Written by: Becky Cloonan & Brenden Fletcher
Art by: Karl Kershel- Serge Lapointe & Msassyk (colours)
Published by: DC
Gotham Academy is by far my favourite Batman tie-in on the market right now (and there are more than you could possibly want on the shelves), and it should be everyone’s first stop for teen drama/ spooky hijinks of a Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets Scooby Doo variety. Now that we are fully into the second arc and all the characters and roles have been established we can finally start exploring their backstories and relationships in a meaningful way. The most interesting facet of the issue is Olive finding out about her mother’s secret life (which I’m amazed she didn’t already know or guessed at like the rest of us, making the reveal a bit annoying) but aside from the obvious ‘well, duh!’ moment in this reveal it does look like we’ll have some cool moments arising from this in the future. I do hope that there will be some heartfelt moments for Olive in the coming issues as she finds out more about the mother she apparently knew very little about and has just recently lost, especially seeing as her mother obviously cared for her through Killer Croc’s actions in the last arc.
We don’t really learn all that much about Olive’s mother though as most of what we are told is for set up for the next issue. The real meat of the book is spent fighting The Monster Of The Month which, this time around, is a werewolf, the existence of which was tied rather cleverly to Dr. Milo’s schemes with the Langstrom Gene. I ,for one, am greatly looking forward to the day that the gang fight a Skeleton-Man that just isn’t explained away.
Skeletor is waiting by the phone and has bills to pay.
How they actually defeat the wolf is a bit of a let down that can be summed up with ‘Shut up! It’s fixed! I scienced it away!’ I mean that’s all well and good and the story was entertaining but with little background given on the whole debacle and such a short build up, it really feels like the whole wolf-scenario was just crammed in to fill out the issue as the way for the next one was paved.
The connection between Olive and Tristan has always seemed rather cold to me, especially seeing as the writers are trying to push them closer together but I’m not really buying that they actually have any feelings for one another. The reason for this is likely due to them not having a moment where they just chat and eat a burger together or something; they always meet and 10 seconds later a monster or something shows up and they save each others skin. I guess this would develop a strong bond and trust with someone but I’m just not buying into the possibly romantic relationship between the two, although it may just be because we don’t really know the two’s personalities as well as the supporting cast’s at this point.
The art of the issue, as with the rest of the series, has been pretty top-notch and has a sort of cartoony feel to it that matches the atmosphere of the series perfectly. It really does strike me as something special and unique in this day and age.
Gotham Academy #9 is a fantastic continuation of what is already a great series. It has its awkward moments, although they are smoothed out a good bit compared to previous issues, and I’d try to push it on anyone that enjoys your standard highschool drama romp. My main problem is that throughout this run, Olive doesn’t have an outstanding personality to call her own and I think that she could benefit from an experience like issue 7 to flesh her out for the readers. I look forward to seeing how the story will go in the future and hope that those bronze-age style covers #5 and #6 had will make a glorious come-back for the end of this arc as well.
