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Reader Friendly: Remember Gotham Academy?


Credit: DC Comics


Hey, remember they had a trailer for an Elseworld book where they reimagined several Batman characters as high school students and a small outrage by the usual suspects that lasted for like a month happened and then they stopped talking about it.


Yeah, so the idea of reimagining characters from the Batman mythos as high schoolers isn't new. It's an idea that's been kicked around through different mediums. The original pitch of Batman Beyond was Batman in high school and there was a animated series pitch which was Gotham High, but with more Batman characters. All this hubbub reminded me of a comic book series called Gotham Academy.


Released in the last bunch of New 52 books and running from 2014 till 2017, Gotham Academy was about the adventures of Olive Silverlock and her friends, students of the prestigious Gotham Academy, a place of many mysteries, one involving Olive and her relation to her parents. The series itself was pretty fun and enjoyable. It had the whimsical tone of the early Harry Potter novels and some fun mysteries, pretty cool characters and fun easter eggs. I also really wanted to write about this and this has been in my drafts for a while.


Important Note: I haven't read all the issues in the series, it was something I casually read, but I got the general gist of it, I want to preface that before I go into the nitty gritty of things.


THE PLOT

Olive Silverlock begins a new school year at Gotham Academy being the ambassador to new student Mia "Maps" Mizoguchi. A young and excitable girl who offsets Olive's more stoic personality. While showing her the place strange occurrences begin to happen around the school involving the diary of one Millie Jane Cobblepot, some mysterious students and Olive's mother whose been sent to Arkham Asylum. If you can't tell, it's the standard youth orientated adventure mystery story, which is set at a school, like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, except there's a chance a Batman villain has a walk on part.


What I do think works in favour of the book is that it is mostly self contained and it rarely referenced any big events or storylines that were happening at the time. There were tie-ins to storylines like Robin War and Endgame, but it really did not change the status quo like other book usually do. There is also the odd singles issue that did do school related fare like doing a play, but there usually a fun read. There was also a pretty fun anthology arc called Yearbook which closed off the original run which had several different stories, that was also a nice little read.


CHARACTERS

Gotham Academy is set at a school, so you know what character archetypes you are getting. Protagonist who is somehow related to the overall mystery and is an outcast, a quirky sidekick, a love interest, a rival who the main character does not get along with a first, but later becomes friends and the hustler. The roles are filled by Olive, Maps, Kyle, Pomeline and Colton, the Detective Club. Cute name.


Olive is a good character with good development as her cynical and lonesome personality dissolves after being with her circle of friends. Her stoic personality also act as a good offset with Maps, a more cheerful and outgoing character, and my favourite character of the series. I think it might be because I was like that when I was young and seeing a character like that was easy to identify with and she was always fun to read. Kyle was Olive's love interest and there was the obligatory will they/won't they scenario going one, Pomeline has the standard enemy to ally arc and Colton actually had a pretty dark backstory and also some pathos with him being gay and having a crush on Kyle.


Another thing of note is that the book had some pretty good easter eggs to the larger Batman mythos with several recurring background characters being from either the Adam West show or the DC Animated Universe. Aunt Harriet, Simon Trent from the Gray Ghost episode, Bookworm, Egghead and Warren McGinnis, father of Terry McGinnis show up along with some obscure characters. These are some fun cameos.

One of many cameos.

Some Batman villains show up as staff members like Hugo Strange and Professor Milo, which really makes you question how good those prison job programs are. My favourite teacher was the head master nicknamed Hammerhead. He had a cool design and a cool backstory.




ART

The book has really great art, by Becky Cloonan and Karl Kerschl. Kerschl did the main art duty and his art matches both mysterious tone of the story but also gives it a lot of high energy, with character's movements.

I just love this image.

The character designs are also pretty great as well, there recognisable and you can get a good idea of what and who these characters are.


FINAL VERDICT

Gotham Academy, even though I haven't read every issue, is a fun and enjoyable little series, with great characters, callbacks for fans and art. It's really great for new readers to pickup and I would also recommend to younger readers as well, because I think they'll get a kick out of it.


You can buy this at any place where graphic novels are sold if you want to seek it out.

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