Batman Gotham Adventures #38 "Sticking" Review

[grahamvidger]

Here is my review of Batman Gotham Adventures #38 “Sticking”

Story: Scott Peterson

Pencils: Bob Smith

Inks: Terry Beatty

Letters: Tim Harkins

Colors: Nathan Eyring

This comic book is a 22-page issue of Batman Gotham Adventures. This is the issue 38 of 60 of Batman Gotham Adventures. The reason why I am reviewing this issue is because it is actually the one I hate the most. Other than this one, I actually love Batman Gotham Adventures. It’s pretty hard to find Batman Gotham Adventures comics in America. But I can guarantee you that they are pretty good. This is my first review of an issue in the DCAU comics, and my plan is to review two issues (favorite and least favorite) from each comic book series that is in the DCAU continuity. It’s completely random that I am starting with Batman Gotham Adventures. I will try my best to be spoiler free, but sometimes I may accidentally mention a few spoilers.

Plot Summary (From Comicvine.com, All rights and thanks go to them)

Overview

Robin and Batgirl track down a ski-masked criminal who is targeting middle-aged males and sending them to the hospital. But what connection does this have to little-league hockey games?

Spoilers

There is a mugger in Gotham City, and the attacks seem to be random. Four attacks, all males between 31 and 53, each with different jobs and ethnic backgrounds. Finally, Robin and Batgirl catch a lucky break--a video camera aimed on one of the muggings. They couldn't actually see the muggings, but they saw a witness: Big Vinnie, the bookie! They finally find out the link: all of the victims are coaches in their 12 year old sons' hockey league! But can Robin and Batgirl get their in time to save the last coaches?

My Review

What sort of made me think I hated this issue the most in this comic book series is the fact that Batman isn’t actually in it. From looking at the cover of this issue you can see that Robin and Batgirl are the only heroes in it. Something else you notice from looking at the cover of this comic book is that you can see that the bad guy is attacking Robin and Batgirl with a hockey stick. This villain is dressed up like he is skiing or it’s winter. Yet he also has ice skates (or hockey skates) on. I think this cover does not represent the story that well. The villain does not actually ever wear those skates and his clothes weren’t the same color as they were on the cover. The cover also made the story look like it was set in winter time with all the snow drawn on the cover, but there was no proof or support of the story being in the winter at all. You never see snow or winter references or even mentioning or drawing of signs of cold weather, none of any of that on any page of the comic book.

What happens in this story is that some different individuals in Gotham are mysteriously getting attacked (but not killed because that is not allowed in this comic) by a person described to be dressed in ski clothes. But Batman is, for some unexplainable reason, unable to solve this crime, so it’s up to Robin and Batgirl, as they seem to be some of the first people to notice these attacks. These two heroes end up helping different people right after they are attacked. All the people have the same description of the assailant. Robin and Batgirl do background checks on all these people. The only things all these people have in common are that they are all men and they all have twelve-year-old sons who play hockey. From good detective work (basically all done by Batgirl), the two knights of Gotham find the man who has been causing all this trouble.

One thing I really don’t get in this is that while sweeping the city Robin and Batgirl find more people getting mysteriously attacked, but their so focused on finding out who did this while they stop the Mad Hatter on one page and stop some other crimes that also have way more importance than finding out who has been attacking these people every now and then. I’d rather have a comic book based on those three pages where Robin and Batgirl take down the Mad hatter and all those other dangerous criminals and gangs. There is also a random fight scene near the end of this issue where two guys start fighting Robin because they thought the main villain of the story that they had just captured was innocent because they knew him. But this fight was quick and for some odd reason they are not mad after getting beat up by Robin. In fact they even gave him a compliment about his fighting and told him that he would be good at playing left wing in hockey. Another weird part is when Robin and Batgirl are talking in the batcave near the beginning of the story it shows Robin juggling apples for some weird reason. This part also shows him unmasked, and a weird thing about is that they draw his eyes blue when they weren’t that color in any other comic or episode of the The New Batman Adventures.

The one part I did like about this issue was the very ending where Robin and Batgirl take the main villain to the police as the main villain’s son watches him get taken away.

Anyone have any thoughts on this issue or my review?

[SuaveStar]

Well, it's cool that you’re doing reviews of the comic tie ins, two from each show, cause Erin, I think you’re going through the Batman story’s issue by issue.

Right, my thoughts.

You should have synopsised the story first and then mentioned your gripes and kept things in line like that, here’s an example:

Batman finds out Hush is back and does no longer want to destroy Bruce Wayne, he wants to be Bruce Wayne, by any means necessary.

This story is the first part of a five issue arc in detective comics called Heart of Hush and is written by Paul Dini and pencilled by Dustin Nguyen.

That type of style, quick synopsis then go from there.

You mentioned that you hated the issue, without given the synopsis first, you could have said that this is a Batgirl and Robin-centric issue without Batman later on, and not have it be your first line of the review, you started off on bad terms which synopsised your review "Oh, he hates this, I'm done" whereas you could mention the plot then off handily mention how Batman wasn't in this story and you felt it hurt the story.

Don't mention the lack of killings, people were never killed in the TV show, and this ties into that, so why would it be different, this is a kid first comic, like Johnny DC now.

When you mentioned the issue number a simpler way of saying it was "This is issue 38 of the 60 issue run of Batman Gotham Adventures” try to make that as short and to the point as possible.

You didn't start a new paragraph by adding a space when you started your review from your introduction, the reader will read on and still think "Is this still his intro?" just press return when you are done with the intro to make a little difference but it helps.

You shouldn't have mentioned without any spoilers, it lets the reader know you are not giving a beat by beat review, just do the review without mentioning how you are not mentioning how the story ends, which we all know, should end with the hero’s winning.

You never accidently do something in a review, if you notice a mistake and it fits in just say "I meant to do that" as long as it jives with the rest of your review.

Try to keep your thoughts separate from the synopsis, a simple intro and then your story would help a lot, for the reader and you writing it.

It was a good start and I hope you continue these reviews.

Well, that's my thoughts.

[grahamvidger]

Thanks for the suggestions suavestar, yeah I'm not that experienced in doing these types of reviews and I will edit this a little bit. Also these will never be as good as Erin's and I'm doing these a little different way. I'm just doing two issues (favorite and least favorite) from each series and I'm doing my reviews in a little bit of a different style and there not supposed to be super good, I'm probably not trying super hard for these.