EL本棚紹介(30) Gotham High, by Melissa de la Cruz

[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]

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Keywords: comic book, superhero, crime

To many people, American comic books = superhero comics. Batman and Superman have been part of US popular culture for a century, and their popularity is only increasing. But how do you keep these characters interesting for so long? How do you keep coming up with new stories? Gotham High is one example.

This comic reimagines the world of Batman as a high-school drama. Of course, you don’t need to know anything about Batman or superheroes to read Gotham High: it is a regular detective story about kidnapping, attempted murder, and lots and lots of money. There are no superheroes and no superpowers. There is just billionaire Bruce Waine (Batman) and his peers Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Jack Napier (the Joker), Harvey Dent (Two Face), etc. If you already know some of these characters, it just makes the story that much more interesting.

My two cents: This is a decent mystery story with a twist ending, but you might be interested in the high-school slang and SNS usage, too.