue is entirely focused on Brainiac. Superman is barely even name-checked. No Superman in a Superman book? 

That isn't to say this book isn't interesting. It is. And it's horrifying. Much of this issue looks like a David Cronenberg movie. Brainiac is a sadist. He is murderous. He is unhinged in a way the robot from Colu has never been. It's terrifying. It also raises as many questions about Brainiac as it answers. There is more to mine here. It even sets up the next big arc and I assume the next Absolute take on a classic villain.

Artist Carmine DiGiandomenico is unleashed in this issue. This is a crazy violent and over-the-top grotesque issue and DiGiandomenico leans in. Don't eat a big lunch before you read this. There is enough vivisection and tissue mutilation in this book to last a year.

I have praised this book for it's slower tempo and building up this world. But even I am starting to wonder if this book is lacking enough Superman to keep my interest 100% focused. I read this book to learn about this Kal. Where is he?

On to the book.

The book starts with an Omega Men assault on Brainiac's compound. It doesn't end well for them. 

Brainiac uses his size-controlling tech to mutilate these men. He kills one by shrinking the soldier's skin around the body, crushing him to death. This man  seems to have his soft tissues enlarged so it cannot hold his bones. He is sort of losing his mandible and ribs here. 

It is a complete bloodbath. And a completely bonkers when you think of the more sterile, unfeeling Brainiac we know.

Kudos to DiGiandomenico for just unloading.

And then we get our first look at the new Brainiac, skin taut, brain exposed, robot insect legs, wires everywhere, watching as his drone disembowel the soldiers. Even as this horror is unfolding, he is calmly recording dull events like the weather. 

Creepy.

One soldier is kept alive for vivisection (check out the enlarged hand, more of Brainiac's doing).

It is clear the Brainiac works for Ra's and Ra's is getting impatient about how Superman is continuing to foil them. 

We get further evidence that this Brainiac is insane. Frustrated by his lack of insight on Superman, he randomly smashes one of his bottled cities, stomping on the people. 

With the vivisected soldier listening on, Brainiac divulges his origin.

He was created as Brainiac 419,732 and given a low rank and a low job, shoveling the robotic remains of other Brainiacs into an atomic cauldron looking thing. It is his only purpose.

The job lasts years and over time we see the wear and tear on him. We get pages of him shoveling.

At one point, one of the discarded drones turns out to be still alive ... Brainiac 8,238,759. That Brainiacs purpose? Stabbing and killing. With no other choice, our shoveling Brainiac kills it.

So many questions.

Is this Colu? Does each unit have a job - like killing or stabbing? Did these broken units get broken by overuse or battle or destruction by their creators? Because there are a lot of them. 

But you can see how a life of shoveling corpses could drive someone mad. I mean around 8 million new Brainiacs have been made. That's a lot of corpses.

At one point, questioning his own purpose and wondering if he is himself 'refuse', our Brainiac constructs a grotesque panel of his own creators out of some of the cadavers. In essence, talking to himself. He is no longer smooth and pristing. He is battered and broken.

It is a sad existence for sure. 

We are seeing a dark, Darkseid, warped universe. What could be more warped than an insane, murderous Brainiac.

One day the corpses stop coming.

Our Brainiac wanders up to the upper levels and sees everyone else dead. He declares himself the sole Brainiac, and self-promotes himself to the highest rank.

More questions.

What killed these other Brainiacs? Enemies? Self-destruction? It felt a little like the original Warworld where the Warzoon plugged into a system which killed themselves.

And then even more questions. We learn this Brainiac cut a bloody swath across the stars. So how did he get to Earth? And why even work for Ra's? (More on this later.)

Back to the present and we get more exposition and more questions.

With Ra's getting impatient, this Brainiac reaches out to the Brainiac Collective to try and learn more about Superman.  A number of Brainiacs who look like different species get on screen. 

Superman's red dust is from Krypton. No Brainiac ever visited Krypton. (So we aren't in a Timm-verse world where Brainiac was Kryptonian AI.) But one visited and got a sample of the radioactive leftovers. The composition is sent to our Brainiac and he makes synthetic Kryptonite. 

But the collective doesn't know who this Brainiac is.

So more questions ... like a lot more.

These Brainiacs look different. So is Brainiac from Colu in this world? Or some sort of nanotech that takes over species? What is the purpose of the collective? And would they come after this lunatic Brainiac? 

But armed with Green K, Brainiac begins to create his soldier. The Christopher Smith Peacemaker is being fit with implants. Perhaps we are seeing the new Metallo.

As I have laid out, we know who this Brainiac is now. But there is a lot more to know. The biggest questions I have? Why is he on Earth?  Why would he ever become a servant again? Why would he work for Ra's? 

The next arc is called Superman, Son of the Demon. 
We all know Ra's al Ghul means Demon Head. We know Damian in the main world is sometimes called 'Son of the Demon' given his connection to Ra's.

So if Superman is Son of the Demon, is Ra's Jor-El who survived? Is he trying to save Earth from a fate like Krypton?.

I don't need more evil Jor-El.

Plus if it is Jor-El, why didn't he just use his super-powers to take over the world? 

This was a bloodbath of an issue with a deranged Brainiac killing his way through the pages. It is gloriously rendered by DiGiandomenico. Disturbing. 

But it left me with more questions than it answered, which sometimes a good thing. We got zero Superman and without his heroics or hope, it was brutal. So I don't know if if it's a success.

Overall grade: C+