Seems like Miss Olive Silverlock can through fire unscathed (or can she?) in Gotham Academy #3 written by Brenden Fletcher & Becky Cloonan with art by Karl Kerschl.
Last issue Olive stopped Pomeline from conducting a ritual ceremony during a secret Order of The Bat society meeting between Pomeline and her boyfriend Heathcliffe and now the supposed ghost of Millie Jane Cobblepot is loose at Gotham Academy. We also learn more about Olive; her mom was at I’m going to assume is implied to be Arkham, and survived its collapse and is now in a coma. That certainly would make you sort of not want to talk to anyone, not even your boyfriend.
The kids plan to break into North Hall, a boarded up wing of the school (and possible old house?) that was boarded up the summer prior. They enlist Colton Rivera to do so. While there Olive has a flashback; she’s been there before, and she has a hazy memory of a fire and of Batman. Hmm. Perhaps that’s why she hates him. They find a hole in the floor, filled with…something. Olive reaches down and, whoops, a hand! Things truly are creepy!
POSITIVES
I’m glad they’re revealing more about Olive and the story is getting along better. There’s something slightly off in how they’re presenting this narrative, it’s become more obvious since last issue, but since it’s finally starting to show more of its cards that problem may not be so much of a problem anymore. A mysterious boy keeps sort of appearing to Olive as well, or is conveniently around. I think a future cover shows them kissing so I’m pretty sure he’s an antagonist. Or related to. He’s hipster looking anyway.
I like that the cast growing. Kyle finally gets a scene and he’s so far nothing much more than a supportive boyfriend but I’ll wait to see, I’m not convinced everything is as it seems with them. Pomeline is proving to be a good character too, as a somewhat disgruntled ally frenemy to Olive. The introduction of Colton Rivera so called “school liar” and lockpicker is also welcome. This cast is extremely diverse, if going by Rivera’s name, not one character in this is white, though Colton may be Spanish or Cuban and not Latin-American. Either way this is way better than most comic book percentages. 
NEGATIVES
Like I said before this book has had a strange structure in relaying information and setting up the story, but it looks like that awkward introductory period is fixing itself and improving, so in all nothing here really to complain about. The art, beautiful as ever was a little less showy this time around, though the swampy spot Kyle and Olive meet at was certainly a treat to look at.
VERDICT
I love this a lot, it’s got a lot of diversity, a cool feel to the mystery thing and I’d love to learn more about Olive’s family and if she actually has supernatural abilities or not (it was sort of unclear). It has cooled on me a little but I really feel this a great series worth investing in!
