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!

Gotham Academy #17

This is way too sexy for junior high. So I hope they're all in high school!

The Review!
Gotham Academy is one of my favorite comic books because I have a crush on most of the characters. The only problem I have with it is that it turned Serpents and Spells into just another fake DC Comics version of a real thing. In this case, it's Dungeons and Dragons. If you didn't know that then what are you doing reading crappy comic book reviews on the internet? You should be having sexual relations with other people who have never heard of Roller Playing Games! Anyway, I've decided to fix DC's mistake. I'm going to write the Maps version of Serpents and Spells. When I'm finished, it will be available as a monthly reward on my recently brought back to life Patreon!

The Commentary!
I've been reading a book called The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren and it reminded me of a rhyme I learned in elementary school that I'm guessing a bunch of people remember hearing, or at least a similar version of it. It went like this:

"Miss Suzy had a steamboat,
Her steamboat had a bell,
Miss Suzy went to heaven,
Her steamboat went to
Hello operator
Give me number nine.
If you disconnect me,
I'll kick in your
Behind the frigerator,
There was a piece of glass.
Miss Suzy sat upon it
And broke her little
Ask me no more questions,
I'll tell you no more lies.
The boys are in the bathroom
Zipping up their
Flies are in the garbage,
Bees are in the park.
Boys and girls are kissing
In the D-A-R-K dark!"

I don't know how well I remembered it here but I guess that's the point with these childhood rhymes. They're oral tradition and thus they change and mutate over time. The memes of the Internet-free childhood.

Maybe one of the kids in Gotham Academy will recite this rhyme now because isn't that how life works? It's just a random mishmash of synchronous moments that seem to mean more than they actually do?

Recently in Gotham Academy, it's just been a bunch of mini-stories about life at Gotham's strangest school. But also recently, Damian has stolen the yearbook Maps was working on that housed all of those zany stories! She knows this because Pomeline watched Damian take it and didn't lift one magic finger to stop him.

Bugsy's Icy Grasp? As in "Bigby's Icy Grasp"? I'm beginning to suspect Serpents and Spells is just a blatant rip-off of Dungeons and Dragons!

I would create the hell out a Maps-written Serpents and Spells! But only if DC were paying me. Which they should be since I would be the best choice to design that game. Can people get jobs by simply telling potential employers to trust them? Because, "Trust me, DC! I am an expert at creating Roller Playing Games!"

I have a question that isn't about giving me a job: Why are Pomeline, Olive, and Maps so adorable? Maps is the kind of "I wish I was this person" adorable. And Olive is adorable in a kind of "I have a crush on her and must stare at her throughout lunch without ever talking to her" way. And Pomeline is adorable in a kind of "I bet she fucks good" way.

The first story is about how stupid Heathcliff was because he went off with Black Canary to live out his dream of managing a band instead of staying behind to kiss Pomeline every day. What a dolt! Doesn't he know about romance?! Romantic rule #1 is to give up everything you ever cared about for somebody to love because life is terrible otherwise!

Romantic Rules are the worst for living your best life though! It's better to only love somebody who will throw away their life to be with you as you pursue your dream! That's Cynic Rule #1! It might not make people swoon when you tell them you can't kiss them anymore because you have to pursue something meaningful but they can't fault you if they're not willing to throw their life away either! Hypocrites!

Maps said cunt.

The next story is about Maps and Olive going on one of their ghost hunts. It begins in a really terrible way because Olive and Maps are talking about Serpents and Spells as if it's just the DC version of Dungeons and Dragons instead of a game Maps made up like I'm pretty sure was the original idea behind it. Even if it wasn't, it doesn't matter. I'm going to make a Serpents and Spells game and give it away as a reward for being a supporter of my Patreon which I'm resurrecting to try to rope in all of my Dwarf Lover fans (since I'm starting up Dwarf Lover again). If I don't make any extra money with that, I'm also going to have to start working extra hard on my Bible Study for Dumb Dumbs and see how much I can make selling digital books. If that doesn't pan out, I suppose I'd better learn how to make a noose and figure out which one of the rafters in the attic can support my weight!

That was an inappropriate joke about suicide! I would never actually kill myself because I'm totally in love with myself. Of course, if I ever catch me cheating on myself, I might do it in a fit of passion.

In this story, Maps and Olive encounter Teekl which makes it about the best story ever and fifty bajillion times better than Nocenti's attempt at writing Klarion. Especially since Ann Nocenti thought it would a good idea to keep Teekl dead in a jar. What a dope!

The final story is about the coolest group of kids to ever pitch a twenty-sided die at Gotham Academy: The Gilkey Warlocks! They're just the kind of cool kids I would have hung around in junior high if I wanted people to believe I didn't actually hang around with these kinds of kids in junior high which I did. I once played Dungeons and Dragons in the cafeteria with Ted Balman as the dungeon master and John Bailey and Chris Beal. You know, the cool kids! Right?

The Gilkey Warlocks disappeared because they played that Satanic game and Maps knows where they were last seen! It's a secret room which she wrote about in the year book Damian stole so she thought maybe he'd be there. And he was! And still is! It's just Maps and Olive won't notice him until next issue.

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!

Gotham Academy #11

Scary!

Thank goodness this issue isn't about Shakespeare so I don't have to pretend not to know anything about Shakespeare while discussing it. Hopefully it's about William Butler Yeats because I really don't know anything about William Butler Yeats. At least not about his poems from the young version of himself. I prefer when he gets older and writes poems discussing how, since he's old, he's forgotten all of the mysterious symbols he used throughout his career that caused most of his poetry to not make any sense at all unless you had dozens of supplementary materials like letters Yeats wrote telling people what the fuck he was talking about. Some people probably think William Butler Yeats is their favorite poet because they heard "The Second Coming" once read at the beginning of an episode of Heroes but they're wrong. Because William Butler Yeats is incomprehensible to anybody not willing to study him for four or five years straight. Occasionally he'll write five or six lines in a row that don't have anything to do with gyres or a local news story that time has forgotten or the history of the architecture of a tower or lions or Irish mythic heroes and they'll actually make me cry (except not really because Pshaw! Boys don't cry!). Stupid Yeats. What a jerko!

