New look at 'Gotham High'

[cyberghostface]

Entertainment Weekly has posted a first look with an interview with the creators here. There's also a preview below.

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Thoughts? I'm a bit disappointed. When I heard the premise of "love triangle between Batman, Joker and Catwoman" I was kind of hoping for more of what Tom King was playing with with Joker and Selina fighting over who was better for him. Even in a highschool AU "Joker and Batman are enemies because they were both in love with Catwoman" feels completely off the mark. 

Comments

[lordultimus]

Well, it looks better than the last time they kicked this idea around.

[deh_tommy]

Aw, I think that looks kind of cute. Kind of reminds me of The Batman.

[icon_uk]

I actually kinda like that, I'm guessing that's Clayface on the far left?

And Scarecrow looking like he's escaped from a Tim Burton movie.

[donnblake]

Correct! (Source- there's a list at the bottom of the image!)

[icon_uk]

"D'oh!"

Thanks

[donnblake]

Harvey's the one I really needed confirmed, oddly enough. This is certainly... a take on his disfigurement.

[lego_joker]

Wasn't this the tack they tried to take with Reed and Doom in the '05 FF movie? And before that, with Norman and Peter during the '90s?

[cyberghostface]

Norman and Peter?

[lego_joker]

Wasn't that what the whole "Gwen slept with Norman" arc was about? Jacking up their feud even higher with the whole "you stole my woman (before killing her)" trope?

[deh_tommy]

I swear, I keep mistaking this for Gotham Academy every time I hear the name.

[coldfury]

Anything that makes Barbara a peer of Bruce's instead of Dick's, even in a weird AU concept like this, gets an immediate demerit from me.

It reminds me of Timm's Bruce/Babs OTP, and that's something that can't be forgiven.

[chalicother]

Damn it....it's now stuck in my head.

Nooooooo!

[icon_uk]

Originally Barbara was much closer to being a peer of Bruce, rather than Dick.

She was a college graduate, when Dick was still in High School, and and congresswoman when he was still an undergrad at Hudson U.

It's only since the New 52 they've definitely been made around the same age.

[bradygirl_12]

Yeah, Barbara being older than Dick worked. She wasn't supposed to be as old as Bruce, but she was 'the older woman' when Dick crushed on her. :)

[silverhammerman]

One thing I try to always keep in mind when getting a glimpse of DC's weird YA output is that I've very much not the target audience for this. So when I say that nothing about this clicks for me, that's not necessarily a bad thing. My feeling looking at this is, sort of "What? Why? Sure, I guess."

With that being said, this looks like maybe the wildest swing DC has yet taken with this stuff yet. I'm sure more traditional Batman stuff will rear its head in the full book, but just from the preview, there's really nothing to distinguish this from a 2005 era CW show. Its relation to Batman as a concept seems nominal at best. The idea of a New Money, Asian-American Bruce Wayne is sort of cool, but that's the only idea that sticks out to me as good. Stripping out the incredibly weird family dynamics by making Alfred his actual uncle as opposed to servant-turned-surrogate-father, making Dick Grayson a bullied peer instead of an adoptive son, and then reducing the operatics of supervillainy down to teen drama intrigue seems like it kind of misses the point. It's the kind of AU that's so off the rails I find myself asking "why not just make this it's own thing that's vaguely inspired by the original?"

Also, there's a chance that we're being misled about the nature of the love triangle, but really, if they're going to be doing a Batman/Joker/Catwoman love triangle is this day and age, not having the contested party be Bruce is, frankly, some cowardly bullshit. If this is intended to act as a fanfiction style AU published in official comic book form, not queering the love triangle seems way off the mark.

[chalicother]

Also, there's a chance that we're being misled about the nature of the love triangle, but really, if they're going to be doing a Batman/Joker/Catwoman love triangle is this day and age, not having the contested party be Bruce is, frankly, some cowardly bullshit.

Honestly, that's my issue with this, too. There's some good idea's , but the fact the author is trying to make Joker/Catwoman a novel idea just sounds like they took the easy way out. You made alot of alterations in the story to make the story more diverse, but for some reason making a women come between the Joker and Batman seems like easy way out of this. It's an AU, take advantage of it! Lets be honest, the most hardcore Batman fans aren't really looking into this. The fact they even said they are interested in doing story on Poison Ivy and Harley, so they have no issue with doing LBGTQ character, so why make the love triangle just come off as predictable. I mean, unless DC was just no "not villainous" Joker being attracted to Batman

[kurenai_tenka]

"Thoughts? I'm a bit disappointed. When I heard the premise of "love triangle between Batman, Joker and Catwoman" I was kind of hoping for more of what Tom King was playing with with Joker and Selina fighting over who was better for him. Even in a highschool AU "Joker and Batman are enemies because they were both in love with Catwoman" feels completely off the mark."

I already hated this as a concept, but this just seals it for me.

[leahandillyana]

This is straight out heterosexual bullshit. I thought you can't get more straight bullshitty than Dark Prince Charming, but there's never too low for DC it seems.