Gotham High

I bought this purely to see if this was as bad as people were telling me it was just a warning review has spoilers.So we follow mainly Bruce Wayne, Jack Napier aka joker and then selina Kyle aka catwomen. The story mostly revolves around kidnapping with Harvey then selina and then Bruce getting kidnapped in that order. We also see kids in high school at their best drinking having fun gambling with cards and smoking e-cigarettes we then at the end find out it was all orchestrated by selina to try to blackmail the Wayne family to give her money to help her father who has altzimhers then when this all goes wrong she fakes her death so that her father gets her trust money to have a more better life in care home.We also see how selina is affected by her fathers alzihimers that was done rather well considering. We also have a weird triangle like relationship going on between the three which doesn’t really work well as an example we have jack the stalker yes the joker is a stalker of selina but she doesn’t care about that ........we have in one page jack sees selina and Bruce kissing and doesn’t care then a few pages later they are fighting over her have some consistency please.The main issue I have with is the characters have no consistency and are quite shallow over all. I also take issue with how they portray high school students now yes when I was in high school I used to drink and smoke but I’m not the best role model and neither are these characters they drink,gamble and smoke. We also have the diversity in this comic now I don’t really care about diversity in comics as long as they have a good story and it fits the character then I don’t care go right ahead from the top of my head I can think of miles morales great character love him, but the creators of this comic have just swapped races of old characters. Does it improve their character not really does it further the story no....then what was the point I have no clue.We then have Alfred who in one page actually bribes the cops seriously. Bruce is fine with this does this seem to be the characters we know and love no they aren’t they have the same names but they are worlds apart from what we know.In conclusion this comic is pretty bland the story is not engaging and the ending is pretty predictable there is a lot of filler in the comic and you can skip entire pages and still know what is going on. This comic could have been made much better by just creating new characters instead of changing old ones and may have made it just a bit better. Also the artwork is rather well done but in some panels it seems really crude and lets it down unfortunately but otherwise it is fine.Score overall 1.5 out of 5

I initially bought this item because I wanted to see if it was as bad as people were saying… IT WAS WORSE.Starting with the art work, the style is bizarre, it seems to give the characters minimal expressions and facial features but at the same time over-saturates the panels with background detail. The panel placement is also strange with multiple overlapping images making it hard to follow what is going on sometimes.Story-wise, I don’t know what I was expecting, something perhaps along the lines of “Smallville” with teen versions of the popular DC characters investigating mysterious goings on, what I got was a half-baked script for an episode of “90210”.Make no mistake, this is NOT a Batman story. There is barely any connection to the Batman mythos outside of the characters names and the fact that Bruce Wayne became a multi-millionaire when his parents died. I’m not too bothered about the race/gender changes because there is already a decent precedent for that in the “Elseworlds” novels.What bothers me is the changing of the characters personalities and motivations, in general none of the main characters are particularly likeable. Bruce Wayne, rather than the driven, obsessive perfectionist he is normally portrayed as, is just a typical “loner with emotional problems” of the kind that are everywhere in media at the moment, Jack Napier, far from the terrifying, homicidal Joker is a creepy, jealous, stalker-type and Selena comes across as horribly selfish, arrogant and manipulative.The plot is extremely thin, and almost entirely focused on teen drama rather than the detective work that Batman stories are so well known for and the only action throughout the entire book are a few panels of Bruce and Jack throwing a couple of punches at each other. The final twist at the end is barely a surprise and only serves to make one of the characters even less likeable, I won’t spoil it by stating which one.Even taken on it’s own merit this is a dreadful story, as part of the Batman franchise it’s an insult to long-standing fans and newcomers alike. Which brings me to my main gripe, if they were going to deviate from the mythology so much, why not simply create an entirely new universe with original characters… WHY EVEN MAKE THIS PART OF THE BATMAN FRANCHISE?The only conclusion I can reach is that DC wanted to create an entirely new “teen drama” property but they were not confident enough to have this stand on its own merit so they stamped a bat on it and hoped that would bring in established fans.It’s a shame that, at a time when the comic book industry is struggling, DC decided to use up precious resources and shelf space creating this when there are far more deserving projects out there.In summation, don’t bother with this book, you won’t be missing anything.

High school where villains are made. I keep changing my mind of this I did like this book. It is not Batman but an acceptable and enjoyable Elseworld. I would have given this this 3.5 stars but I think it deserved the a round up.The are work is good, I liked the modernisation and ethnic mixing of the characters. I like the bit of Batman lore in the book. I don't mind that Bruce is more swagger than stealth as this is set in high school.The parts I did not like about the book is the mystery element was pretty obvious I was hoping I was wrong to add a twist to it. Bruce I'd not subtle about his investigation and the all the adults seem to be enabling him. The GCPD is a useful as ever.An enjoyable book. Much of the un-Batman like behaviour can be put down to Bruce's age and being in high school, but there are enough Batman bit I the making. Not a bad stand alone story, (this how I know I liked it) though I would not mind a sequel.

I’d say the general vibes is sort of riverdale but with baby batman characters. I do like the art a lot, its very colourful and pretty. This version of the characters is also sorta interesting or at least I found it entertaining but to be honest I sort of detached them in my head from who they’re based on.

This is not Batman, even tangentially.