4 issue Test #33- Gotham Academy: Second Semester

 

Time to look at DC Rebirth Again!

Not all DC Rebirth titles had rebirth specials. Neither of the two we’re covering this month did. Gotham Academy: Second Semester doesn’t even come under the rebirth banner at all. Gotham Academy had a decent start to it, but something went wrong just before December last year, one of Kerchl’s last issues was delayed and the following issues, following a yearbook anthology motif, were drawn by other artists, most notably Adam Archer, who you may remember drew the Ratchet and Clank comic.

In this series, Kerchl joins the squad as a writer, with Adam Archer providing the art all the way through. But does this affect the quality of the comic? Well, let’s take a look

#1 opens during the winter break. Olive’s staying at the Academy as she has no family and is enjoying with Professor Macpherson. She promises to bring cranberries tomorrow but later informs Oliver by letter that she had a prior commitment. Olive takes a shower and comes out to find a new roommate, Amy. To say she’s a troublemaker is putting it mildly.

They go out into the grounds where she says she was sent to Gotham for a ‘proper education’ after being kicked out of two schools in her local area. I know this is a comic book but why Gotham, why not literally anywhere else? Anyway, she decides to break into the campus museum for sh*ts and giggles. They find a séance room and find themselves locked inside. Olive passes out soon after for no adequately explained reason

She wakes up thanks to the help of Eric, from Olive’s art class. He’s found a secret passage in a sarcophagus. They find a room where Mrs Wedgewood, formerly a Cobblepot, went after seances to record her conversations, for some reason. Eric had found symbols like the one here over the school, leading him to one Olive recognises as Arkham. He’s found Arkham symbols across campus and think they have a connection but Amy steals his bag along with a picture of his secret crush and his asthma medication. Much to Olive’s chargin she locks them both in. It’s an attic area so Olive uses a bust to smash through the floor and manages to get him out, right into the sights of Mr Scarlet, who fortunately has found Eric’s asthma medication.

He asks if Olive went in alone and she replies that she was and apologises and he fortunately accepts. Mrs Macpherson tells Olive that Eric is doing find and apologises for breaking her word. And we end the story with Kyle and Maps coming back onto campus for a new term.

#2 opens with a random chick being kidnapped. Maps wakes Olive but forgets that she has a new roommate now. Olive is still angry about Eric but Amy says she has no-one else to hang with today. We cut to class where Maps has been promoted ahead in English despite her grades being substandard. Evan tells Maps he’s excited to practice Tennis with Kyle later on.

Mr Scarlett has taken over the class whilst Professor Pio takes some “personal time,” something that arouses suspicion, but at the Detective Club meeting, it’s dismissed. Maps has made all of them little holiday dolls, which aren’t creepy in the slightest. He even made one for Eric. Pomeline sees the Arkham symbol and takes Eric aside for a ‘talk.’ Poor Eric, seems like every time we see him, someone’s bullying him.

Anyway, we see she has an Arkham symbol on her necklace and steels his notes and he goes Golum about it. I don’t believe this is resolved yet. Kyle goes out onto the court, leaving Evan to change but the lights go out and she’s abducted. This naturally gains his attention, and the coach, who’s taking meds from Professor Langstrom, tells him there are a number of students who have gone missing.

As Olive and Amy are gossiping, Maps is about to put up some posters. She runs into her roommate, Katherine who has a problem falling apart and night and Maps’ mother has sent her a fishbowl to help… I have so many questions.

Anyway, she spots a poster for Witch Club and conveniently bumps into them shortly afterwards, noticing that Evan is among their numbers. Kyle soon runs by and Maps tells him that Evan just passed. He chases after them but upon catching up is knocked out. After Aunt Harriett forces her to take her posters down, Maps finds Kyle unconscious and goes after the ‘witches’

Kyle goes looking for Maps and eventually calls in the team as we see Maps being indoctrinated into Witch Club.

#3 opens with various Witch Club members stealing books to burn them, the head witch, calling herself Haxan, promises to bring the academy to its knees. Maps searches for a book in Pomeline’s book, the book she took from Eric, he comes for it too and is shoved out of the way (L) and then finds himself in Pomeline’s path, he runs off. Amy comes out to join their witch hunt. We see a member trying to get away with a stolen book but ended up falling into a trash can. They take off her hat and we circuitry, most likely stolen and/or ripped off from the Mad Hatter.

Her name’s Amanda Lydecker, she doesn’t remember anything. Kyle asks Colton if he can reverse engineer the tech to find the source of the control signal. Colton says he can do anything for him. Pomeline takes Colton away to workshop for the tools to do so. As they do so Pomeline acts like a compassionate human being and tells Colton he should be honest that he has feelings for Kyle. Unfortunately, a teacher is nearby.

Meanwhile, we see that Katherine is in-fact an offshoot of Clayface, hence the falling apart bit. She thought Maps was acting odd and decided to leave a piece of herself on Maps, she knows where she is. Unfortunately, it’s then revealed that Colton was caught and he lied to allow Pomeline to get away. They decide to leave him be whilst they rescue Maps, who’s in the woods. Eric follows at speed.

