Secret Six, v. 1: Friends in Low Places

Collects: Secret Six v. 3 #1-6 and DC Sneak Peek: Secret Six #1 (2014-5)

Released: February 2016 (DC)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401254858

What is this?: A new Secret Six! Five criminals and a PI are hunted by the mysterious Mockingbird, who wants some information from him. Who is he, and what does he want?

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and artists Ken Lashley, Dale Eaglesham, and Tom Derenick

It has to be natural to make comparisons when you’re reading a title that has been recently rebooted, like Secret Six, v. 1: Friends in Low Places.

I’ve read most of writer Gail Simone’s run on Secret Six — the final volume, Caution to the Wind, will come out next month — and it’s hard not to compare Friends to that run. Frankly, it was hard for me not to mix-up the two different versions of the team. I’m not sure whether the source of that disorientation is the reboot or the book itself — but I’m leaning toward Friends.

In Friends, four villains (Catman; the newest Ventriloquist; Strix, a Talon from the Court of Owls; and new character Porcelain), a superpowered teenager (Black Alice), and a private investigator (Big Shot) are tormented and hunted by Mockingbird. Why? Mockingbird is coy about the reason, imprisoning them and asking, “What is the Secret?” They escape (without answering) and form a team of sorts.

Mockingbird claims to be an arch-criminal, but his plans are haphazard at best. He’s looking for a stolen diamond, but he doesn’t ask about the gem. He’s trying to protect his identity, sure, but he’s dealing with criminals, a teenager, and a private investigator; he’s asking for “the Secret,” yet it’s hard to imagine a more secretive yet stubborn group. Everything is a secret with them. Mockingbird sends a team, led by Scandal Savage, to track and fight the new Six, although it’s unclear what he hopes to achieve. He and Scandal hope the Six will be re-imprisoned, but Mockingbird has a mole in the group, which he uses almost immediately after the fight to draw the team into a … trap, of sorts. (The trap is he threatens to blow everybody up, including his putative fiancée and himself, if he doesn’t get what he wants. I’m not sure why it’s effective.)

It doesn’t help that Scandal’s team doesn’t seem interested in fighting the Six, despite Mockingbird threatening to use hostages against the Scandal. Nor does it help that the team — Scandal, Silver Banshee, and Ragdoll — were all members of the pre-reboot incarnation of the Secret Six. During the entire fight, part of me was bothered that those three were fighting against Catman.

The fight scenes don’t raise the stakes; instead, they seem to lower them. The scrap between the Six and Scandal’s team is frequently amusing, but no one’s heart seems to be in it, and Scandal unilaterally ends the fight by walking away. (She also doesn’t seem interested in the obvious next move of joining forces against Mockingbird.) The final fight between the Six and Mockingbird’s forces is desultory at best; Strix takes out Mockingbird’s men in a few panels, and the rest of the fight is the team reluctantly turning on Mockingbird’s mole despite having more effective options other than fighting among themselves. Perhaps this is intentional; the Six have no tactician, and they’re mostly people whose first and last recourse is fighting. It doesn’t make the book entertaining to read, though.

The art doesn’t help the fight scenes. Ken Lashley’s work on the Six’s escape from Mockingbird in the second issue is a few chaotic panels followed by a declaration of victory, while Tom Derenick’s art for the final fight lacks dynamism. Derenick tries to give a demonstration of Strix’s fighting style on a single page, but the horizontal layout makes the fight into a sidescroller, with that old video-game logic: antagonists come out of nowhere, they could possibly spawn forever, a character might not be something you can fight, and the fight ends arbitrarily. The battle in #3, which takes place in Big Shot’s suburban home, is much better, but it’s played for laughs, and there’s always a sense everything is being held back.

In the first two issues we should ideally be meeting the team and seeing how the members relate to one another. However, those issues feel disorganized; the first issue is mostly about Catman, how he was captured by Mockingbird and how poorly he fares in captivity. (His actions when he meets the rest of the Six in #1 have little to do with how he relates to them later on.) Issue #2 has many flashbacks to Catman’s captivity — no, not this captivity, but the captivity before that, the one we didn’t know had occurred. The double captivity is confusing, and the lack of issue labels doesn’t help; since the book includes a “Sneak Peek” issue, and I assumed one of the first two issues was that issue — something loosely connected to the regular series but that might not match up well to its continuity. Getting captured twice by Mockingbird makes Catman look like a chump, but the focus on Catman in these issues gives the impression Secret Six will be Catman and the Kitties Five, something the rest of Friends doesn’t dispel.

