Aren’t we all in the market for a hidden lair?
Creative Staff:
Story: Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher
Art: Karl Kerschl
What They Say:
If the gang thought it was hard to keep up with their homework before, now there’s a werewolf on campus at Gotham Academy! Talk about distractions!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Gotham Academy has been fun to read throughout its run so far as it’s slowly but surely built up this area of the Batman mythos without much in the way of Batman. I’m partial to such things since there’s such a rich world to work with when it comes to Gotham that doesn’t include using him in a meaningful way. While he’s had some minor appearances here and Damian took over for an issue, it’s mostly been about the core group of kids themselves and the mystery of Olive herself. With that working throughout the main arcs so far, it’s been great to watch the traditional coming together of a group of friends with a higher purpose and a sense of fun about them that we’ve seen elsewhere. It’s easy to make comparisons to things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and others, but in the end Gotham Academy is most assuredly forging its own path.
And that group is definitely really fun here as Maps pushes the whole Detective Club angle even more so this time around as they attempt to figure out the animal/werewolf attacks that are going on, which took down Tristan in a big way. What we really do see is the way that each character has their role and specialty, including one of them revealing a secret lair in the woods – even as they deny that it’s a lair. What this evolves into is that the key pieces are in place for the kids to function as a team without needing a lot of help from adults or others. They’ll seek it from time to time to be sure and others will help when necessary, and we get some of that here with Langstrom to be sure, but the group is now formalizing around being monster hunters. But hunters with the intention of stopping things without it turning horribly violent. Emphasis on intention and trying.
The whole werewolf storyline is the main driver of events here and it does play out well enough, especially as we get a bit more on Tristan’s view of the world. All while shirtless of course. But it’s tied to Olive and her discoveries in the form of her student records being left in her room mysteriously. That it reveals that her mother was a costumed type and that it was Batman that placed her in the academy, not a scholarship, her panic is understandable as she really just wants answers at this point. And so do the readers, I suspect, as we’ve gotten a lot of teases and hints but it should be drawn out only so far. The fun is in that Olive doesn’t get sidetracked too much from trying to seek out answers as she goes so far as to push aside the monster hunting momentary to go after them from her faculty connection. It’s slightly revealing, just enough so, to establish more of the support group outside of the kids that they can use in the future but also more for Olive to pursue in understanding what she really is.
In Summary:
Gotham Academy nudges things along in some good ways here while offering some creepy teases in the woods that hints at greater discoveries ahead. Hopefully in the next issue in fact. For me, what makes this issue succeed more than the story itself is seeing the way the kids are operating together after starting out in such opposite corners from each other outside of Maps and Olive. It’s drawn them all together in a really good way and manages to even make me like Pomeline. All of this is made oh so much richer thanks to Karl Kerschl’s artwork, which I really feel like I go on too much about in each installment/summary section because it just drives me nuts how perfect and beautiful it is for this kind of property, especially with the coloring style. Once again he nails it from the first to last panel and with all the great layout designs he uses to make it engaging while drawing you in as well. This is a dynamic read and one that comes across so much better in digital form than print that it’s almost like two different books.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 12th, 2015
MSRP: $2.99
