Gotham Academy #3

How many days of detention do you get for burning down the Cobblepot Family Crypt?

Apparently Olive was the only kid discovered in the burning crypt. The Cult of the Bat members hid when the bucket brigade arrived. And Maps probably found a tunnel down to level two where she killed three orcs and found a magic dagger. So now Olive gets to spend time in detention with the kid she busted for selling whatever he was selling last issue. I can't be expected to remember trivial details across all fifty two plus comics I read every month. Can I? Maybe that's all that's expected of me! Shit. I'd better start taking this comic book reading thing seriously.

No wait. I'll take it seriously when it provides a paycheck! Until then, I'm just going to goof off as I read them.

The Cult of the Bat were in the middle of summoning the ghost of Millie Jane Cobblepot when Olive interrupted their ritual and stole the Diary of Millie Jane. The spirit was supposed to be bound to the book but now it's roaming the school. What kinds of classes do ghosts take? Home Necronomics?

How many issues until they kiss?

Heathcliff arrives and Pom storms off because he isn't paying enough attention to her. I think Pomeline might suffer from low self esteem! So that relationship drama is happening when Kyle arrives and insists that he and Olive need to talk. I feel like instead of typing this, I should be sitting at a long bench at the roller rink sipping a soda and eating nachos and blabbing it to all of my closest friends. And then a couples dance would come on and I'd look nervously over at the girl I have a crush on but then be too nervous to ask her to skate with me. Then some other asshole would ask her and she'd look over at me as if I should have asked but then she still heads out to the rink holding his hand and I just die a million little deaths watching them skate together.

Olive reveals to Kyle that her mom was in the Arkham Asylum collapse (although she's vague about the hospital to Kyle (but then who hasn't heard about the "hospital" that collapsed last summer (although this is Gotham, so buildings are probably collapsing all the time))) and now her mom is in a coma and the doctors don't believe she'll ever wake up. So now Olive is a bit lost and feeling alone and can't really think about dating right now. But I bet she has time to hunt down some ghosts with Poms and Maps!

The girls once again see the glowing eyes in the North Hall while out on a g-g-g-g-ghost stakeout later hat night. It's finally time to break into the North Hall! Just like we knew was going to happen when Hammer Head demanded they stay away from it! But Poms, Maps, and Olive need some help breaking in. Time to recruit another member to the team!

Oh my crap! They're all so fucking adorable!

Once inside the North Hall, Olive realizes she's been inside before. She remembers a fire, and a Batman. The group find a hole in the foundation and inside the hole...a m-m-m-m-monster!

It's probably just Killer Croc. He's a total pushover.

Gotham Academy #3 Rating: +1 Ranking. Everybody should be reading this comic book because I don't want it to be canceled because Maps Mizoguchi is just the most adorable character ever created and if you comic book fans kill this comic book by not purchasing it and relegate Maps to DC Limbo, I will hunt you all down and tsk-tsk you right in your faces.

Gotham Academy #2

Olive joins the Cult of the Bat!

I grew up with the original Degrassi Junior High airing on PBS stations all over America and causing thousands of children to crush hard on Caitlin Ryan and Joey Jeremiah. I think I'm a year younger than Stacie Mistysyn, so you can imagine how my little heart yearned for her love and affection. Then in my twenties, Sailor Moon (with the Canadian dub (another Canadian show to wreak havoc on my unfeeling heart!)) came to syndication and I fell in love with Sailor Mars. No wait, Sailor Jupiter. No, Sailor Venus! All of them? Anyway, I remember crying on the couch while watching the episode with the song "Rainy Day Man". I'm such an asshole. I don't remember what touched me in my thirties. A drunk uncle, maybe? But now in my forties, I get to crush on Gotham Academy! And don't think I'm that pervy old drunk uncle man! I explained all of this in my Cheetah #1 commentary! We are every age we've ever been! So watching Sailor Moon, I am the boy that just about died giving Marilyn Mendoza a rose I picked on the way to school for her birthday! So I can fall in love with Olive Silverlock and Maps Mizoguchi without it being creepy, you judgmental whippersnapper!

