Reviews
Gotham Academy continues to be a breath of fresh air in the DC universe, though this second volume is not quite as good as the first (a 3.5 rather than a 4 star book). The detective club encounters a cursed pen, a werewolf, ghosts, and mysterious kidnappings, but the real star of the book remains Olive and her strange past. The book is strongest when it focuses on her, though her supporting characters are varied and interesting themselves (I could do with a little less focus on Maps. Her exuberance can get a bit overwhelming, and I'd love to see some of the others shine). A highlight was the issue where the Detective Club joined the theatre club and helped perform MacBeth. Great way to introduce literature to younger readers, and the panels were fantastic!
I LOVE DAMIAN! The Robins in this volume added a dynamic that I really liked, I can't wait to see more of them. Maps was so cute, she is the definition of pure™ and I really liked learning more about Olive and her family dynamic.
DC's really getting worse. New 52 is crashing, like I feared it would when they released the timeline. They're pushing so hard that they aren't doing what they should - take their time and do a good story. That's what's most important, the story. How the characters fit in the world they've built, and they built a shitty world with a craptastic timeline, stripped key points of characters (or just stripped characters entirely, see Batman vol 7), and put it with a thrown together script and we got what we have now. My brother's given up entirely on DC thanks to this, and I'm close to following. With all the others stories going on in Bat Family 52 I'm really disgusted right now. This is barely a 3. Probably closer to a 2.
