Comic Review: Batman: The Adventures Continue (2020-) #4

Batman: The Adventures Continue #4

DC Comics

Writers: Paul Dini & Alan Burnett

Artist: Ty Templeton

Dini and Burnett continue their sequel to the Batman Animated Series by introducing another character absent from the cartoon, Azrael. For anyone who doesn’t know the character’s history, here’s a summary. Azrael is a vigilante who operates on behalf of an organization known as the Order of St Dumas. In the comics when Bane broke Batman’s back, Azrael took over as Batman and defeated Bane. Bruce eventually recognized that Azrael’s methods of fighting crime were too brutal though and took back the suit. Like Deathstroke in the last issue, Azrael has never been used by this creative team so it begs the question. Can this creative team make this character translate well into the style of the animated series? Let’s delve into this book and see.

The story starts off as usual with Batman having to deal with one of his rogues. In this case, he’s chasing Catwoman when suddenly Azrael intervenes. He captures her and questions her about her theft of a shawl considered sacred to the Order of St Dumas. Batman swiftly intervenes and offers to help Azrael in exchange for Catwoman’s safety. The rest of the story mainly consists of Azrael and Batman hunting down this missing shawl.

This is a somewhat darker issue of this series. Naturally, Azrael has to be shown as violent but there are other aspects that give this story a darker tone. I don’t want to spoil any of them though since they’re central to the plot. The story makes some allusions to the idea that Bruce and Azrael trained together in the past. It’s a good way to help Azrael fit into this world that we’ve never seen him as part of before. There’s also quite a fun reference to the “Knightfall” storyline from the comics that runs through the issue. Despite being darker in tone there’s still a fair amount of comedy here. The book made me laugh on a couple of different occasions. The one criticism I have of the writing is it’s starting to feel formulaic. Every issue so far has opened with Batman tackling one of his rogues as a setup for the main story. Hopefully, the next few issues do something a little different.

The art continues to be gorgeous. I’d mentioned a darker tone and that’s reflected visually throughout the issue. Templeton sticks to the art style of the show but the colours used are a little darker than previous issues. We get a lot of the red sky, time spent in dark buildings, black outfits on the characters. It helps maintain the tone of the story and more colourful aspects like Azrael’s flaming sword stand out much more. I don’t really have much negative that I can say about the art. Templeton was solid throughout the whole issue.

The lettering was great throughout the issue. The series continues to use separate narration boxes for its major characters. In this case, Batman, Jason Todd, and Azrael all get unique narrative boxes. There’s a solid use of sound effects, most of them brightly coloured to stand out in some of the darker backgrounds. There’s also the usual bold lettering on certain phrases to highlight them. Certain speech bubbles are also outlined in red to draw the reader’s attention. Lots of nice little touches that all help adds to the quality of the book.

Overall, this was a great issue. Darker in tone than the previous three but well-written. Azrael fits in surprisingly well with the Batman animated universe. I actually want to see more of him after this story. The art was great. If you’re a fan of the cartoon then it’s definitely going to give you that nostalgia rush. The lettering was terrific across the entire issue too. One of the things I love about this series is that it mostly seems to be standalone stories. Jason Todd is spying on Batman in them all but new fans can easily jump into any issue. That’s the case here and I guarantee an enjoyable read if you do. I can’t recommend this book enough.

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