This issue begins with snippets of Millie Jane Cobblepot's secret sex diary.

I think she's writing about her clitoris.

While all sexed up from reading old fashioned euphemisms for dingles and crickets, Olive notices the Cult of the Bat race beneath her window. And one of them notices her! Because when you look into the Cult of the Bat, the Cult of the Bat looks into you! That's some profound philosophy I just made up which has never been said by anybody ever.

Later in History Class, Heathcliff and Pom Fritters nearly bang on a desk. I think they've been banging all over the school at night making everybody think a ghost is haunting the buildings. Sometimes I hear the neighbors downstairs banging and I put my mouth really close to the floor and I say in my deepest, most guttural voice, "Put it in my butt."

All of this is to say that Olive and Pom Poms wind up having to do their Gotham History project together. It's because they're Fremeses! That means that they are each the Fremesis of the other! Because Fremeses is the plural for Fremesis, of course! Their relationship is probably going to be a lot like Buffy and Cordelia's relationship. Except hopefully sexier.

I need an artist to draw pictures for my Roller Playing Game, Places & Predators!

I'm so happy that Maps is a roller playing nerd! She's the best.

Here's my version of a Serpents & Spells Character Sheet:

Olive meets Pomegranate at the library which has an owl statue out front. So we know who's running Gotham Academy! No, not Dumbledore, you dumbdumbdork! Forget I even said anything! If you're not going to take me seriously, why even bother? I'm just going to read my comic book in peace now! Stop bothering me with your need for insight about the story from a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader! I'm done with you!

Don't worry, other readers! I wasn't talking to you! Just that smart aleck that couldn't resist a Harry Potter shout out. Fuck Harry Potter! He's just a Frodo wannabe! Frodo and Sam's love story was far greater than any of that juvenile romantic twaddle in the Potter books! Probably!

In the library, Olive and Pommel Horse find a version of Millie Jane's Diary with a map of the North Hall and the cemetery behind it. It's a mystery to be solved! And who better to solve mysteries than a bunch of meddling kids! Although they don't have a dog that one of them hallucinates can talk. That could hurt their ability to trap the old man in the ghost mask.

What are you talking about, Pomeline? That was always so funny when the little black kid with the rich white gentrification specialist used to say that! He did it better than I can!

Something happened the previous summer to Olive but even Olive doesn't know what it was because she can't remember the previous summer. I bet it has something to do with her Wayne Foundation Scholarship! And maybe her mother.

Later that night, Maps and Olive follow the Cult of the Bat out to the cemetery behind the North Hall. That's where all the hauntings have been happening! I'm so scared! They might encounter a g-g-g-g-ghost! Especially after they find the secret entrance to the old Cobblepot family crypt and head down into the darkness!

Screw Alysia Yeoh! Maps is my favorite New 52 character! Not my favorite character I want to have sex with! I'm not a huge and complete perv! Anyway, my favorite character I want to have sex with is still a toss up between Vampire Tig and Supergirl's Bum.

The Cult of the Bat are spouting gibberish (I hope calling their speaking in tongues "gibberish" doesn't offend whoever actually speaks the gibberish language they're gibberishing) when Olive and Maps enter. Olive sees they've got the book from the library and she bravely marches up to take it back because that pompous Pom and her fucksack Heathcliff and their other mysterious friend that is probably Kyle don't deserve the book. But Olive knocks over some candles and sets the stone on fire and now everybody is going to die. But hopefully not before Olive tells us who her fucking mother is!

Gotham Academy #2 Rating: +1 Ranking. The art alone is worth reading this book. And the characters alone are worth reading this book. The mystery isn't enough to keep reading this book because it's just stringing the reader along for the sake of keeping an air of mystery so far. But I think a lot will be revealed next issue, and since there are so many other reasons alone to be reading this book, the mystery can afford to take its time!