Doom Academy #1: First Day Jitters

Strange Academy becomes Doom Academy in “One World Under Doom.” Unsurprisingly, many of this series’ characters appeared in previous Strange Academy series. Will they play a large role in Marvel’s latest event? Doom Academy #1 offers some clues.

The Sorcerer Supreme’s academy is no longer Strange Academy. Instead it’s Doom Academy that opens its doors for the new semester in Doom Academy #1. Doctor Doom himself has chosen the students, and some of them come from the former Strange Academy. Many of the returning students find ways to fit in, including joining the school paper which is run by a young man called Scoop who is determined to only report the truth. Zoe doesn’t fit in quite as well, partly because she hears a voice from beyond.

Familiarity with Strange Academy and its assorted characters isn’t necessary to enjoy Doom Academy #1, but given the issue’s heavy focus on Zoe, it is a benefit. Cadenhead does a reasonably good job communicating the necessary information to get a reader invested in the characters. It works in most cases, though less so with Zoe.

The most well-developed character in Doom Academy #1 is Scoop, the school paper’s editor. Cadenhead goes further into his background than anyone else’s, perhaps because he is a brand new character relative to everyone from Strange Academy. In any case, the result is that he’s easy for a new reader to invest in. The way Cadehead writes Scoop may also generate a “too good to be true” feeling with some readers. He’s complex and steals the show on most pages he appears.

Much like Zoe’s limited character development, the larger plot surrounding her in Doom Academy #1 is thin and utterly disconnected from larger events in “One World Under Doom.”. Given that disconnect, the issue’s story relies on a certain familiarity with the characters in order to create tension and urgency. As is the case with Zoe herself, this only moderately successful.

Doom Academy #1’s great success is the larger theme and environment that Cadenhead creates. Regardless of the titular school’s connection to Doctor Doom, the story’s setting against the first day at a new school is immediately recognizable. Cadenhead captures this in a variety of ways, from meeting new roommates to getting involved in extracurricular activities. The issue also includes moments where Zoe confronts the fact of her friends branching out to spend time with other people. These Zoe sequences are the most successful in Doom Academy #1 even though they are reliant on the actions of other characters.

Delgado’s color choices give Doom Academy #1 a bright sensibility. In a narrative sense it creates an effective juxtaposition with the students’ fear and worry as established by Cadenhead’s story. Regardless of what the characters say, Delgado’s work prevents any sense of foreboding from developing.

The bright coloring also enhances the supernatural qualities of some of the characters and locations. Even though Doom Academy #1 is relatively light on these aspects, Delgado enhances Ferry’s art in these moments.

Ferry’s minimal level of distance detail is a shortfall in Doom Academy #1. Settings featuring larger numbers of students are few and far between. But in those instances, most characters are featureless outlines, generally in the shape of a humanoid character. Some of the more detailed background characters have a cut and paste quality (which is not helped by Delgado coloring groups of these cut and paste characters exactly the same). Ultimately this isn’t really a distraction in the issue. But at no point does the titular academy feel like a school with a large student body.

Conversely, Ferry’s close-up detail elevates all of the issue’s main characters. This is considerably helpful with Zoe who, despite much development narratively, is emotionally expressive in most panels. Much of this expressiveness comes via characters’ eyes. Ferry gets a lot of mileage out of simple changes in eye size and shape and eyebrow angles. As a result the characters don’t need extensive linework across the bulk of their faces which reinforces their youth. Ferry’s art is a major factor in being able to connect to these characters.

Cowles’ uses a font for Zoe’s narration that is reminiscent of handwriting and somewhat larger than is typical for dialogue bubbles and caption boxes. Additionally, he uses boxes that resemble torn bits of paper. While this makes sense thematically, it proves at times distracting, taking up an inordinate amount of space in some smaller panels. When it comes to dialogue bubbles on their own, though, Cowles effectively organizes them to not take up too much space or cover too much art.