The Pizza Detective Club are headed into Downtown Gotham to skip a Gotham Academy tennis tournament against Metropolis High. Instead of watching Kyle get his ass kicked by Alexander Luthor or whatever robot kid they're going to use to cheat, the Pizza Detective Club are going to look for clues to the Mystery of Calamity Silverlock! Is she dead? Is she alive? Is she just a hallucination brought on by Olive's pent-up sexual frustration causing her to lash out with pyrokinetic lust blasts? That's probably the problem.

Maps has come up with a plan to discover more clues to the mystery.

The plan's not really that good. It doesn't even have any practice kissing in it.

The girls almost get caught breaking into City Hall by a security guard practicing to be a radio personality. True Story That May or May Not Be True Because The Caveat May Be All I Have To Save My Dignity When Somebody Asks Me If The Masturbating In The Sink Story Was True: You know those "tests" they give kids in high school to determine what career they might best be suited for? I got radio DJ. Fuck you, test. That was an insulting answer! I suppose I only got Radio DJ because Arrogant Internet Blogger wasn't a potential career when I took that test.

Olive and Maps make it to the records room where Olive instantly finds the files on her family because nobody wants to read three pages of the girls searching through files. While Olive searches for clues, Maps makes a new friend.

Just put Maps in a Robin costume already. Preferably the original one.

Red Robin reveals to Maps that practically every kid in Gotham is now calling themselves a Robin. I guess Maps could go the generic route and just slap an "R" on her chest and pretend she's part of the movement. But she has a real Batarang! She's now been acknowledged by two actual Robins that she has what it takes! When Batman returns, he'd better give Maps a chance to kick at his side! Maps isn't the type of person that can keep a secret about anything she's super excited about, so she mentions that Olive is currently stealing records on Calamity. Red Robin was about to steal some records too, so he isn't too concerned with that part of the story. But he does warn Maps to be careful around Calamity and then tells her a story about how Dick Grayson was totally almost killed by Calamity because he wasn't as good a Robin as Tim Drake was.

In Tim's story, Dick is actually kind of a hero so I guess I was thinking of the way Damian would tell the story. Anyway, Batman and Robin stopped Calamity, discovered she was Sybil Silverlock, threw her in Arkham to keep everybody safe, and then realized they'd orphaned her kid. So they stuck Olive in Gotham Academy where Batman could keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't turn into the next Calamity.

Olive discovers that more than just her mom went about burning Gotham as Calamity. Pretty much all of her relatives gave it a go at one time or another. And then Olive makes a new friend.

What rough beast slouches toward...oh, you know it's a lion!

Maps and Red Robin drive off Calamity even though Olive would have preferred if they'd left her alone so she could hug her. Calamity drops a piece of a key before fleeing before the wrath of Maps. Red Robin leaves but not before giving Maps false hope about her chances of working with Batman. Not because she isn't good enough but because Batman is on a mental vacation right now. Meanwhile, Pom and Colton have discovered that Kyle disappeared before the tournament. The only clue to his disappearance is another piece of a key left in his locker. The pieces fit together to create a key to Arkham Asylum. Too bad Arkham Asylum is just debris at the bottom of a huge sinkhole! Otherwise the key might have been a good clue!

Gotham Academy #11 Rating: No change. I get it, Becky and Brenden. Maps is enthusiastic. Maps is overly enthusiastic even! It's adorable. But it's more adorable in small doses. Don't make me burn out on Maps because you realize she's the surprise hit of the DC Season. Don't turn Gotham Academy into all Urkel episodes of Family Matters. She should be treated as a limited resource. Fill up a bunch of pages with Pomeline and Olive flirting nastily before throwing in a few panels of Maps getting super excited about playing Dungeons and Dragons. Seriously. Why are you holding back with the Olive/Pomeline loss of innocence story? The Maps thing is a cute smokescreen to distract the prudes away from the real meat of this comic book but you've used too much smoke! I can't see the horny older teens experimenting with their newly found feelings full of erotic overtones! I know it's there! I know it's happening! Stop turning the camera on Maps (even though she's totally cute and adorable and not into Yeats' poetry). Give me some PomOlive already!

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.

Gotham Academy #9

Are Gotham Academy polo shirts on sale yet?

Tonight on Facebook, a cousin's wife's status update read "God is real." I figured the other side of the debate needed representation as well so I posted "God is not real" as my a status update. It's a super clever retort! Well, it's not really a retort since I didn't directly reply to her well-researched opinion. It's actually just an experiment to see whose super intelligent and non-controversial statement about the way we view reality earns more praise! Some people might think it's a dick move but it wasn't meant to be that way at all! She just reminded me that I hadn't spouted my atheist agenda for months while she posts Bible quotes and secret letters to Jesus on a daily basis! Her husband posts daily pictures of the different kinds of beer he is drinking. I think the two might be related! I mean, I think their posts might be related! I didn't mean to suggest their marriage was an incestual union and an affront to nobody.

When we last saw Olive Silverlock, Maps wasn't anywhere around her so I didn't really care what was happening. But she was reading a letter from her dead mother which reminds me I should get to work on all of my posthumous correspondence to all the dicks who outlive me. I bet the stigma of incest doesn't exist in the afterlife, so putting some jokes about fucking my mother in my Death Letters is in okay taste, right? I should write a letter to O, the girl I had a crush on in high school, like the letter she wrote me that one time where she apologized for having done something horrible but was smart enough to not actually mention anything horrible that she might have done! Not that I was looking for her to apologize for anything or mad at her for any reason at all even! I just knew that being friends with her was killing me and so I was just trying to move on! Apparently she thought that was the best time to apologize for, I don't know, blowing all the members in Trixter at that concert in Oakland we went to together and she and her girlfriend disappeared backstage for an hour? That's just a guess! My buddy Joe and I just hung out in the parking lot with a shitload of Binaca at the ready.

Joe was the first guy I ever knew who liked the band Extreme and who sucked up his own semen into his mouth after coming on a woman's stomach. What a great guy!

