The students of Gotham Academy continue their journey to discover the secrets of the school and of themselves. I won’t spoil the major plot twists, but other mild spoilers may follow.
Written by Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan, and Karl Kerschl
Illustrated by Adam Archer and MsassykYou know you’re in trouble when Batman calls you to the principal’s office! To stop the new threat to the Academy, Detective Club must team up with the Dark Knight. Not even Batarangs, however, can stop the sting of betrayal.
The Gotham Academy creators turn in a major issue for this storyline, delivering multiple revelations to push forward a few character beats. This is one of the best issues of the run so far, providing some nice pay-off to long-simmering plotlines, all pulled off spectacularly by an art team with a unique style.
This issue makes it clear that this is exactly the YA book DC needs to be publishing. It never talks down to the audience and has a team of lovable three-dimensional characters, and the plot keeps pushing forward into interesting territory. Looking at this issue in particular, Olive’s mental struggles are never sugarcoated, treated instead with finesse that invite empathy. That is just one aspect of the issue, and other moments happen with the other characters that are handled equally as well. The book also takes place just enough in Gotham to please long-time fans without overdoing the connection for new readers. Here, Batman makes an appearance without referencing other Batman stories, and while some Gotham-specific family relations are revealed, those families have been discussed in previous issues. These writers know how to play on the line between insider and outsider.
This issue doubles down on the early Harry Potter vibe as the students go deeper into the secrets of their school. Aside from the twists, the more normal parts of the plot continue the spooky journey we’ve been on the past few issues in order to prove Colton’s innocence. It gives the artists a lot of fun mechanics to work with, from giant discs swirling downwards into nothingness to large empty caverns lit by bioluminescent mushrooms. The art team works seamlessly together, probably because of the overlap: Msassyk is on all of pencils, inks, and colors, with Adam Archer also on pencils and Sandra Hope also on inks. Her being on all three likely allows her to guide her collaborators into a more cohesive singular vision, as opposed to separate elements being put together. This becomes apparent when looking at the inks, which themselves are typically thin and likely very close to the original pencils, but are all colored depending on the scene. So, since Olive’s hair is colored as a sort of grey, the outline is a slightly darker grey. I love this technique, and it gives the series a particular feeling not found in many mainstream comics.
The story twists also give the artists a great opportunity to play around with the form. One page, which deals with one of the major revelations I don’t want to spoil here, smartly uses the revelation to simultaneously affect the panel layout and help the reader understand how the revelation makes sense. This is difficult to talk about without going into specifics, but it really sold the scene for me, and that is thanks to the execution by the art team.
Steve Wands on letters deserves a special mention as well. He knows how to adjust font sizes so they’re just changed enough to be felt without you consciously noticing, and any sort of balloon color change or font change aids the other storytellers without being distracting. Lettering is the invisible art, and Wands is definitely an invisible artist.
The main issue I could see people having with this issue is in terms of the series as a whole. I wouldn’t exactly call this book decompressed, but it isn’t moving at the fastest pace. The book also plays the long game, which some might see as the wait-for-trade game. This issue, however, shows me that the book is moving at exactly the pace it needs to. Yes, it took us a while to get here, but that build-up was worth it to me since it gave us all the wonderful moments in this issue. Yes, it spends a lot of time on smaller character interactions, but those always have meaning to develop the characters more and often push the plot forward as well. Yes, this will read well when everything is collected as a whole, but I’ve been enjoying it month-to-month, especially with months as strong as this one.
“Gotham Academy: Second Semester” boasts a highly competent creative team on both story and art, all collaborators working together to enhance the other’s work. The book fills a much-needed void in DC’s publishing slate. And even when the story moves slowly, each issue, this one a particular highlight, contains enough big character moments and fun mystery bits to keep monthly readers entertained. I’m a huge fan of this series, and I’m happy it exists. Onward to this arc’s conclusion!
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Great story, great art, great characters, and this issue gives you some major twists, too. This is the type of YA comic DC should always be publishing. If that appeals to you, definitely check it out!
