DC Comics Secret Hero Society, Book 1 - Study Hall of Justice

What if when Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince were children, they all attended the same boarding school in Gotham?  And what if that boarding school just happened to be a school run by an unseen principal, but with teachers such as Hugo Strange, Solomon Grundy, Vandal Savage, Zod, Siobhan McDougal, Basil Karlo, Jervis Tetch, and the like?  And what if Bruce, Clark, and Diana didn't really fit in, but they knew something strange was going on?

And what if these three youngsters formed a secret society within the school to uncover the secret behind the fact that no real learning was going on?

You'd get the Study Hall of Justice!  The first book in DC's new Secret Hero Society series, published by Scholastic, is a combination graphic novel, scrapbook, yearbook that is - - well, simply put - - FUN!

Yes, that's right.  It was fun.  Something all comics should be.  Even when a hero is fighting a bad guy, it should still be fun.  And for the first time in quite a long time, DC has hit the nail on the head with this book.  Written by long-time comic writer Derek Fridolfs and drawn beautifully by Dustin Nguyen (who is no stranger to many of these characters, having did the art for DC's now cancelled all-ages series, Batman: Li'l Gotham), the book tells the story of Bruce, Clark and Diana coming together to discover why they are not learning anything at Ducard Academy, where all the other students are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want, which usually consists of chaos and other sundry bad deeds.  The three try to hide their secret lives from one another, but they eventually come together to put a stop to the principal's plans to create a hive of villainy (I'll leave the identity of the principal a secret for now - but I will say his daughter is a student at the school and seems to take a shining to Bruce....)

I would highly recommend this book to any fan of these characters, as well as parents who want to introduce their kids not just to reading, but to comics as well.  It's a great introduction, and it pretty much represents what comics should be more like.  The book is published in hardcover format, with a glossy cover.  Although there is nothing on the cover, spine, back, or inside to indicate this is a first book in a series, Amazon and other booksellers tote it as being book one.  So here's hoping it sells well enough to warrant future stories (and hopefully they will touch on other characters in DC's huge universe of heroes, and not just focus on these three).

RATING:  10 secret case files out of 10 for good, clean, all-ages fun and family friendliness - what comics should be!