Gotham Academy #12

Why isn't the main character on the cover?

Hopefully at the one year mark, we'll get an ending to the Sybil Silverlock story. Then Olive can get serious about her school work and Maps can take over the lead. Unless that jerk Riko thinks she's going to get the lead! If she winds up at Gotham Academy for good, she'd better know her place! Maps is the leader of Pizza Detective Club and she's more of a real Robin than Riko ever will be! Maps had the approval of two separate Robins before this stupid We Are Robin movement even began!

While Maps and Olive were off looking for clues as to the identity of Calamity, Kyle Mizoguchi disappeared. Now Maps is upset because that was her brother but Olive is probably sort of glad because he was her ex and it's always easier when your ex just mysteriously disappears and you can breathe easy knowing you'll never run into them again.

Maps isn't actually upset either. She wants to keep looking for Kyle but she knows the school is going to send her home to be with her parents while the search for Kyle goes on. So Maps and Olive recruit Katherine Karlo to mimic Maps so Maps can lead the Pizza Detective Club to victory.

I think Katherine took a huge blow to the head during the Hamlet fiasco. Has nobody thought about getting her some medical attention for a possible concussion?

The Pizza Detective Club have a key to Arkham Asylum so that's the first place they go to look for clues. I guess it's been rebuilt since The Spectre sent it to hell! Alfred has Wayne Manor back and the crazy people have to go somewhere other than the streets of Gotham.

Hmm. Maybe I imagined the asylum going to hell. Am I the only one who read Batman Eternal? Was that just a dream?!

The problem with reading all of DC's comic books is I don't have the luxury to think, "Oh, maybe it was magically restored in a book I didn't read!" Of course, it's quite possible it was magically restored in a book I read and I've completely forgotten about it! Although that's not a luxury; that's a possible symptom of something awful. I have a feeling the destruction of Arkham has simply been retconned so that it's merely sort of broken down and abandoned rather than "completely gone and replaced by a crater reaching to the bowels of hell."

Olive remains outside because she'll probably need to have a confrontation with her mother while alone. The rest of the Pizza Detectives head inside to find Kyle almost immediately, thanks to Maps's super sleuthing skills. Kyle was dragged to Arkham by somebody other than Calamity. He doesn't reveal who it was because he almost falls to his death while he waits for the Pizza Detectives to figure out how to use their Arkham Key. Maybe the hole Kyle almost falls in is all that's left of the crater that I must have dreamed swallowed the entire building previously.

I think Arkham lies on reality distorting field and that's why it exists differently than I remember! That's why Colton was able to grab Kyle's hand even though there's no way he could have grabbed Kyle's hand if I trust the upper right panel!

I was hoping that right in the middle of this issue, we'd get a scene of Katherine just shoving slices of bread into her mouth.

Olive has followed a voice calling to her and wound up in an upper room of the old building. It's there that she meets the jerko who kidnapped Kyle: Hugo Strange! Well, duh! That's what happens when a school lets a loony like him counsel the kids! Although it's possible he hasn't really done any crazy shit yet in The New 52. He was teased in Teen Titans (or was it Red Hood?! It was a Lobdell comic) but nothing ever came of that. And he was counseling Roy Harper in Red Hoods (when Tynion was writing, I think?). And he may have taken part in a back-up story in Detective Comics a long time ago but I think that was his just his son, Eli. Also, that was the most horribly written Poker story I've ever read. Thanks, Tony S. Daniel! I think the "S" stands for "YOU SUCK!"

Professor Strange has been dressing up like Olive's mother because he's a weird pedo. Also it's pretty typical for the villain in a story about young people acting like detectives for the villain to be an old guy dressing up to scare people so he can find the treasure or buy the real estate cheaply. In this case, Calamity has hidden something in the tunnels beneath Arkham. Hugo Strange has been trying to scare the Calamity out of Olive so that she'd channel the villain and maybe show him where she hid the treasure. Instead, Calamity chases off Hugo Strange and Kyle is saved. Calamity may or may not have appeared through Olive. It's a Pizza Detective Mystery!

Or it's not. Olive feels whole so I think that means Calamity has become a part of her. Which means Olive now feels closer to her mother. Although she's still not sure how her mother died! It was probably Strange!

Gotham Academy #12 Rating: No change. The art in this comic book is simply adorable. Or beautiful if adorable is too patronizing. I'm also a huge fan of the characters and the setting because it's something different that DC isn't really used to doing. Plus it feels a bit like Degrassi Junior High which is a show I grew up with and which I loved a lot. I suppose Maps is a big reason as to why I like this comic as well but I'm always singing her Dungeons and Dragons praises so I'm just going to ignore her this time.

NoI'mnotMapsisthebest!