Gotham Academy #10

"Out, vile jelly!"

I knew the scene on the cover was expecting a Shakespeare quote but the only one I know is "Out, vile jelly!" I think it comes from that scene in Othello where he whines on about having loved too well which is just the most pathetic excuse for killing your lover. Unless it's actually that scene where Lady Macbeth is looking in the fridge and going crazy? "Out, vile jelly!" Yeah, that fits the context better. Although I suppose Othello could be trying to roll Ophelia's corpse out of a window while whispering, "Out, vile jelly! Where is they lustre now?" Oh! I remembered more of the quote! I'm a literary genius!

The most Shakespeare I ever committed to memory was something by Fabian in a scene from "Twelfth Night" for a class. Unless Othello's final speech was longer. But who can remember stuff you memorized years ago? It's all just sound and fury now, signifying memory loss. At least I can still impress people with that vile jelly line.

This issue begins with Olive and Pomeline fleeing from the Gotham Academy theater which exploded into flames when they entered. It was probably Olive's fault since she's a firestarter prone to hallucinations of her mother suggesting she burn shit down.

Mr. Trent, the director of the theater, believes the tragedy was due to his arrogance in trying to perform Macbeth which is like super cursed or something. It's so cursed that I think you're not even allowed to say the name of the play inside of a theater. That makes it really hard to perform because occasionally one of the characters in the play will say Macbeth and they aren't allowed to run outside during those scenes and shout their lines from just beyond the doorway.

Mr. Trent assumes that everybody who left the theater so that they wouldn't die in the fire have quit the play. So when Olive comes along and offers to perform it with her friends as a pretense to investigate her mother's ghost living in the balcony, Mr. Trent jumps at the offer.

Katherine is Maps' roommate who is probably a ghoul, as I pointed out last commentary.

Katherine gets shunted aside and ignored because she's so sweaty and plain. Maybe she's Clayface just trying to live out his dreams of acting while also being a young girl. That's one of my dreams too! Except minus the acting part.

Olive, Pom, and Maps rehearse the scene with the three witches that not once has the phrase "Out, vile jelly!" in it. I think the witches throw some vile jelly in the pot though, specifically of the newted variety. But during the scene, Trent calls a stop to the rehearsal because the light boy keeps missing his cues. Those light guys! They're constantly getting distracted with their goof offs and spontaneous naps. My friend Doom Bunny did lighting for the Santa Clara Junior Theater for a number of years and he once almost burned down the entire place by running a windmill in the opening scene of The Wizard of Oz until it caught fire. Sure, he noticed the engine on the thing smoking like crazy but he just kept running it faster and faster because the audience had to know a tornado was coming somehow, right? What did Doom Bunny care that I was standing behind Dorothy's house right next to the windmill?! It could have blown up in my face! Instead, it caught fire right before the stage manager and I had to spin the house at the end of the scene. Luckily the Scarecrow wasn't a method actor because as the curtain closed, he ran onstage with a fire extinguisher and put out the flames. Unluckily for Dorothy and Toto, everybody forgot they were in the house when the stage was evacuated. I guess they would have burned to death if the fire had gotten out of hand. But that's the price you pay for being an actor!

I wonder if the fire began because I was walking around backstage mumbling, "Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!"?

Eric the light guy (you remember Eric, right? The kid that has a crush on Maps who sometimes draws her role playing characters for her?) is freaking out because he's afraid of the Phantom of Gotham Academy's Theater and Arts Program. He swears it's been ruining the play and sabotaging everything. I bet it's not a real phantom at all. It's probably just an old white guy in a rubber mask that wants to buy the theater for cheap because a buried treasure is hidden in the basement. It's also possible that the phantom he thinks he keeps seeing is actually Katherine's real visage. Remember how I pointed out she was a ghoul in my last commentary? Remember?

No. I knew I hated Brenden Fletcher! I could tell by his sweater vests and stupid beard! Do not make Maps into just another character from CW's Arrow!

Maps is better than this! She's perky and upbeat and I'm pretty sure she knows her place as a younger friend of Olive's who knows Olive because she's the sister of Olive's ex-boyfriend. Of course Olive is going to tell certain things to a friend of similar age before she tells Maps! Who does Maps expect Olive to practice kissing with? Pom, of course! It would just be weird if she kissed her ex's younger sister! Plus if things go further than kissing, Pomeline is definitely the dirty whore you want to be experimenting with.

Maps is distracted from her nonsense feelings by Colton discovering some muddy footprints! They're the footprints of somebody the same basic size as Maps. Somebody like Katherine the ghoul and/or disguise for Clayface?! I guess Clayface keeps driving everybody out of the theater so that Trent will notice him (as Katherine) and finally give him a part in the play. It's the perfect kind of mystery for the Pizza Detective Club to solve! I just hope they actually get some pizza this time.

Later, Olive goes to rehearse the "Out, out vile jelly!" soliloquy when she's almost killed by the Phantom of Gotham Academy's Theater and Arts Program! Is this the speech where she says they've waded so far into jelly that it would be just as sticky to continue forward as to go back? Maybe Macbeth says that later. Or Hamlet perchance dreams that part.

The Pizza Detective Club give chase but the Phantom gets away! But it leaves a few clues behind and one of those clues is one of Maps's maps! And the only person who knew about those maps was Katherine!

Oh my god! I knew she was a ghoul and/or a vile jelly!

The Mystery Pizza Detective Club chase Katherine back to the theater where she reveals she's actually Clayface. Then he reveals his motivations for sabotaging the play because he's still a supervillain. And his motivations are fairly standard. Trent stole his best roles back when he was an actor. Also Trent stole his wife which just seems cruel after taking all of Clayface's jobs as well. Trent comes to the kids' rescue and forces Clayface into a Shakespeare off. It's all "Out, vile jelly!" this and "Out, vile jelly!" that! There's not even a single "Brave new world that has such people in it" which is a quote I just remembered I knew because I just finished reading Brave New World and that's like an important quote in that book for some reason.

Trent is defeated by Clayface's superior barding skills but Olive knows the killing quote!

Bah. It should have been "Out, vile jelly!"

Gross. Katherine was stuck up inside of Clayface this whole time? That's disgusting. Especially since she's his own daughter. She's a Karlo! I'm going to assume that Clayface fathered Katherine before he became a living pile of hangover poo because the scientific and biological questions would haunt me if it were otherwise. I guess Katherine will become the newest member of Mystery Pizza Detective Club! Although she'll probably just go unnoticed by everybody again as she just fades into the background. She's so plain!

Gotham Academy #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. This issue was exciting and beautiful and quite educational to boot! It taught me that Shakespeare doesn't make any sense at all. Who would say "Brevity is wit" and then go on to write more plays than anybody can read including a bunch of sonnets to some dark chick? Such a silly goose, that Marlowe. I mean Shakespeare! I don't have much more to say about this comic book because everybody is already reading it (right? I mean, how can somebody not be reading this? Those people must be awful, horrible people!). So let me finish with this statement so that it saves everybody from inundating me with messages and comments: I know which play "Out, vile jelly!" comes from. It's the one with the guy who named one of his daughters after a sexually transmitted disease.