Review for Gotham Academy, Vol. 1: Welcome to Gotham Academy
This is a review for the ARC (this one combines Volumes 1 to 6).
This one seemed very fun, just the kind of story I would like. Paranormal + Boarding School + set in a world with superheroes. Sadly, it fell short, mostly it had to do with the story.
The story was pretty decent, but for a big chunk of the book I was confused with things that happened. What happened to Olive? What is up with her and Kyle, are they still together? Or not? The characters also had nicknames (like Mizoguchi) which threw me off. I was searching for a map, but then I found out that Mizoguchi’s nickname is Maps.
A lot of the time it felt like I missed something, like there was another book in this series that I missed. I always hate it when books do this. I don’t need a super explanation at the beginning, but a little bit of background would be nice. Like introductions and some story on the characters.
Of course stuff is getting explained, but slowly, very slowly. And then slowly, stuff that didn’t make sense at the beginning is starting to make sense.
The characters were pretty decent. I am not sure what to think of Olive. I think I would have liked her better if she didn’t keep hinting to whatever happened to her that was apparently really traumatizing and caused her to disappear for a while.
Maps/Mizoguchi was a great character and I really liked her and her enthusiasm. I liked how geeky she was, with her games and her books and her maps. It was also really nice that she could draw/paint so well. But she was also a bit too clingy. For some reason she was almost always around Olive.
Kyle, I am not so sure what to think of him. He occasionally pops up and he seems a nice character, but I also wonder about him and what makes him tick.
It was great fun to see Bruce Wayne and the bat signal popping up. It is really one of the few signs that we are in the world/dimension of Batman (next to the whole Gotham stuff). Because at times I just forgot about it.
The last part of the book was really interesting, and it makes me curious about the rest of the comics. Maybe I will check them out!
The illustrations were the best part of this comic. They were gorgeous, beautiful and really popped out my tablet screen. The colours, the characters, everything was just perfect. The book will get extra marks for this.
All in all, I would recommend this one, but be warned, it starts really slow and you will feel like you missed stuff. Just read on and you will get more explanations.