Gotham Academy: Year One #2 – Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan, Karl Kerschl, Writers; Marco Ferrari, Artist; Eva De La Cruz, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: One of my favorite all-ages series to ever come out of DC, Gotham Academy is back with a prequel miniseries that fills in the dark tale of Olive Silverlock. With her mother locked up in Arkham after her brief stint as a supervillain, Olive is trying to settle into life at Gotham Academy – but she’s haunted by nightmares. Her visits to her mother mostly consist of her trying to keep her mother’s spirits up by telling her tales of school, including her fast-growing relationship with Kyle Mizoguchi. But more concerning is her mother’s bizarre “treatment regimen” with Dr. Jonathan Crane, who seems to be playing both sides of the fence. This series does a very good job of capturing the claustrophobic nature of Arkham Asylum, as we rarely see the place from the perspective of its inmates and their family. But the one thing that’s clear is that neither Olive nor her mother are doing as well as they want people to believe.
This issue introduces us to a number of the other cast members of Gotham Academy as Olive encounters them for the first time, like reckless prankster Colton Rivera, and there’s a great segment where Kyle takes on the school’s football bullies and embarrasses them over a turf war in the school lounge. But the best part of this issue by far comes when Kyle invites Olive, now his girlfriend, to visit his family over the weekend. That allows us to get our first glimpse of a younger Maps, who is by far the most well-liked character in the series. Here she seems a bit more childlike than she did in the original series, only a year later, but her creative spirit is such a wild breath of fresh air for the book. She and Olive bond incredibly fast, with the two of them getting deeply involved in Maps’ elaborate fantasy world. This book is just a pure delight from start to finish – but closes us out with a dark cliffhanger packed with suspense.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
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