I thought I liked Extreme after Joe introduced me to their music because it's their song "Come Out and Play" in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when Beethoven is jamming on the organ and the other historical figures are running rampant through the mall. I was all, "Shit! That fucking rocks! Hells yeah Extreme is awesome!" But then I read the liner notes on the cassette tape to find out that Dweezil Zappa was responsible for that entire guitar solo and pretty much all of the really technical and difficult guitar solos on the album. Then I was all, "Extreme can suck it!" Then Extreme came out with "More Than Words" and I was all, "Extreme can double suck it!" True story. More or less.

You know, I still have that letter from O! I should transcribe it here because this isn't fucking "Burn All the Letters" or some shit. And no, I didn't just keep this one letter in a secret crying vault! I have all the correspondence ever sent to me in old fashioned letter form! But I won't transcribe it. At least not yet! Maybe I'll ask her permission first. That seems like the more appropriate way to act, right?

If that were anybody but Maps sneaking up on somebody in the dark and screaming, "THERE YOU ARE!", at the back of their head, I wouldn't believe they were sorry. But Maps is kind of spazzy, in the non-ableist meaning of that word, fuckface.

People who think words like "dumb" and "spastic" are ableist are the kind of people that are not allowed to read my most secret thoughts and extreme desires. Those are people who are refusing to let words evolve while thinking that everybody in the world should strive to be exactly like they are. You can let the negative connotation of some words die out, you know. I mean, unless you keep fucking reminding everybody every time you hear the fucking words. I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't about trying to save hurt feelings at all and more about controlling and policing the things other people say so that you feel some kind of power--any kind at all! No matter how petty!--in your life.

Maps reminds Olive that they're in this thing called Pizza Detective Club and Olive is all, "Okay! Let's hunt monsters and not ask me about the letter behind my back or why my eyes are red!" And that's how the monster hunt begins!

I hope this series doesn't end out on Maps's parents lake house with all of Maps's friends visiting her while Maps leads them into the woods on one last adventure as Olive narrates something like, "It didn't matter that there were no maps or dice or monsters. Maps saw the monsters. We did not. All we saw was the death of hope and the loss of our friend."

Boy, I remember way back in my commentary for Issue #1 when I claimed Pomeline was my favorite because she flipped Olive off on panel! Who knew my heart would be stolen by the rambunctious monster loving Maps?!

The team investigates the cemetery where Tristan the Teen-Bat was attacked. They find some fur which Colton takes to analyze in his secret laboratory which he obviously has because he needs some place to make his fireworks and drugs.

I hate Monte Carlo sandwiches because sometimes they're on menus with Monte Cristo sandwiches and my brain stabs me in the back and orders the Monte Carlo instead of the delicious deep fried sandwich I truly wanted.

Tristan discovers that the hair is wolf fur which causes Pomeline to gather everybody up to hear the story of how Werewolves are made! I know! I know! The daddy werewolf approaches the mommy werewolf and says, "Um, hey." Then he flips his hair in a manner that is attractive but still the mommy werewolf is unsure if she should give him a baby. So the daddy werewolf has to figure out how to do something extremely manly and competent in front of the mommy werewolf, like rebuilding the engine on a VW Bus or rescuing a child from being hit by a speeding train. Then the mommy werewolf's eyes will bug out of her head and she will howl and he will howl and then they'll do it and voila! Somehow that makes a baby werewolf. I would get into the details but they're really boring unless you're currently engaged in them.

Somehow while the Pizza Detective Club is learning all about werewolves from Pomeline (without Maps interrupting at all even though she knows twice as much about werewolves as Pom does!), Olive disappears. Some Pizza Detective Club they turned out to be! They lose one of their own and they still don't have any pizza! They're doing a worse job than the Hardy Boys written by Scott Lobdell!

Olive has gone back to her room where she finds Maps's creepy ass roommate rearranging Olive's posters! I think Maps's roommate might be a wraith or a ghoul. This is the Ghoul's Dorm after all. Ha ha!

After Olive chases off Maps's roommate Katherine, somebody slips some Permanent Records under her door. Inside the manila envelope, Olive finds some papers that indicate her mother was a supervillain named Calamity! That sounds exactly like the type of supervillain that would die all the time and then come back from the dead!

I love House of Secrets! It's like my favorite comic ever at this exact moment when I'm not thinking of other ones which I probably like better!

Doctor Strange tells Olive a bunch of stuff Olive probably shouldn't know because he's a manipulative ass. He sends Olive to go bother Kirk Langstrom and Tristan the Teen-Bat (and also Macpherson and her dog, Ham, since they all seem to be having a party at midnight). Mac and Kirk head out to get a coffee so the girls can speak with Tristan alone. Maps asks MacPherson in Cat, "Can I has a soda?" (which should actually be "Can I haz soda?" but I'm not really that nitpicky, especially when it comes to Maps), and MacPherson corrects her grammar. Oh, you're so uncool, Miss Mac! You're not hip to the groove, dig it?

As Tristan and Olive talk, the gym teacher jumps through the window. Also, the gym teacher is a werewolf. I've still got my fingers crossed that the girls' phys ed teacher is the White Rabbit. Va-va-va-voom! Anyway, Tristan flies off with the Werewolf while the rest of the Pizza Detective Club arrive.

Uh oh. Maps is the Faith of this Scooby Gang?!

Maps has a plan to stop the werewolf all drawn up in a cute crayon chart because only the most adorable and brightest and well-loved people draw hilariously cute crayon cartoons. But first they all have to get to the gym without being distracted by their dead mothers and/or wolves in tennis shorts. Most of the Pizza Detective Club are successful. Only Olive makes the rookie mistake of hearing her mother call to her and then running headlong into a wolf in tennis shorts. So amateurish!

Olive's mother tries to possess Olive so that she burns down Gotham City. But since that already happened in Batman Eternal, Olive decides it would be derivative and lame. So instead she waits for Colin to shoot the werewolf with a tranquilizer dart.

After everybody heads off instead of celebrating Pizza Detective Club's first big mystery solved, Pom ushers Olive into the theater building to tell her she knows all about Calamity. And that's when Calamity attacks and begins to burn down the school! Or, arguing the other side, it's when Olive Silverlock has a freaky hallucination and a severe mental breakdown.

