The best-selling “Absolute Batman” comic is becoming an animated series, with writer Scott Snyder showrunning and lead artist/character designer Nick Dragotta producing. As comic book fans are wont to do (and I include myself in this statement), they’re now armchair quarterbacking. Reddit threads fancasting a potential “Absolute Batman” adaptation had popped up before, and with the animated series on the way, there’s renewed discussion.
In “Absolute Batman,” Bruce Wayne is young and angry, a trash-talking brawler rather than a stoic, silently menacing Dark Knight. In new fancasting discussions, popular suggestions to voice “Absolute” Batman include Roger Craig Smith (who previously voiced a younger Batman in 2013 video game “Arkham Origins”), Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”), and Aleks Le (Daredevil in “Marvel Rivals”). Le’s performance as the vengeful young Viking Thorfinn in “Vinland Saga” has the right energy for this Batman, and he’s even recorded a fan-dub of himself as “Absolute” Batman.
But what about the villain of this story, Jack Grimm/the Joker? It’s not just Mark Hamill’s retirement from voicing the Joker that demands a new actor. “Absolute Batman” reframes a decades-long rivalry: the Joker is the one with all the money and power, while Batman is the chaos undermining that system. To complete that swap, “Absolute” Joker has a lot of classic Bruce Wayne’s traits. He’s an old-money billionaire with a double life, he has a secret cave beneath his Gotham mansion, and the Robins are his proteges. Dragotta’s design sheet for “Absolute” Joker even notes he looks like a slightly more sinister Bruce Wayne.
As @MurdocksMother put it: “How funny would it be if they hired a previous Batman voice actor to play ‘Absolute’ Joker?” because that metatext would cement this merging of the Joker and the classical Bruce Wayne.
Warner Bros.Before the animated “Absolute Batman” was announced, fancastings often pinned a former Batman actor as the best choice for “Absolute” Joker. Fancasting a potential live-action “Absolute Batman,” Reddit user u/FayyadhScrolling put forth Christian Bale as the Joker. U/Dlolal suggested Ben Affleck.
The Bale choice especially stands out to me because he has the range for it. Besides Michael Keaton, Bale is the best argument for the idea that the best Batman actors are ones who could also convincingly play the Joker. Bale’s career-defining performance as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho” is a soulless businessman with a violent secret. Mix that with the intensity of Bale’s Batman, and you’ve got “Absolute” Joker. The “Dark Knight” trilogy comprises some of the most beloved Batman films there are; hearing the voice of that trilogy’s hero as another Batman’s villain would be the right kind of unsettling.
At the same time, while Bale has voice acted for animation (notably in the English dubs of Studio Ghibli’s “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “The Boy and the Heron”), getting a movie star like him as a regular for an animated series is probably pie in the sky. A more realistic pick might be Troy Baker, who has voiced both Batman and the Joker before. It wouldn’t have the same “wow” factor as a live-action Batman actor playing the Joker, but it would carry the same meaning: “Absolute” Joker is essentially Joker and Bruce Wayne in one.
“Absolute Batman” is in development.
