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High School Gets Even More Mysterious in “Gotham Academy” #2 [Review]

By | November 6th, 2014
Posted in Reviews | 3 Comments

“Gotham Academy” #2 expands the world of the series, and leads us into the heart of a big mystery, in a fun and Batman-free issue.

Written by Becky Cloonan and Brendan Fletcher
Illustrated by Karl Kerschl

Olive joins the creepy Order of the Bat as an afterschool activity, and we learn more about her secret past.

Picking up from the premiere issue, “Gotham Academy” #2 quickly highlights even more mysterious goings on at the school. There are strange people running around in robes waving candles everywhere, and main character Olive is still dealing with the aftereffects of a seismic event in her recent past. But soon she will came face to face with the dark forces of her school and face her biggest challenge yet: being partnered with a certified Mean Girl on a class project.

Let’s get this out of the way: Batman doesn’t appear once in “Gotham Academy” #2, and that’s a great thing. Last month’s premiere issue used the Bruce Wayne’s appearance as a hook to get crotchety old Bat-fans like me to give the book a shot. In two installments of the series, the creative team have established a world that is exciting, relatable and, most importantly, fun, and it doesn’t need Batman and his superpowered grumpiness to make the proceedings grim and dark for no real reason.

Writers Becky Cloonan and Brendan Fletcher set up several plot threads in the first issue, and everything moves along at a nice pace. There’s no big resolution this early on, but instead it’s an opportunity to flesh out the characters a bit more. Readers won’t know what exactly happened to Olive during the summer, or how her mother fits into things, but you will certainly sympathize with her as other people hound and ostracize her. Cloonan and Fletcher never let things get too mopey, and are careful to give Olive a fair amount of agency in her own action. She is not a helpless person being pushed along, but instead actually drives story elements with her own decisions.

The narration and diary excerpts are kept to a minimum, and don’t threaten to overpower the scenes. Cloonan and Fletcher hit just the right note with dialogue, making it seem age appropriate without falling to the trap of adults-guessing-how-teenagers talk. There’s no weird slang or social media buzz phrases, and nary a LOL or hashtag in sight. Instead the characters speak with the levels of bewilderment, passive aggression and flat-out aggression that everyone can remember from their teenage years.

There aren’t any massive leaps and bounds in terms of back story or character development, as the writers are sticking with a more naturalistic approach. This is not an issue for impatient readers who want a detailed background of Olive and her infamous summer right away. They provide enough information to keep the reader’s attention and provide depth to the characters, albeit at a slower pace, but it never feels like a tease or a stalling tactic.

Karl Kerschl continues to create more unique art on every page of “Gotham Academy”. His lines are fairly soft, helping to give the issue a painting-like quality. He makes excellent use of foreground action and soft-focused backgrounds to create a real sense of depth to the image. Kids always view their school as foreboding, but this makes the Academy feel as large and cavernous as the Batcave. Kerschl gives the characters large and expressive facial features, and he absolutely nails the death stare of a teenage bully. The scene between Olive and Pomeline is excellently paced, and Kerschl’s use of wide angles combined with pov shots highlights the awkwardness and silent bitterness that occurs between teenaged rivals. Some of the bigger reaction shots do lean towards anime levels of eye-wideness, which is not a look that everyone is a fan of. Here, however, a bit of anime flourish is exciting because Kerschl is giving us the most unique look of Gotham in a long time.

Kerschl should also be commended for drawing teenagers that actually look like teenagers. If you pick up an issue of “Teen Titans”, between Red Robin’s 0% level of body-fat and Wonder Girl’s, ahem, proportions, it would not be hard to forget that these characters are around 16. The fact that Maps and Olive look like regular school kids and not slightly shorter versions of superheroes actually impacts the tone of the story. When bad stuff starts to go down, it’s clear that the characters aren’t going to be able to punch their way out of a sticky situation. When they descended into the dark and mysterious cavern, it’s incredibly tense in a way that doesn’t occur in any other DC comic.

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And yes, there is a shot where the book Olive is supposed to be reading clearly has no words in it, but hey, we’re not here to split hairs.

When things literally get darker, it becomes apparent that Kerschl and the coloring team of Geyser, Dave McCaig and John Rauch work excellently together. They keep things from getting super dark and monochrome as Olive and Maps sneak out at night and into a creepy cave. There’s still a color and vibrancy to all of the images, it’s just a little more subdued. Once inside the cavern, the use of bright orange mixed with long shadows makes the images very visually exciting even though there’s no fighting or typical superheroics occurring.

“Gotham Academy” #2 finds the series still in world-building mode, which doesn’t make it any less of an enjoyable read. There are no enormous character or story revelations, aside from a final page cliffhanger, but the book is filled with smaller moments that make the world deeper and richer. Cloonan and Fletcher are taking their time with the series, but still made a story that is fun and adventurous. Karl Kerschl’s art is worth price of admission alone, and in 40 pages he has established “Gotham Academy” as one of the most unique looking books at DC right now.

There’s a scene where a dog digs up a suspiciously human-looking bone which serves as a particularly good analogy for the series. It looks innocent, but there’s creepy stuff happening just below the surface.

And any book the brings a villain from the Adam West Batman TV show into the New 52 and makes it totally work deserves your money.

Final Verdict: 8.0 – A fun installment of a series that is still growing. The creative team has made a unique book filled with intriguing characters, and have proved that cool stuff still happens in Gotham when Bruce Wayne isn’t around.


Matt Dodge

Matt Dodge is originally from Ottawa (go Sens!), where he attended University and somehow ended up with a degree in history and political science. He currently resides in Toronto where he is a full-time procrastinator who occasionally takes a break to scribble some pretentious nonsense on a piece of paper. He knows way too much about hockey, Saved By The Bell, and Star Wars. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Dodge.

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