Gotham Academy #9 Rating: +1 Ranking. Why is this comic book so much better than every Superman comic book currently being published by DC Comics? Because the characters are the foundation of this comic book. This isn't just a book about a bunch of interchangeable characters who solve mysteries. This is a book about a bunch of kids with distinctly different personalities and problems who are becoming good friends while messing around investigating mysteries that are becoming more and more dangerous. Superman's comic books mostly suck right now because everybody has forgotten the character of Superman. They aren't taking the same character and putting him in a different situation. They've taken an unrecognizable twat and put him in a situation that Superman would deal with in a completely different and more rational and peaceful fashion. Also Gotham Academy looks beautiful. But you just can't go wrong when you write interesting characters. Put them in any kind of situation you want! The readers will follow because they want to see how Maps reacts and how Pomeline toughs it out and how Kyle mopes around and how Olive...well, I don't really care what Olive does. Just give me more Maps!

Gotham Academy #7

Oh great. This is going to be trouble.

I'm not totally jealous of Damian Wayne right now at all and I'm not crying or nothing either. Maps is probably just excited to have another potential player in her "Serpents and Spells" campaign world she's created. Or maybe she's excited to have the child of billionaire Bruce Wayne join the Pizza Club because somebody has to be able to afford the pizza. Unless she's just super excited to have a boy her age finally going to Gotham Academy.

I guess the art duties are being taken over by Mingjue Helen Chen who did the art in the Gotham Academy Sneak Peek. I'm disappointed because I really loved Karl Kerschl's work on this comic book but I'm not that disappointed because I think Mingjue's style fits well with this book.

This issue is called "Curse of the Inishtree Quill" because it's basically just become a Trixie Belden book, or Encyclopedia Brown, or the Baby-Sitters Club. I think. Was that last one about solving mysteries or fending off the unwanted attentions of straying husbands?

Maps is currently ignoring her teacher reading "The Raven" because she's creating new party members for her "Serpents and Spells" game. She's adding some classmate named Eric Jorgensen because she hasn't met Damian Wayne yet. Her character sheet looks something like this:

When the teacher, Mr. Scarlet, asks Maps about the madness and despair of the speaker in any poem by Poe, Eric stands up and screams, "Raven!" He's about to attack the teacher when Damian tackles him and saves the day. I don't know what he saved the day from but it was definitely a day saving move. Having learned a little something from living with Batman for the last few years, he lectures everybody on his way out. Maps kicks Eric off the team and decides Damian is the guy the Pizza Club needs. Wasn't that covered on the Cover?

Olive is gone for a few days so this is just a Maps story. I don't hear anybody complaining, right?

Later while Maps is spying on Damian, she writes in her notebook, "Ultimate Power Team: Maps Mizoguchi + Damian Wayne." As soon as she does this, she and Damian are compelled to hold hands and not let go. You see, her quill has been infused with the magic of Mr. Scarlet smashing Poe's The Raven down upon it. Perfectly reasonable explanation. But now Damian and Maps need help getting their hands unstuck. Well, Damian does but I think Maps probably doesn't mind all the touching and finger caresses.

Pomeline knows more about magic and making up reasons for Damian and Maps to hold hands than I do. Mind control feather quill! Of course! Duh!

This could all be fixed except the stupid raven stole the quill because he was all, "This isn't my feather but I'm taking it back! I'm taking them all back! Nevermore!"

Do you think ravens are completely confused why every human in the world looks at them and says, "Nevermore! Nevermore!" I bet they love going to trailer parks where nobody knows the poem and they just shoot at the ravens instead. It's just a nice change of pace.

Yes, I just equated poverty with ignorance and violence! You would too if you'd spent as many weekends as I have at a Karaoke Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska, just down the road from a trailer park!

Pomeline screams, "The quill!", and shoves Damian out of the window. Maps follows being that they're stuck in the pre-kissing handholding phase. Damian manages to grab the window ledge because he's Robin and thus has plot immunity. At least I think Robins that have been killed once already and returned from the dead have plot immunity!

Maps is going to rock that grapple slut's world on their wedding night.

Maps and Damian swing across the courtyard and crash through a window, landing at Kyle Mizoguchi's feet. Kyle, just like everybody else, attacks them but Damian uses Maps as a weapon and knocks out Kyle. Typical guy! He's got a terrific girl at hand (who probably isn't interested in him at all except for his terrific fighting abilities) and he uses her as a mace. In retribution, Maps uses Damian as a Kleenex (tm!).

How is Damian going to explain the Grapple Gun later? I suppose it's easy enough to believe that the son of the owner of WayneTech can throw a big enough tantrum to earn himself a Grapple Gun.

This story is more believable than Endgame and I get the feeling it's going to wind up being the daydream!

Okay, it isn't really more believable than Endgame. I wish you nerds didn't force me to feel like I needed to clarify that. Fucking nerds! Why can't dumb people appreciate my site?

Maps and Damian decide maybe Professor MacPherson can help them out since her dog barked at a bird which totally probably wouldn't have happened under anything except magical circumstances.

That sounds plausible. But it's also possible that this is a masturbation fantasy because Maps really needs this kind of convoluted, mystical fantasy mystery to get off.

Professor MacPherson takes the kids out to the cemetery where they find the Pizza Club doing weirdo zombie things. Damian and Maps tie them up and then they see the raven with the quill in its mouth. Damian pulls out a Batarang to knock its block off and Maps gets that much closer to coming.

The raven drops the feather which is when Mister Scarlet appears and warns them all not to touch the Inishtree Quill because it carries Avian Demon Flu. That's why all the other kids were acting so crazy. Mister Scarlet takes them to the infirmary right after he points out that Damian and Maps can release their grip on each other. Which they do because this must be the denouement part of the masturbation fantasy which means Maps, you know, is, um, done.

Well, I guess Damian doesn't really have time for school anyway, what with a dead father to bury and a pet gargoyle to take care of and helping Alfred open jars.

Before leaving the school, Damian gives Maps a Batarang. I have a feeling that, from here on out, whenever we see future stories where Damian has taken over the role of Batman, Maps should be his Robin. But I don't think we have to worry about Maps figuring out Damian is Robin and Bruce is Batman because she's no Lex Luthor.

After Damian leaves, Maps falls asleep with her hand still stuffed in her underwear.

