Comic Review - Batman Earth One Volume 3

Batman Earth One - Volume Three

We have had a great run in the third and final volume of Batman Earth One. I am glad I chose this as my opening run of blog posts, and I hope you have enjoyed it.

Title: Batman: Earth One, Volume 3 (Batman: Earth One #3)

Writer: Geoff Johns

Art

Team: Gary Frank (Penciller) & Jon Sibal (Inker).

Fluff:

Harvey Dent is dead. Or is he?

A gang of thieves thrusts Gotham City into fear when they are mysteriously well-armed with military-grade weapons: flamethrowers, grenade launchers, and even tanks.

And this gang claims former district attorney Harvey Dent funds it.

Balancing his two lives, Bruce Wayne must find the truth by tapping his growing network of agents, including Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, Waylon "Killer Croc" Jones, and the savvy new Catwoman.

Bruce is distracted by the seemingly impossible return of another figure believed dead: his grandfather Adrian Arkham. He must also comfort his longtime friend, Gotham City mayor Jessica Dent, who is scarred physically and mentally from her experience with the Riddler, which resulted in the gruesome death of her brother.

But is Harvey back, plotting revenge on a city he proclaims guilty?

When Batman discovers the truth behind these many mysteries, his entire world unravels...

Publisher: DC Comics

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Review

Not the most exciting way to finish this series, sadly. Not how I wanted to finish this series of reviews, but it is how I feel about it. Nothing worst than feeling let down by a finale.

We continue to follow Bruce Wayne as he continues his early adventures as Batman. In this volume, we have him teaming up with Croc whilst similarly pushing Alfred to the sidelines for some reason. As the story progresses, the plot becomes more evident and unexciting. I was disappointed at the appearance of Adrian Arkham. It seemed unneeded and it added the annoying Waynes/Arkham mystery past arc, which I feel is unneeded.

It is an okay story, but I am disappointed as we moved away from the "real world" story into the DC universe "Hero World". Meaning the story became a bit of a fantasy plot. Art was the real saviour of the book and is beautifully drawn, but even this had issues. The main issue was Catwomen. She looks comically stupid, something between a Twitch streamer and the Cheshire Cat! Her outfit seemed unusual for a "real world" thief.

The Two-Face story arc should have been the proper focus of the book (as it was described) and given more time to build out as we saw a detective Batman working a case, rather than a gungho, punching machine. We saw him working with his team and having a real-world building story. Sadly this highlight was lost in the noise of the unimportant. Then we have the final panel, which was way too much of a tease to end the series there, with us seeing Robin, Batgirl, Ragman and, of course: The Joker! How do you put all that in on the last page and then say “DONE”. Feels like a flat note to finish the series this way. I hope more will be coming. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

The Joker finally appears.