Hello everybody,
The picture was my first attempt after seeing
@Jitsu &
@CassTheStreet cool banner for their book club, by the way if you haven’t join their club, please do. I wouldn’t have made the picture if it wasn’t for
@CassTheStreet, so a big Thankyou to her.
This will be my first time doing a read along for the club, so this month as we continue celebrating 30 years of Batman The Animated Series, We’ll be looking at the first 3 issues of The Batman Adventures.
Originally it was going to be a 6 issues mini series, then thankfully it was decided to be a continuing series which lasted #36 issues before turning into Batman and Robin Adventures.
So here we go.
The Batman Adventures #1
The Batman Adventures #1
Questions:
- Is this your first time reading the comic?
- The Penguin seem to enjoy doing word of a day, what word from a dictionary would you pick for him?
- The Penguin win an award then lose it, would you agree with that?
- What do you think of The Joker’s interduction by using a TV to tell Penguin his plan.
- What was your favorite part in the comic?
The Batman Adventures #2
The Batman Adventures #2
Questions
- What’s your favorite part of the comic?
- The Joker makes his second appearance, what you think he’s planning if you haven’t read the 3rd issue?
- Catwoman is a sneaky cat burglar in the comic, what do you think was her best moment in the comic?
Coming soon The Batman Adventures #3.
6 Likes
I have so much nostalgia for the first issue. It was everything a young chimp wanted in a Batman comic. Although I do have nostalgia for the first issue, I’m confident with saying that it still holds up. Beyond just being a very entertaining Batman vs. Penguin comic, it has loads of minor details that elevate the experience considerably.
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I love the way the issue opens, with Penguin’s lair, that one guy watching Batman on the TV, the Penguin attempting to appear intelligent but ends up getting mad at a henchman that mocks him. In a single seemingly meaningless conversation in the Penguin’s lair, the reader understands who the hero is, who the villain is, Penguin’s characteristics and how he operates, what Penguin’s henchmen are like, and the fact that he has henchmen in the first place.
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I really like that Joker was not revealed at the end of the issue. Instead of trying to shock the reader with something they probably already figured out, the comic does this:
It reveals that the mysterious guy making Penguin an offer is the Joker in a comedic way that is just pure Joker, nearly right away.
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Ty Temleton’s pencils are very good. Whether Ty has characters jump off the page,
Shows The Dark Knight Returns who the better Batman comic is,
Or just mimics the style of the show perfectly, his art is always quality stuff.
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I like Rick Burchett’s inking. It looks very smooth and polished.
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The action is great. Batman steals two guys’ guns, throws the guns away, trips one of the guys when the two guys charge at him, and jumps over the other guy, tricking him into running into a wall. The fights don’t have high stakes…like at all, but they don’t really need to. From the beginning of the fights the reader knows who is going to win, but that doesn’t stop the reader from having fun seeing Batman defeat Penguin’s henchmen in creative ways.
3 Likes
I used to own this first issue back in the 90s. I enjoy how this Penguin has airs of intellectualism that he can’t quite back up. (And he seems to have unusually bright henchmen.) And I like that this story could easily be something that you’d read in a Bronze Age Batman comic, despite the use of the BTAS style. For someone who wants something that feels distinctly like the show, that might be a problem, but if I wanted to watch the show, I’d watch the show…
The second issue is a bit lacking. It’s one thing to play the Penguin as a one-dimensional villain of the week, as he’s kinda silly by design. But when Catwoman feels devoid of personality, that’s a bigger problem. You can feel that the comic is aiming toward a young readership, arguably younger than that of the TV show’s target audience (despite an off-screen murder by the Joker), but this story feels rather lightweight even for the Silver Age.
Then Issue 3 opens like a toned-down version of The Killing Joke before shifting into something more reminiscent of the Clown Prince’s first appearance. The actual continuity of the DCAU is finally becoming prominent here (as indicated by a scene shared by DA Harvey Dent and Detective Harvey Bullock). And the writing is improved here, with some more fleshed-out characterization and a darker tone (which brings it more in line with BTAS as well), bringing us back into something akin to Bronze Age territory.
I don’t care much for the art style, as I don’t think that the DCAU character models lend themselves well to still images. Strangely enough, they look far more cartoony here than they do in the actual cartoon! But I can tolerate it enough to read the stories.
2 Likes