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DC's Court of Owls is a shadow organization that has worked behind the scenes in Gotham City for decades, but to date, they have not shown up in co-creator Scott Snyder's vibrant reboot of the Batman in Absolute Batman. While they can usually keep to the shadows in comics , it's not so in the comics world. 

Spoilers ahead.

March's Absolute Batman #18 has been carrying heavy redaction in its cover in a way to hype up a surprise (as it has done in the past with the reveal of Absolute Poison Ivy), but the secret hasn't been able to stay secret. Overnight, an unredacted version of Nick Dragotta's Absolute Batman #18 cover has been revealed in what Snyder confirmed, by his account at least, as an accident by DC and its primary US distributor, Lunar.

"So the cover for absolute Batman 18 was supposed to stay redacted until next week when 17 came out :/" Snyder writes on X. "If you don’t like spoilers, try to avoid it?"

When someone brought up the speculation that DC's main US comic store distributor was the source of cover being revealed, Snyder confirmed it - at least from his perspective.

"I know," Snyder replied. "It was just a scheduling thing because 17 was initially supposed to come out this week but got pushed one week because I needed extra time."

It's true: Absolute Batman #17 was originally advertised to arrive on February 11, but a few weeks back, DC delayed it by one week to a new February 18 release date. The issue has been hyped up by Snyder as containing a surprise, which seems to be the arrival of the Court of Owls, before their full-on cover debut in Absolute Batman #18.

Snyder was filmed telling a fan back in December that the Court of Owls could possibly appear in Absolute Batman #17, revealing at least that their arrival was imminent. Whether this is two accidental leaks or a bit of clever marketing by someone(s) involved with the book to increase interest in Absolute Batman, it seems to be working to do the latter.

Keep track of it all with our Absolute Batman release schedule. 

Need more? Here's our picks for the best DC Comics stories of all time, and here's a list of all the free DC comics you can look forward to as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day and Comics Giveaway Days.