Batman The Adventures Continue Season Two #5

Batman The Adventures Continue Season Two #5

DC Comics 2021

Written by Alan Burnett & Paul Dini

Illustrated by Rick Burchett

Coloured by Monica Kubina

Lettered by Josh Reed

An old face returns to Gotham when former Mayor Emerson Mayfield steps out of retirement, looking to once again rise to power. But Batman isn’t thrilled with the Mayor’s homecoming after his run-ins with him during his early years as the caped crusader. Can Batman deduce what Mayfield’s plan for Gotham is before it’s too late?!

This series makes me miss the animated show. I mean sure it was a cartoon but it wasn’t a kids show per se, it was all-ages and contained the layers and depth that would appeal to such a broad spectrum of viewers. This book does that as well by the way and it’s among the many reasons why I am such a firm supporter of it. This issue also showcases another reason quite prominently as well and that’s that not all villains wear colourful outfits and wield fanciful weapons. Sometimes they wear suits and hold political office and these can be even more dangerous. With the return of Mayfield it looks as though the team is going to have to do more detective work if they’re going to find out what he’s up to and I for one look forward to this!

I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter that continues to bring their personalities to the forefront exceptionally well. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story the more impressed that I become.

I am enjoying seeing how this is being structured as well as how the layers within the story emerge, grow and strengthen. How the layers open up the avenues to be explored or just showcase some of the directions that may or may not be taken they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are so on point for the brand and I have to admit that this is so dead on the animated series that it is literally amazing to witness. I will say I wish we’d seen the Gotham CityScape during Good Morning Gotham instead of an orange screen. Otherwise how we see backgrounds throughout really enhances and expands the moments while also working within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a sensational eye for how colour works.

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This really is an exciting chapter in this run. This isn’t your atypical Batman Adventure and instead focuses more on things that Batman has a harder time trying to control and it creates a totally different dynamic. Which interestingly enough actually fits right into the Batman mythology but it is something that we don’t see nearly often enough. I’d personally like to see more stories like this and hopefully so will other fans. This is extremely well written with excellent characterisation and some perfectly suited interiors and there’s not much more you can ask for.