Creative Staff:
Story: Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher
Art: Karl Kerschl
What They Say:
Olive joins the creepy Order of the Bat as an afterschool activity, and we learn more about her secret past!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Gotham Academy was certainly interesting with what it wanted to do and the path it took to revealing itself since it’s not doling out the answers or foundational aspects in a quick and easy way. With our lead character of Olive, we know through this issue that things aren’t going well for her in specific ways as we see references to her being like her mother, which has her insisting that she’s not crazy, but also the revelation that the entire summer for her is one big blank. Others seem to know what’s going on to some degree, but there’s this unease and uncertainty about things that has Olive on the defensive and unsure of herself in general all while she’s trying to simply live her life and figure out what it is she wants.
Naturally, there are difficult things in her life that makes things worse. We see a lot of this with Pomeline, who is basically the Mean Girl to Olive as she berates and torments her in small ways and with just her overall attitude. Naturally, that has one of their teachers seeing it as an opportunity to make them work together to try and ease the tension, but that so rarely works and often just makes things worse. With them working together, barely, on their Gotham history assignment, we get a tantalizing tidbit as Olive manages to get a hold of a book that she’s really drawn to with The Diary Of Millie Jane Cobblepot, which dates back to 1863. They’re reading it in class, but Olive finding the book in the library has her even more intrigued by the book, especially since this has has all sorts of notes and maps in it which reveals secret locations in the area.
Suffice to say, Pomeline and Olive do not get along better over the course of this and Pomeline’s discovery of the book has her swiping it from her as well, chiding her for doing school work like that in her free time. There’s a lot of basic school stuff going on throughout the issue, a lot of which is bland and certainly well done to highlight the atmosphere of the school, and we see the struggle that Olive has throughout it, from avoiding Kyle since she doesn’t know if she can reconnect with him to avoiding Maps as well just to avoid that becoming more of a problem. But we also see the continual mentions of the ghosts in the north hall, which now appear to be moving nearer to the dorms, and also Olive seeing various kids in capes and masks running off into the night. That leads us to the tantalizing part of the book where she discovers a secret chamber with rituals going on with people wearing bat masks (not Batman masks) and the book she found in the library there. With Maps with her, she ends up taking a stand against Pomeline and what she did, but we also see just how fearful she is of bats as well, hinting more of her own connection to Batman from the mysterious summer she had.
In Summary:
In a way, Gotham Academy doesn’t reveal anything new or significant to us in terms of what the series, or even this arc in a way, will be about. Olive is definitely an interesting character as we start to unravel who she is and what her problems are as it’s being teased out in small and wonderful ways. It can be frustrating at the same time, but I’m finding that to be part of the charm of it all as well. This issue focuses more on her overall whereas the first had a lot more to introduce, so we’re getting deeper into the Academy, meeting more of the teachers and more of the grounds, which is also taking us into the whole Order of the Bat that appears to be a secret society of some sort there. The city obvious has a significant history to it and places like this are thick with a richness to explore. The potential for this still feels immense and I’m enjoying the pieces dangling in front of me, though hoping for a little more meat to grab onto and savor as it expands and reveals itself more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 5th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