Gotham Academy #7 Rating: +1 Ranking. This is actually the kind of thing I've been wanting from DC Comics! Fun stories which you can let be and ignore their unintended consequences on the rest of the DC Universe. Although I'm sure it bugs the shit out of a lot of readers that Damian would be so careless with his (and thus his father's!) secret identity. And so what if Maps, not being a complete moron, figures it all out? She'll tell Olive and Olive will say, "You're nuts." She'll tell Pomeline and Pomeline will say, "Stop spazzing off, retard." She'll tell Kyle and Kyle will say, "That's nice, sis." She'll tell...well, that's probably all she'll tell before deciding it's her little secret which she'll someday parlay into becoming Robin.

Gotham Academy: Endgame #1

This cover is so adorable that I'm having trouble expressing how adorable it is. I want to say it is come-in-my-pants adorable but even though that adequately describes the crazy high levels of adorable this is, it's also inappropriate, pervy, and possibly illegal.

I don't know why all of these comic books needed an Endgame tie-in except to maybe pad DC Comics' super fat wallet but if it means I get an extra issue of Maps Mizoguchi's Gotham Academy, I'm not going to complain too much.

I wonder how many Americans in colleges across the country wind up writing a term paper that compares Batman to Jesus Christ. It's probably so overdone. I would compare Jesus Christ to Jason Todd because Batman is God. Also the other stuff that totally fits like how Jesus was killed by The Joker and then came back to life by soaking in Lazarus's piss. I should go back to college now that I have the confidence to write the papers that I really want to write! I had one college professor tell me one time that he thought my papers were refreshing because I wasn't afraid to be funny in them. If he only knew how much I was holding back! I could have been come-in-his-pants funny!

I didn't mean I would come in his pants! Don't be gross!

This issue begins with the girls talking with each other but their voices are only in Narration Boxes. So Pom and Olive have to use each other's names to identify each other.

Maps identifies herself based on the subject matter.

All the students in Gotham Academy are camping out in the gymnasium. I could have just typed "gym" but I'm a go-getter! Pomeline, Olive, and Maps are sharing a tent and scary stories. Maps mentions an urban legend about somebody called The Custodian that stalks the campus of Gotham Academy battling monsters and unclogging toilets. I bet Maps clogs the fuck out of toilets. And not because she uses too much toilet paper! She just seems like a healthy shitter.

Pomeline takes the first scary story shift to tell the tale of The Night of The Joker! Or maybe something else. Perhaps The Noonday Joker Happenstance! Or The Morning The Joker Came For Coffee!

I get annoyed when people act overly enthusiastic about something simply to prove to everybody how they're like the biggest fan of the whatever. But there's no faking it in Maps! Her head is going to explode at the idea of hearing some scary stories. And then she might wind down with a Tunnels and Trolls solo adventure while Pom and Olive (PomOlive!) make out in their sleeping bag.

Pom's story is about a kid that fell ten cents short on the price of a Halloween mask he needed for his costume so he was forced to steal it! Why that no good business owner! I hope he pays for being the antagonist of this story! When Jimmy tried on the mask, he heard a voice say, "LOTS OF HAs!" and "You've stolen my heart, Jimmy!!" Which is odd because he'd actually stolen a mask of a face and not a heart. I wonder if it was The Joker's real face?! GASP!

And then Pom said, "And Jimmy is standing right behind you!" No wait. We're not to that shocking twist campfire ending yet.

Jimmy, frightened, decided to return the mask. But the store was empty and abandoned and full of cobwebs! Jimmy thought he would return the mask and then engage in a song with the stern yet understanding owner who was just happy that Jimmy had told the truth. Instead he found himself in a nightmare of Twilight Zonian proportions! He threw the mask away and ran home only to find the mask waiting for him in the closet! And then he buried it but he soon found it on top of his collection of fifteen dozen baseballs! So then he burned it! And the next day...he woke up with it as his own face!

BOO!

I can't wait to hear Maps's story!

Professor MacPherson hears the girls telling stories and pops in to see if any of them need some inappropriate teacher/student cuddling. Just for morale, of course! But they're all fine. And Maps even wants to hear more Joker stories. So MacPherson decides to tell her an old myth about a wandering jester from the highlands of North Scotland! And it's probably a real Joker story since The Joker is immortal! Remember? He's like Pennywise now!

Those who didn't act entertained were turned into props for his next act!

That was a pretty gruesome story for this comic book! And it totally freaks Pomeline out! But Maps is still running on scary story adrenaline and she needs another fix. So it's Olive's turn to tell a real Joker story because her mother has spent time in Arkham. If there's going to be a true Joker story tonight, it'll be this one! And you know how hard true Joker stories are to come by! I've been reading comic books for thirty years and I don't think I've read one yet!

It turns out it's not a story about how Sybil ran into The Joker during an Arkham riot at all. It's just a story from Sybil's childhood so it's probably as untrue as all the rest of them. But it doesn't even matter because The Joker isn't in it! It's just a story about a dumb kid that played Bloody Mary wrong and accidentally summoned the Candyman and then played with a Rubik's Cube that turned into the Hellraiser puzzle after he had a scary dream where Freddy Krueger chased him into Michael Myers' house where he got trapped in the attic by Jason Voorhees. Pshaw! Everybody's heard that story!

But Maps loves it anyway and declares it the best scary story ever! My favorite scary story is the one where Jesus keeps calling Peter up on the cross but the Roman guards keep kicking the ladder out from under him before he can hear what Jesus has to say. Man, that one is killer!

And as the girls tuck themselves into bed for the night, The Custodian keeps watch on the school keeping it safe from Joker-faced people! And The Custodian turns out to be...Headmaster Hammer!?! He's so much cooler than I thought!

Gotham Academy: Endgame #1 Rating: Did you all see how cute Maps was in this issue? What a doll! She's a breath of fresh breath! A wind in the willows! A cherry Pez after four lemon Pez! A Grandmaster of Flowers in a 2nd Edition game of Dungeons and Dragons! A real, living goat that actually turns the tables on that fucking Rachael Rosen! Maps! She deserves five songs and a bag of pineapple Lifesavers!

Gotham Academy #6

How many Experience Points is Batman worth? I'd say he's about a 12 Hit Dice creature.

