It’s that time of year where we head back to school…
Creative Staff:
Story: Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher
Art: Adam Archer, Michael Dialynas, Chris Wildgoose, Sandra Hope
Colors: Michael Dialynas, Serge Lapointe
Letterer: Steve Wands
What They Say:
When the Gotham Academy student body comes down with a mysterious disease, Pomeline and Colton disagree on the origin of the threat, causing a fissure in Detective Club! The team fractures to get to the bottom of the case…but who will solve it first? Will Maps be able to reunite her friends? Will they ever eat pizza together again?! Join the search for clues in the first ever Gotham Academy Annual, precursor to Gotham Academy: Second Semester!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
When the Gotham Academy series first landed I was totally in love with it and that lasted for quite some time. The premise is a solid one particularly since I like the books that deal in the overall lore but find new paths through it. Working with new characters and breathing new life into older existing ones, the story of Olive, Maps, and the rest of the Detective Club hit a sweet spot for me. The book faltered a bit toward the end of its run so far this past spring as it delved into the Yearbook stories with lots of standalone material of varying lengths. With different writers and artists they were able to produce some really fun short-form work through a solid structure, but after four issues of it the bloom was definitely off of the book to be sure – particularly without Karl Keschl working the artwork as he really provided for a distinctive look that separated the book.
With the ongoing series getting back on track after its hiatus in a couple of weeks we get this annual first. It’s one that works a larger pair of stories that are tied together but does it through several artists. That provides a little bit of a jagged view of things since the styles are different enough and there isn’t quite the smoothness it needs nor the breakup of sections like the Yearbook stories did to help give it its own flow. That, in turn, made this book a bit more of a trudge to get through as it went on since the concept is not something that can really sustain a 42-page work. What works in its favor is that it largely eschews our usual leads of Olive and Maps and instead works more on the “supporting” characters, giving them a chance to shine with more time than the Yearbook stories gave to them. It’s a solid idea but the execution is the problem since it’s not about them as characters but just an affirmation of their personalities. We don’t really learn anything about them here.
The premise works well enough in that there’s a new mystery to solve as Olive and a lot of other students and faculty are down with a flu that feels mysterious in the eyes of certain people. Pom thinks it’s vampires and she works with Tristan to figure it out since she figures his being a vampire (when he’s really just a Man-Bat generation character) will help. Colton, on the other hand, thinks that it’s something more sinister with the undead and ends up working with Kyle to figure it out. These two end up stumbling upon a subplot involving Professor Powers and what he really is, which is weirdly complex when it shouldn’t be, and Pom and Tristan discover their nemesis with Drecoba as he’s after Warren for a particular reason. It all ties together in the last few pages of the book with why it’s all going on but it feels so like a Scooby-Doo Mysteries kind of reveal about the truth that it just doesn’t work.
In Summary:
And a good part of that is because it comes on top of the slow and tortured pace of the two teams trying to figure out what it is that’s going on through their limited knowledge base. With it running the two tracks of the story once the opening piece gets underway it moves back and forth a lot and we never really get to do much meaningful with either of them because of the structure of it. There are fun ideas here but they’re ones that would be better suited to a standard single issue done tighter and with a better singular artistic vision to it. There are some appealing scenes and layouts to the book and I love the color work as it’s definitely appealing, but everything is just so drawn out that I found myself not really becoming engaged with the artwork because the story kept making me want to find something to latch onto and flipping pages faster as I kept losing interest. I’m hopeful for the ongoing series to get things back on track but with so many strong books coming out of DC with the Rebirth event I can see Gotham Academy falling by the wayside.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 31st, 2016
MSRP: $4.99
