Gotham Academy #8 Review

Written by: Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher
Art by: Karl Kerschl
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 8th 2015

*Spoilers ahead*

Paying it forward?

Last month in Gotham Academy we were put on hold from our main story so we could see Damian Wayne beat everyone up. There was small mentions of something bad happening to Olive. This month we find out exactly what happened. We have a cold cold open at a funeral and we see our main characters sad because Olives' mother had passed away. The fourth page in and I am already tearing up because Maps is upset trying to comprehend the whole situation. The book drops the funeral scene fast and then quickly jumps all over the place. We see our mysterious heart throb Tristan again and how he is playing into the life of Olive.



There is something about this issue that cannot put my finger on. I cannot tell if this issue seemed really short or really long? The pacing seemed to be all over the place. We start off well at the funeral, but the second we change that scene it went all over the place. 

This issue we had focused more on Kyle Mizoguchi, Maps' older brother, and i don't know if that was it that threw this off, but Kyle went everywhere in this book doing all sorts of nonsense that i feel did not work well. The story however did not lose it's mystery, it actually gained more. Especially the mystery surrounding Olive, the thing i liked most about this story is some of the emotions behind characters and Olive was the biggest. The fear of being put away because of what her mother did and now she is going through the same things. It really brings another perspective of gaining superpowers and this one is fear. The story is getting much deeper and it looks to be promising.

Karl Kerschl is back on art in this issue and boy was it pretty! One of the major issues i had with the last issue was the cohesiveness of the art, while it was pretty, it did not pace well. This however was just wonderful. Let me tell you, that Kerschl guy can draw some anime. Kyle was looking really well and looked as though he jumped out of The Prince of Tennis. The colors of this issue was beautiful as well. This quality of art is still some of the best from DC.

Bits and Pieces:
Finally getting back to the main story we open to a tragic event that has occurred to one of our characters, but this issue does not focus on moping. No, we begin to discover more mysteries, not in the school, but in its' students.

7.0/10