When's the last time anybody else has gone to a Fry's Electronics? When did soft soap, candy, and body pillows become "electronics"? That place is like walking into a flea market now. My favorite display is for the digital cameras. It's more empty spaces and security wires connected to nothing then it is cameras. Who would have guessed the cell phone market would kill the digital camera market?

Last issue ended with Maps and her friends hanging out with Killer Croc as he told them funny Batman stories. But then Batman dropped in because his Bat-Ears were burning and he was all, "Lies! Take it back! I never once said Jason Todd had it coming and I in no way financed that pub calling itself the Crow Bar!"

This is what happens when you talk about Batman behind his back.

While Maps heroically leads Pomeline and Colton to safety during the Batman/Killer Croc throwdown, Olive Silverlock stays behind to manifest some super powers. She ignites Colton's fireworks with the power of her mind. That might be conclusive proof that she is the one that burned down the North Hall last summer. Or it might just be proof that she time traveled.

With the North Hall burning around them (again!) and the ceiling about to cave in on top of Olive (again!), Killer Croc scoops Olive up and heads into the secret passage that Maps bravely retreated into to make sure it was clear. Batman remains behind in the fire because nothing can kill him. The kids get split up and Olive winds up alone with Croc. That's probably a good thing because now he can tell her secret stories about her mother.

Croc's cell was right across from Sybil's but none of his stories are, sadly, about her using the toilet in her cell. Instead he just mentions that she could be scary and when she was scary, she'd talk about how Gotham Academy and Arkham Asylum were connected by more than just tunnels. They're also connected to Wayne Manor too!

Croc leaves Olive at the edge of the swamp and disappears telling her she's always welcome to come visit him. Then she heads back to school to join up with this comic book's real main character, Maps.

I wonder when Maps's secret power will be revealed?

Later Batman appears to Olive so that he can lecture her. Why is Batman the favorite of so many people? He's a douchey killjoy buttpoo. And then after his lecture when Olive thinks she gets to ask him some questions, he does the fucking disappearing act. He's such a coward!

The next day, Pomeline and Olive (PomOlive?) give their Millie Jane Cobblepot report. It's all about how Millie Jane was made a captive of Arkham to ensure that she wouldn't expose the Cobblepot family secrets. She was kept in the building that's currently the girls' dorm. She later escaped using the secret tunnels but her freedom led to her death and the death of her father. In mysterious circumstances! Also she might not have died since she wasn't buried in the Cobblepot family tomb.

Then Colton arrives with a big clue to the mysterious symbol they've been seeing everywhere. The one with the "W" on top of the "M" denoting "Wayne Manor"? Well, Maps sees Colton's "A"s on his assignment and realizes the symbol could be an "A" with another "A" inverted on top of the first one. And that could stand for Arkham Asylum! Too bad they're wrong because the symbol was already shown at Wayne Manor when it was renovated to become Arkham Manor! But they're just junior detectives who have yet to begin the Trixie Belden World's Greatest Detective Home Course like I have. And anyway, Arkham Asylum, Wayne Manor, and Gotham Academy are all linked to some greater mystery anyway, so at least they're on the right track.

I hope they call their detective club "Maps'sses Dicks."

I think instead they're calling it Pizza Club which is stupid and dumb because it isn't what I suggested.

But wait! There's one of those "meanwhiles" I love to throw around my commentaries! This one involves Damian Wayne hunting down The Diary of Millie Jane Cobblepot and taking it back from Maps'sses Dicks. He does this because it was inscribed to Bruce from his mother Martha. Aww! And I thought Bruce was just being a pushy asshole when he tried to get the diary back from Olive! But the best part about the Meanwhile Epilogue is that Damian Wayne is being enrolled in Gotham Academy! Yay!

Stay away from Maps, you ten year old pervert!

Gotham Academy #6 Rating: +1 Ranking. What a twist! I never saw the Damian thing coming! Could this book get any better or any more like an episode of Degrassi Junior High? The good series with Caitlin and Joey and Snake and Wheels and The Zit Remedy. Although I'm not a hater about the new version with Drake and all the other people whose names I've forgotten (like the kid that gets shot in an alley and the kid that shoots Jimmy and the hot girl and the other hot girl and the hot boy and Liberty and the other hot boy) since I only watched it through the one time thanks to Netflix and its old fashioned method of sending disks through the mail. Degrassi the Next Generation is good stuff too but since I grew up alongside the first series, I have to love that one more. Gotham Academy really does need a theme song that I can play each month before I read it. DC Comics, get to work on that!

Gotham Academy #5

Stop copping a feel, Mister Grey!

I just finished watching the third season of American Horror Story, "Coven." It was basically just the X-men! A school for gifted children with special powers? A headmaster that wants to teach the children to fit in and pass among the rest while another, more powerful mutant witch wants to train them to fight. At first I thought Cordelia was Charles but then she has all of those eye problems and it's obvious she's Cyclops. Her mother Fiona seemed to be Magneto but then maybe she was just Charles Xavier when he was a big jerk. He was a big jerk at some point, right? Marie Laveau later turned out to be Magneto with her Brotherhood of Evil. Plus she and Fiona were like Fremeses which is totally the Magneto/Professor X relationship. Madison was kind of like Emma Snow although Nan had all the proper mind powers. Zoe was Kitty Pryde. Kyle was, I don't know, Wolverine or Deadshot or something. The Witchhunters were kind of like X-Factor but for real and not for show. I'm sure there were more similarities, like who Queenie and Misty represented, but I don't know as much about the X-men as I should. And I probably never will since Scott Lobdell wrote so much of it in the nineties.

The biggest problem with Coven is that Maps wasn't in it. It's time to read something with Maps in it!

It turns out the escaped Arkham inmate in the walls of Olive's dorm is Killer Croc although he drops the "killer" when he introduces himself to Olive. Smart!

Oh my god, Maps! You're breaking my heart! Oh, to be young again! And fictional!

