Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Three #8 - DC Comics

BATMAN: THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE SEASON THREE No. 8, December 2023

As a “series finale over thirty years in the making” goes, Alan Burnett and Paul Dini’s storyline for Issue Eight of “Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Three” certainly seems to successfully strike home, courtesy of an outrageously audacious scheme by Ra's al Ghul to convince the Dark Knight into retirement by secretly incarcerating the super-hero’s Rogues Gallery in an underground prison. In fact, the Detective’s discovery of his potential father-in-law’s plan genuinely provides this twenty-page-periodical with a jaw-dropping revelation, especially once Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego learns that the super-villain’s solution to worldwide famine will actually cause sterility within a few generations.

Furthermore, the comic contains plenty of fisticuffs and punch-ups to keep the adrenalin-junkies content, as the Caped Crusaders face-off against a veritable army of zombie dogs and undead assassins. This notion that the sickly Dragon’s Head would readily take over the Court of Owls following the demise of its original council, is an easy plot-twist to accept, and resultantly provides the writers with more than enough Talons for the Bat-Family to sporadically battle as they tensely travel deeper into Gotham City’s maze-like system of subterranean tunnels; “My guess is the Owls brought you this way.”

Perhaps therefore this book’s sole disappointment might arguably come in the lack of limelight given to so many of Batman’s most notorious opponents. Admittedly, the likes of Talia al Ghul, Selina Kyle, Kirk Langstrom and Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot do well enough with each criminal actually contributing to the overall narrative. But Clayface, Killer Croc, Two-Face, the Black Mask and the Scarecrow regrettably are given just enough panel space for a brief cameo, potentially making some of the Dark Knight’s greatest adversaries appear as little more than afterthoughts.

So minor (and understandable) a quibble though is soon forgotten thanks to the stellar artistic contribution of Ty Templeton, Jacob Edgar, and Monica Kubina, who together produce a fantastic feast for the eyes with their prodigious pencilling, inking and colour choices. Indeed, the sheer grandeur of Ra's al Ghul’s hush-hush head-quarters really helps sell the scope of the international mastermind’s evil machinations, and provides an excellent backdrop to this masterwork’s cataclysmic conclusion once Catwoman has freed all the long-lived felon’s numerous prisoners.

The regular cover of "BATMAN: THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE SEASON THREE" #8 by Ty Templeton