REVIEW: Batman The Adventures Continue Season 3 #7

Let’s face it, There is a reason why DC has been in business since the 1930s’s and it’s because they produce high-quality, fun-to-read stories with likable defined characters. This issue is another example in their long line of great titles. The art style is very reminiscent of the old-school Batman cartoon from the 90’s and it’s as endearing as it ever was.

Right out of the gate, I am not a super Batman fan. Not because I don’t like him, just not that into superheroes in general, the whole hero versus villain narrative can get boring really quickly, and with over 84 years of different iterations on the Batman Universe it’s a little hard to jump on the bandwagon. That being said, I do love the detective noir aspect that Batman brings with him anywhere he goes, and high iconic cape and cowl designs are always great to look at. I also am a huge fan of his bountiful belt of baubles, so even though I am not a huge fan of Batman I can still enjoy reading Batman stories every so often.

This particular story was a great read for me. Starting from the art style which is very similar to the 90’s animated series and at times even goes into Venture Brother’s style of art, it is simply wonderful to look at. The character designs are all super interesting, and incredibly recognizable whilst still having a unique spin on our favorite characters like Harley Queen, Poison Ivy, Robin, and Catwoman. There’s also a bunch of really cool new designs for a group of evildoers called the “Court of Owls” and those designs are really cool too, heck, even Commissioner Gordon gets an awesome design on this story. Their art is simply fantastic, the colors are vibrant but not distracting the shading is clean cell-shaded art with just the right amount of highlights to make it all pop but still remain a dark Batman story. It’s cartooning at its finest.

Then we have masterful, and when I say masterful I mean masterful lettering in each page. Beautiful narration boxes, fantastic sound fx text, and a wonderful choice of fonts for dialog, narration, and everything in between. This is the kind of stuff that a studio with almost 100 years of experience is bound to put out. Whether you like Batman or you don’t, whether you like DC or not, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they produce quality material time and time again.

The script is just as good as everything else. The voices of all of the characters are expertly spot-on, and the pacing is fantastic. It is easy to read through, offers tons of funny moments, great wordplay jokes, physical comedy, and sexual innuendos here and there, and all in all, it’s just a great story. It’s simply one of those comics that gets it all right. All right except one thing…

Why do they insist on putting an ad on the first page of their books? I don’t get it, well… I get it. They are trying to sell you more comics to keep their empire going, but it’s just so annoying for me to open the book and see an ad instead of a splash page or jump right into the story. It’s like putting on a YouTube video and having to see an ad instead of jumping right into the video, it’s so frustrating, Ugh! I guess that’s just a minor setback that we have to content with in order to read the amazing stories embedded in the pages following the ad for the Blue Beetle movie and the Doomsday special.

This was just a fun read overall, I enjoyed the semi-serious tone of the whole comic and I really appreciated the relationship that Poison Ivy and Harley Queen had. Those two made up most of the comedic relief in the book, along with a little bit of help from Robin, and honestly, if you like Batman I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t pick up this comic.

The one thing about Batman, Superman, and many of the DC comics is that you usually know what you’re getting into. They’re either gonna be fighting the Joker, Lex Luthor, or the Dark Flash, so it starts becoming a little formulaic at times. That being said there are so many different creators working on these books that every so often you get some really awesome stories that manage to use this cast of characters in totally different ways and they are able to create really cool new stories that broaden the scope of what a DC story can be. I think there is something awesome about being able to create totally new stories inside such a predetermined world. The rules are so set in stone when it comes to titles like Batman, and yet every so often creators manage to bend them without breaking them and still create a story that is both believable (in the world of Batman) and still innovative, and I think this series is gearing up to be one of those stories.

Writing: 5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 5 Stars

Written by; Alan Burnett & Paul Dini
Art by; Ty Templeton, Norm Rapmund & Jacob Edgar

Colors by; Monica Kubina
Lettering by; Josh Reed

Cover art by; Juan Ferreyra

Variant Cover by; Cliff Chiang, Rafael Albuquerque & Hayden Sherman

Published by DC Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”