Killer Croc gets spooked by Maps'sses (is that the proper way to make her name possessive?) voice and hightails it out of the attic. Hmm, was that insensitive? Since, you know, crocodiles can't actually raise their tails? I don't mean to be insensitive! I mean, I'm not racist or anything in all the ways white people think matter when it comes to racism. Like I don't oppress and hate groups of people based on generalizations and stereotypes about their race or ethnicity or gender or sex or overall level of sexual promiscuity (unless the level is low and then why am I wasting my time, amirite?!)! But I'm pretty sure my sarcasm and cynicism make me racist in my own head! My mind can't help but Mind-Tweet career ending comments at my own behaviors and actions whenever I deal with anybody. It's just that when my mind adds hilarious commentary about a white person, I don't think, "Fuck, dude, that was wrong." So when an old girlfriend of mine once told an extremely old lady who had just had hip surgery that it will be worth it in the long run, my mind goes, "Never say 'in the long run' to an old person!" A couple of nights ago, I was cleaning the floor of a grocery store which is closed. But a delivery guy comes by to drop off fruits and veg while I'm there. As he was leaving, I told him to feel free to move my ramp if it's ever blocking his way. Then he left and I thought, "Hmm, should I have used the phrase 'feel free' to a black guy?" I blame the media for my racism!

Didn't I say she'd only be concerned about how many experience points he was worth? Okay, she's pretty concerned about its Treasure Type as well. I didn't realize Maps was such a gold-digger.

As Olive and Maps continue to explore, Maps fantasizes about finding a treasure chest or a gelatinous cube. Maps would have been so in love with my junior high school self!

Eventually they find themselves in a large antechamber (unless it's just a chamber!) with the Wayne Manor insignia carved into the floor and doors leading in every compass direction. They hear some movement to the north but it leads to a blocked passage under the North Hall. Olive decides to call the expedition for the night and Maps places a question mark and a little doodle of a collapsed passage on her map before heading back to the dorms.

The next day, they regroup in Maps'sses room to brief their new party members, Pomeline and Colton.

I was wrong about the question mark but look at the collapsed passage! I think Maps and I are soulmates!

While they're making plans, Kyle, Olive's ex and Maps'sses brother, butts in.

Literally! Who enters a room this way?

Kyle acts all pissy that Olive might be putting Maps in danger by taking her on dungeon expeditions of the North Hall because he apparently doesn't know his sister at all. But Olive changes the subject and asks Kyle to the school dance even though she has hot pants for The Guy Who Reads. But taking Kyle to the dance is just her cover! Pomeline's cover is Heathcliff and Maps'sses cover is her roommate Katherine who has a bit of an Alice in Wonderland vibe going on. I think that whole dorm room is just full of win!

The adventurers ditch their dates as quickly as possible and head out on their expedition to find Killer Croc and ask him about Olive's mother. And if they happen to find a few potions and magic weapons, that's just gravy. And experience points for treasure found, of course!

Before they can set out, they need to retrieve Colton's thieves tools. Their first hurdle is a locked door to Hammer's office that can only be answered by finding the right combination on a rune lock.

I can't believe Maps missed the mimic! She'd be so disappointed! Also, Pomeline drops a Ghostbusters' reference on the next panel. She might be a bit geekier than she lets on!

Maps opens the lock easily because she knows her runes just like I do! I once had a dungeon master in high school (Welson Niggins! Friend of Soy Rakelson!) draw up a map for our party and he labeled a bunch of places with the runes used for Dwarfish in Tolkein's books. I took the map and began reading the place names as he looked on in surprise that such a cool looking dude as me could read runes. I'd learned them from the map that came with Ultima III!

I know all the stories I tell about my life make it sound like I looked exactly like the kind of person that would be able to read runes. But I offer this abridged, mostly true story in defense of my Cooleptitude! One time at a party, I flipped back my hair and said, "Hi, my name's Tess." And later that night, women (maybe just a woman) were (was?) yanking down my pants in front of a library near the house we'd been in earlier. I probably have tons more proof like that but I don't want to brag or make them up right now. I mean try to remember them.

Once past the door, the party of adventurers raid the place and pick out the weapons that will help establish their characters for the campaign to come.

See? Maps knows the importance of this initial outfitting ritual.

After they're all outfitted, they head to the Girls' Dormitory to slip back into the secret passageway. But before they can get there, Olive has a completely separate adventure all on her own! Or while the others watch from a distance? Anyway, she sees a Man-bat flying through the sky and brings it down with her new crossbow that she should probably name Batfeller. I'm super excited to see Man-bat shot out of the sky until it's revealed that he's not dead and that he's also The Guy Who Reads. He points out the obvious, that he has the Langstrom Virus, and then tells Olive about a day in the summer when he first saw her.

That's the perfect ice breaker! "When I first saw you, I witnessed you burn down a school. Now kiss me!"

Angsty Teenaged Boy-bat (Tristan is going to get a lot of nicknames as I avoid calling him anything but Tristan Grey) rescued Olive from the fire and then Old Lady MacPherson took her to the infirmary and asked The Guy Who Reads if he could keep an eye on Olive. And he said "I'll keep more than an eye on her!" while waggling an imaginary cigar.

Maps comes running out of nowhere and manages to scare away yet another monster worth valuable XP. Apparently Olive did lose the rest of her group as she went on her Man-boy adventure.

I don't think there's enough comic left for a dungeon crawl. Maybe just a page or two to cover Kyle's anger when he realizes he's been ditched at the Valentine's Day Dance.

Except fuck Kyle and the dance apparently because the action picks up with the party crawling up out of the pit and into the North Hall where they lure Killer Croc to them with snack cakes! Killer Croc tells some good stories about how he threw rocks at Batman and how he almost bit Batman's balls off and how the new Robin totally almost killed him like eighteen times already. Everybody is having a good time and just as he begins to open up about Sybil Silverlock and her knowledge of secret tunnels connecting Arkham with Gotham Academy, Batbuzzkilljoywrecker crashes the party. Fuck you, Batman! Aren't you in enough books each month?!

Gotham Academy #5 Rating: +1 Ranking. I've always wanted a DC Comic book that combines all of my favorite things like the DC Universe and Dungeons and Dragons and Degrassi Junior High and Sailor Moon all in one package. Now if this comic book were sold with a free package of Oreos, it would be the most perfect thing ever.

Gotham Academy #4

Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps!

