Gotham Academy #18

Olive is aroused by the way Maps eats pizza.

The Review or Whatever!
Gotham Academy's Yearbook phase is really just professional comic book writers and artists practicing their fanfiction skills. Why didn't DC Comics reach out to me to write a short story about Maps' first sexual experience dressed as a raccoon at a Furry Convention where she pegs some girl dressed as a chipmunk? Oh wait. I think the question was its own answer. There should be a word for that. I bet German has a word for it. No wait. I just asked the Non-Certified Spouse and she declared it would have to be a phrase. I think she's too distracted to come up with one because there's no way German doesn't have a word for anything I can think of. I bet German even has a word for when German doesn't have a word for something.

Damian Wayne has recently stolen Maps' Super Secret Gotham Academy Yearbook because he's a dick. See that? Those are the kinds of values you grow up with when you're an only child raised by the League of Assassins' single mother second-in-command and then shunted off to your absentee father who is also a billionaire and a vigilante and a super terrible father figure. You can't help but think that anything you want is yours and you have the right to do anything you want. Bruce has been so busy trying to teach Damian not to kill that he hasn't had time to provide him any kind of guidance for the real world. Hell, Bruce let Damian bring a cow home! What kind of lax, compensating parent does that?! Oh hey! The question answered itself again! The kind of parent who is lax and compensating!

The first story is called "Whatever Happened to Professor Milo...?" and it's about what happened to Professor Milo. I don't even remember Professor Milo. I don't even remember if I'm supposed to remember Professor Milo or if this is the first time he's been mentioned. I think I wiped my memory clean after reading Rebirth! I was all, "Whew! New continuity! I don't have to remember anything anymore!" Except maybe I do remember him! His first name was Achilles and Batman punched him in the fucking stupid face in Batman Eternal! I also decided to start swearing because that gets all the hip cats to my backyard. Fucking-A!

I didn't really remember that. I probably shouldn't pretend I'm something I'm not. I actually just put "Milo" into the search bar on my Blogger page and it reminded me of that time in Batman Eternal. It also reminded me that there was a Milo in Scott Lobdell's Doomed comic book. Fuck you, Blogger Search Bar! If I wanted to be reminded of Scott Lobdell's comic books, I would have searched for "shittiest shit in Shitsville".

How do you like all the swearing? It's pretty rad, right? Is saying "rad" rad? I fucking hope so!

Milo's story simply explains why Coach Humphreys becomes a werewolf or man-bat or something. It also explains something about why he was involved with Arkham in Batman Eternal. I'm not sure why I care about any of it. The best part of the story was when Maps did her Puttin' on the Ritz dance.

This is probably the best panel of the entire New 52. Or is this technically the DC You? Is this part of Afterbirth? Whatever. It's good!

The next story is about the shop teacher named Mister Silversmith. He must be a super villain as well but I don't know any by that name. Is there a villain called the Silver Smith? If not, dibs on the name! He might sound boring but if I'm writing his stories, he'll be fucking rad! Also Silver Smith will be a woman. A gay woman! A gay woman from Thailand! A gay woman from Thailand with dyslexia! Fat wallet, here I come!

Mister Silversmith talks like a super villain in his lesson about plating an aloe plant in silver. I mean an artichoke. No wait, it's an agave. Whatever! It's one of those plants that will almost certainly put your eye out.

In this story by Steve Orlando, we learn that Maps is a raging gay. No wait! That was the last issue of Midnighter. I mean, not that Maps isn't a raging gay but I think she might wind up being trans. Of course, I shouldn't be the one to label her. She's just Maps and she's an individual who will be whatever or whomever she winds up being. And whatever that is, I will love her no less than I already love her because she is fucking rad. No, what we really learn is that Maps now has a silver coated dagger which she'll probably use to kill Coach Humphreys later.

I wouldn't mind if Adam Archer continued to draw Olive and Maps until he dies.

Robin takes off from the work of the theater department on hang-glider wings. That leaves Maps and Olive to follow them in a golf cart which Maps learned to drive in the next story. I hope they follow Damian all the way to the Batcave because once a person discovers the Batcave, they automatically get to be Robin. If Maps never becomes a Robin, I'm going to track down Geoff Johns and glare at him uncomfortably.

Except they don't quite get to the Batcave. Damian just leaves the scrapbook in the woods with a present for Maps: a first edition Serpents & Spells handbook. Bah! It would have been better if he left her a first edition Deities and Demigods with the copyright infringing entries like Elric!

I can't wait for the second semester! That's the semester where Pomeline and Olive lose their virginity to each other! I bet!

Robin War #2

If the cover is page one, page two is a pile of dead Robins.

Hey DC! Don't have a story arc where a bunch of undead assassins give Batman and the Batfamily a tough time and then expect me to believe that a bunch of amateur kids are going to stand up to them! Even if those kids have had three hours of Bat-training! Although if Damian is the leader of the Talons and he tells them to self-destruct but to make it look good, I can believe that. While some stories have proven the Talons can be as smart as they were while living, I have to believe that they're mostly just dumb automatons that can't be "murderered"; they can merely be "put out of their misery."

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Dial E #1

Least threatening cover of Villains Month.

The issue begins with some young kids that act as couriers for some gang members stealing a Dial from them. One of them dials 0,8,3,3 to transform into Suffer Kate. Get it? She suffocates things and her name is Kate and people suffer when they suffocate! But I don't know what 0,8,3,3 is supposed to spell! ZUDE? OPERATOR TED? OBEE?

After Suffer Kate, the kid turns into a racist Russian Folk Legend.

The youths are just using the Dial to commit petty burglaries and to cause a bunch of chaos. The original thugs give chase and more forms are taken as they all battle for the Dial. It looks like a different artist on every page. Is it Dial E for Everybody? Maybe every page has a different writer as well although I'm fairly certain it's just China Mieville.

I think it's Dial E for Exquisite Corpse. Exquisite Corpses are when one person begins a drawing and then hides all but the scantest of an edge. The next person takes over the drawing basing their drawing on the lines and colors that they can see from the previous artist. It's possible this version in Dial E just had Mieville send out one page of the script (each one with a new Dial Character) to a whole bunch of different artists with some character designs for the main kids running through the issue so the reader wouldn't be thoroughly confused. But I'm not so certain that the story is going to be all that important to the overall New 52. It's just a little artsty fartsy fun being had.

After a bunch of nonsense, a familiar face shows up to retrieve the Dial.

Aha! The guy the Dial Evil Dial was created for!

The Human Centipede eventually gets the Dial away from the kids when the last one is unable to use it because she isn't bad enough. Turns out the Dial is Dial Q for Qued because is a Middle English word for Evil. Which is why this issue is called Dial Q. Oh wait. Whatever. He's stopped on the last page because The Human Centipede with a Dial is just way too fucking powerful now, isn't he?

It's Rescue Jack's teammate! But is it really her? Or is it a Dial Version? It is a mystery to discover in Dial H, Volume 2!

Dial E #1 Ranking: Um. Yeah. Let China have his fun since he did a terrific job on the regular series. But this didn't really have much of anything to add except a couple of pages of bridging story for whenever Dial H returns. If ever.