They find the witches together, with Haxan ordering all the books burned, Eric jumps in to try and rescue his book, but ultimately fails and is knocked back. Olive and Amy both see images in the fire. Katherine gets that hat off of Maps and tells her to help Kyle. Olive sees her mother in the fire and tries to talk to her, Maps takes the hat off Haxan, revealing it to be Professor Pio.

Katherine manages to put out the fire as Professor Scarlet arrives. Apparently, Professor Pio’s revenge was against him, he lied about something and it cost her dearly. Unfortunately, Colton also has to pay a steep price. Professor Hammer expels him from the school.

#4 surprisingly is something different. #3 ended promising the trial of Colton but we find this issue is not that, it’s a story that takes place earlier in the year and is written by only one of the 3 writers with Archer being replaced by Jon Lam. I get the distinct impression this was a last-minute decision as the issue wasn’t about to come out on time. I will try and bear that in mind when it comes to this issue.

One morning, before the events of #1, Headmaster Hammer hears the call of the carnival of a thousand midnights. A strange boy hands out flyers to Olive and her friends then disappears. They’re intrigued and head out. Before they can enter, Headmaster Hammer comes out and tells the carnival they have 24 hours to leave, implying they had some history.

The detective crew do their research but find very little. The boy finds Olive again and there’s indication he finds Olive a little attractive. In a book, they find the carnival was hear nearly a hundred years ago, best friends Hammer and Bray were photo’d at the carnival but Bray went missing soon after. Bernard relays through Olive that they’ve set up outside the academy gate.

They enter for a private tour, Olive is taken to a mirror and is shown her in her mother’s embrace. The others aren’t in anything impressive a damp area full of bones and skin. A monster comes out and tries to grabs Colton and Pomeline, saying he’s planning to eat them but instead locks them away.

Olive sees the boy look in the mirror and see an old man, she realises something’s not right and smashes the mirror before setting the area ablaze. He helps the strange man get away and then uses a bone as a lit torch to distract the monster that’s now fending off Kyle. Pomeline and Colton escaped because of cheap locks and it’s revealed that the ringmaster guy is another monster. Hammer defeats it with his sword and tells the others to leave. The strange boy is revealed to be Bray who ages to dust open their reunion.

So that was the second semester of Gotham Academy, was it as exciting as their first, let’s take a closer look.

I suppose I should divide this review into 3 parts, since there are effectively 3 stories here

#1’s job was to introduce Amy and it was good to give her focus without bringing in any of the majors except Olive. The problem is they’ve yet to do anything with her other than establish her as an absolute pr*ck. Unlikable characters in a story like this only work if they connect with the reader in some way, she doesn’t. Which is problem because there’s no arc to her either. She’s supposed to be a new problem except outside of the first issue she’s barely even present, and she’s even left out of the artwork sometimes. As one-shot stories go, it’s fine, nothing horrible to say. (I have read #7 and suffice it to say my opinion of this issue has completely changed - no spoilers here - READ IT!)

#2-3 have slightly more problematic issues. Telling a compelling mystery story is hard, but the rule of thumb, let is simmer in the background and allow characters to develop, reveal slowly and don’t rely on shocks. Give the audience the clues and see if they get it right. The problem here is it’s far too rushed. The plot takes too much of a front seat and characters are not well developed. And the resulting answer to it wasn’t satisfying because we’re missing the biggest and most interesting part of a mystery, the motive. The only explanation we get is hand-wavy and it truly does not work here. Add to that the Detective Club don't actually work it out, they unmask and find out that way, meaning they're not great detectives either. 

They would’ve done better to try and do this slowly, and not reveal their existence by a convenient poster. Seriously, they were kidnapping members and putting them under mind control, why were they revealing their existence? For that matter, why the witch motif at all, sure it gives them a hat.

Anyway, Maps being indoctrinated into the witch club forced the climax to come far too early and the story is badly hurt because of that. It’s not entirely devoid of character moments though, what about the revelation that Colton is gay/bisexual, and has the hots for Kyle who is straight/bisexual (maybe?) There may have been small indications in previous issues but they didn’t stand out to me. I don’t have a problem with this, funnily, but it ultimately didn’t serve any purpose within these 4 issues, probably not helped by the 4^th issue being pushed back

#4 is an interesting one. I’m not a fan of them using actual magic and monsters, I wasn’t huge on them doing this in the annuals but with that said, it gave a chance for Headmaster Hammer to get some character growth, which was nice. The artwork by Jon Tam is phenomenal. Adam Archer does a decent job with the series, with the help of Msassyk’s background paintings but he’s no Karl Kerschl. Jon Tam has a unique style that is absolutely gorgeous and fits well with this book. The story itself is relatively generic, unfortunately.

Ratings

#1 6/10 (8/10)

#2 5/10 (6/10)

#3 5/10 (6/10)

#4 5.5/10

Average: 5.75/10 (6.375/10)

Recommendation: I truly pains me to admit this book is fast approaching my drop list. I really liked the original Gotham Academy and I think the sparks are still there, they just need a longer story for it to grow. 

Images/clips used in this review are from Gotham Academy: Second Semester and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use