Previously in Maps Goes To Gotham Academy With A Bunch Of Other Characters That Don't Matter Except Maybe Pomeline Fritch Because I Can Remember Her Full Name For Some Reason. Maybe it's because I really like this comic book! I also know Maps Mizoguchi and Olive Silverlock! And Kyle Mizoguchi but that's cheating because he has the same last name as the best character in all of comicdom so how could I ever forget it?

So far, Maps has been having a lot of scary adventures with her friend Olive. They've hunted ghosts and played Dungeons and Dragons and broke into the North Hall where they were forbidden to go and hung from a rope which interrupted Bruce Wayne's rich guy speech to the school. She's also invented the next huge catch phrase: "Oh my crap!" I'm waiting for Maps to get her own comic book now, DC. Don't make me start writing serious fan fiction!

This issue does not begin with Olive Silverlock's funeral for some reason. She was grabbed by a monster inside the North Hall when last issue ended but now she and her love interest, Pomeline Fritch, are standing outside of the North Hall's crime scene remembering how Olive didn't die. I hate when comic books begin with minor characters. Let's see what Maps is up to!

Olive is called into the Headmaster's office for mysterious reasons. She's probably going to be told that her mother escaped from Arkham Manor! Although that happened in the snow and it doesn't look like it's been snowing lately at Gotham Academy. So maybe that won't happen for a few issues yet. While waiting for the Headmaster to yell at her, she witnesses Bruce Wayne and Isla MacPherson talking about their date from the other night. So I guess Bruce Wayne has been sexing it up since Natalya's death! Maybe they're not discussing a date but it really seems like Bruce is trying to apologize for being such a greedy, selfish lover and Isla is trying to just forget the entire experience. Before Olive can hear any sweet details, Headmaster Hammer Head nearly scares the shit out of her. Why does he have to look so creepy? Doesn't he know Gotham Academy looks like the kind of place where creepy old man monsters roam the halls looking for sweet, young innocent flesh? Hmm, that describes every high school in America, I think!

Olive has also been noticing a symbol that looks like somebody typed an "A" on a typewriter and then moved the carriage back one space and typed a "V" over the "A" and then moved the carriage back one space and typed an "O" on top of that. What it is is a "W" on top of an "M" which is the symbol for Wayne Manor as seen in Arkham Manor when the workers were converting the place into an asylum. One of the workers just knocked the ends off of the "W" to turn it into an "A" and voila! Arkham Manor!

Oh look! It's the guy who reads!

The Guy Who Reads knows Olive. It seems he helped her over the summer which is still fuzzy in her memory. She should go ask Maps what Maps knows about him because Maps! She hasn't even been in this yet!

Oh wait! I just turned the page and there she was! Best character ever!

I hope Wizards of the Coast doesn't sue over this! I guess as long as Maps doesn't also paint a Mind Flayer and a Rust Monster, she'll be okay.

Eric, the boy who had better stay away from Maps if he knows what's good for him, is also in Maps's painting class. Apparently Maps and Olive saw the symbol in his sketchbook, so they head over to make him really uncomfortable in that way that only teenaged boys can feel uncomfortable when two cute girls approach him out of nowhere and want to talk to him and he didn't have any time to prepare what he should say so the only authentic response becomes to run away screaming.

Sigh. Maps is perfect! Except for the part where Eric's painting looks nothing like Tiamat. But I'll just blame Karl Kerschl for not getting that detail correct! Maps would never get a Tiamat fact wrong!

Even before the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon made the Dungeons and Dragons version of Tiamat a household name, I bet every Dungeons and Dragons Campaign in the late seventies and early eighties culminated in a battle against Tiamat (if not Orcus or Demogorgon or Juiblex).

Eric leaves a scattering of script pages to Macbeth in his wake as he flees from the attention of the cute girls. So Olive and Maps decide to stake out the drama nerds. They discover Eric designs the props and trap him in the backroom so they can get some answers out of him. Eric panics and tells them everywhere on campus that he's seen the symbol. One of them is in the girls' dorm, so Maps and Olive prepare to explore it by getting their fifty feet of rope, their ten foot pole, their iron spikes, and their iron rations together for the journey.

Also torches! They probably need torches! Fuck, I always forget the torches and then the Dungeon Master is all, "You can't see anything." And then I'm all, "But I'm an elf! I have infravision!" And then he scoffs and says, "That hardly works here in the cold depths of a forgotten barrow!" And then we spend another hour role playing going back into town to buy torches and a tinder box because fuck you, Dungeon Master, you won't laugh at me again when I can't light the torches!

While packing, Maps and Olive have a run in with the Ghost of Millie Jane! Oh my crap!

It's just a puppet operated by Heathcliff.

Olive catches Heathcliff on the roof and agrees not to tell Pomeline if he'll just knock it off. He was doing it to make Pomeline happy about summoning the ghost and not just being mean by trying to fool her. But now Olive and Heathcliff have a shared secret which will bring them closer! Pomeline isn't going to like this much.

Pomeline especially isn't going to like these mild flirtations!

Is giving the Guy Who Reads the name of "Grey" a good choice in the current Fifty Shades of Grey pop culture climate? Maybe Cloonan and Fletcher want us to make that association. They must, right? Who wouldn't? And is the name of the book "Fifty" or "50"? Do I really care? No, I don't really care.

On her way back to her dorm room, Olive stumbles upon the symbol and presses it, opening up a secret passage. Which she ventures into without her provisions or Maps! That's a bad idea! Maps is never going to forgive her for this insolence! Maps is the dungeon delving expert!

Sure, Olive breaks the window and leaves Maps to clean up while she goes gallivanting inside the walls. Typical!

While Olive waits for Maps to join her inside the walls, she runs into the monster that grabbed her leg last issue. He's a big blue version of Killer Croc! Unless he's just Karl Kerschl's version of Killer Croc bathed in blue light. Whoever he is, he has a picture of Olive and her mother taped to the wall by his makeshift bed. Olive realizes he's an escapee from Arkham and empathizes with him. She says she won't tell anybody that he's living in the walls but she also wants to know what he knows about her mother. Hopefully she'll get some answers out of him before Maps arrives and tries to kill him for two hundred experience points.

Gotham Academy #4 Rating: +1 Ranking because Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps Maps! I really like Maps!