So fun! I love Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs "Lil Gotham" and this appeared to be just as delightful.

did not disappoint. It's a fun what if of the school AU variety that is very popular in fanfic, reimagining the Caped Crusader, Man of Steel and Amazonian Princess as elementary school kids investigating super shady shit at their new school. Like NINJAS. So. Many. Ninjas.

Anyone with passing familiarity with the universe with recognize the students and teachers alike (Pamela Isley? Victor Fries? Brainiac?) and guess the Principal's identity, but as a primer for the young set this will appeal to them I think. ( )

It's a cute idea with decent art that doesn't do well in black and white, and is all-in-all executed terribly.

This is by far and away not the first AU iteration of familiar DC characters - with a particular emphasis on the Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman mythos - in school environments, and it does nothing to stand out from any of the others. Compared to "Gotham Academy", which barely even has appearances by the mainstay Batman characters, this is pathetic. The school isn't a school, and it seems stupid from page 1 that any of the main trio would go there. It's not even amusing or believable on a "well it's sort of funny that they went to a supervillain training school". Because that seems to be the premise. But it's not really a supervillain training school so much as a supervillain reference environment where apparently unsupervised children are left to run rampant most of the day without any consequences or purpose. Well, the purpose is to have one or three things every page that someone familiar with the DC Universe can say "I get that reference". That's it.

Compare this to the "Lois Lane" novels by Gwenda Bond. The series takes place in a relatively normal school, with familiar characters like Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Lex Luthor, all aged down. For all that weird stuff does go on in the background, forming the basis for the mysteries to solve, the school is still by and large a NORMAL school, where NORMAL things happen. Kids and adults can and frequently do face consequences for actions that break the rules of the system, and teaching is involved in the system. The school isn't just a nostalgia box. And when it makes a reference, it works fluidly in the story.

Dustin Nguyen's art is fine, although it's really difficult to appreciate without color (the gray just kind of blends together). Backgrounds are basic to nonexistent, so characters are running around in voids, even if most of what we see is mostly snapshots. Character expressions verge on the statuesque to the bizarre, with Bruce occasionally looking like a pig, and ages for non-child characters being extremely ambiguous. Due to the lack of environments, characters and plot seem to spontaneously spawn, with Brainiac's first appearance being the notable example, particularly given its "introduction". Or lack of introduction. Basically Bruce sees the Brainiac insignia on a piece of paper and is potentially weirded out by it(?) (it's not explained). He then shows Clark and Diana for no apparent reason, and they're potentially shocked by it too for some unexplained reason, and then Brainiac appears to no one's apparent surprise before going off on its merry way. And then Bruce and Clark and Diana are besties now.

Plots are picked up and dropped with no rhyme or reason. No one likes Bruce and he's frequently apparently dumped in garbage or covered in food from food fights and mistrusted by the school leadership, yet his locker is filled with love letters on Valentine's Day. Why? Because Batman is a notorious heart-throb in comics, therefore mini Bruce Wayne must also be.

Characters like Diana and Clark and Mr. Freeze have superpowers but this is only a slight oddity that Bruce occasionally comments on but is largely nonplussed by. It's fine to have a world where having superpowers isn't unusual, but there's no evidence that this is what's going on. In fact, it's implied that it's the opposite - that superpowers aren't the norm. The antagonists of the story seem to be aware, unaware, suspect, and know the extent of the superpowers of the protagonists. It's very confusing.

I just wonder if some of these writers have any clue what it's like to go to public or private school. Parents/guardians don't typically hear that their children are being bullied by literally all students and assaulted in hallways and then tell them "school isn't meant to be enjoyed". I certainly don't understand why Alfred is saying that. Certainly, school isn't supposed to be a vacation. But it's not just "let's assault the new kid" ground. There's absentminded parenting, parents not believing their kids, parents believing that hazing is good for kids to learn to toughen up, and then zombie parents who just exist because children must have guardians and guardians don't care about kid's feelings because that's how all school dramas are written apparently.

Overall the story is boring at its best, nonsensical and dumb at its worst. The art, given its presentation, is meh. There are plenty of better alternative "familiar superhero characters as kids in school" stories out there, like "Gotham Academy", Gwenda Bond's Lois Lane series, "JL8" the webcomic, and so on. Plenty of those are things that children -and adults- would enjoy reading. Skip this. ( )

This was really fun! I like how readers both familiar with and new to the DC universe could easily read this, although those who already know the adult versions of these characters will get more enjoyment out of it. I'm somewhere in between, and I thought the characters were written well, and the mystery element was intriguing. The artwork was really pretty, too! Almost like a black-and-white watercolor. ( )

Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are all kids, pre-superheroes and all enrolled in a school with a dark secret. Told in comics, text messages, emails, journal entries, lists, this disjointed and fragmented narrative attempts to tell a story but I don't think it's very successful. The same criticism I have with many of DC's publications for kids like Tiny Titans, I found this to be yet another collection of inside DCU continuity jokes and obscure references that kids won't likely get. My ARC didn't have completed artwork but I'm certain that Nguyen's work will be amazing here. It's unfortunate the story just doesn't hold together. ( )