The book does have a lot of things going for it. Simone’s sense of humor is still appealing, and with a few less faults, that humor might have won me over. The other characters are types, but entertaining ones. Big Shot is the straitlaced suburbanite, unwilling to curse (or to have others curse) around ladies. The Ventriloquist is a Norma Desmond-type, believing the spotlight will find her and her dummy, the seemingly sentient Ferdie. Strix is silent, phonetically writing all her communications on a pad of paper and completely unable to guess what is socially acceptable. The “writing on paper” gag becomes impractical many times — who would let her write during combat? — but I’m willing to accept it for now. More concerning is that Strix is identified as a Talon for the Court of Owls, but neither “Talon” nor “Court of Owls” is explained. I know what they are, but a footnote would have been nice. I don’t think DC does footnotes any more, though.

Big Shot’s relationship toward Black Alice quickly becomes paternal. It’s reminiscent of the relationship between Scandal Savage and Bane in the previous volume of Secret Six, but that’s all it is: an echo, a parallel, an allusion. The relationship differs in many important ways: Big Shot and Alice are relatively nice people, which Scandal and Bane were not; Alice is young enough and Big Shot not so controlling that the relationship doesn’t have any creepy overtones; and most importantly, Alice enjoys Big Shot’s protectiveness. Their scenes together are sweet.

Porcelain is an afterthought. We learn the character’s basic powers — making hard matter brittle — and we’re told the character is trans to some degree, shifting from presenting a female to male persona to the world. We never discover if that’s a normal, real-world transition or if it is something in Porcelain’s powers. It hardly matters, since we see Porcelain as male only for a brief moment in issue #3. Unlike the others, we learn little of Porcelain’s personality. In the big fight scene, Porcelain is knocked out between issues #5 and 6, as if either Simone or Derenick had forgotten Porcelain was unaccounted for at the end of #5 but didn’t want to spend the necessary time showing what happened.

As revealed by my comments above, I’m not enamored of the art. Lashley draws the first two issues plus a few pages of the third. His work is atmospheric, but it lacks the detail needed to plant long-term hints; it’s hard to tell, for instance, that the singer on the first page of #1 is the same character who hits Catman with a taser a few pages later. Derenick (parts of #3 and #5, and #6) and Dale Eaglesham (Sneak Peek, #4, and part of #5) have much clearer styles. Their work is complementary, similar enough that I sometimes miss the handoff between them. I enjoy the clear lines and clear action both of them supply, but as I noted before, their fight scenes lack a certain vitality. I can’t decide whether that’s because the fights are written as pro forma, or if the art is the reason the fights seem so lackluster.

Friends is a disappointing book, but it’s not without promise. I’ll probably pick up the next volume, but I may not pre-order it. (I’m assuming the DC Universe didn’t re-reboot before the next six issues were released.)

Rating: (2 of 5)

2010 in review

I had plans for a 2010 review as big as last year’s, listing my favorites (and least favorites) from among the books I reviewed this year. Unfortunately, the books I reviewed — 37 overall — tended toward the mediocre. (That’s not entirely fair; a rating of 3.5, which several books received, is above mediocre. A book that gets 3.5, in my opinion, is fun to read … but it’s not a book that inspires superlatives or a command to go out and buy the book.) So my list of books this year will be short:

1. Birds of Prey, v. 5: Perfect Pitch and v. 6: Blood and Circuits: The antepenultimate and penultimate volumes of writer Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey run, these two were the apex of her work on the title. After finally shedding artist Ed Benes, Simone (coincidentally or not) was able to hone her characterization and sharpen her plots while retaining her customary witty dialogue. If forced to choose between the two, I would opt for Blood and Circuits because the developments in that book finally jolted the audience from some of its complacency about the safety of the team.
2. Usagi Yojimbo, v. 24: Return of the Black Soul: Stan Sakai finally explained the origin of the demon Jei, focusing on the demon’s story for a tale that was not only frightening but surprisingly emotional. After 24 volumes of Usagi in more than 20 years, Sakai is still able to tell stories about the character and his world that are new and powerful.
3. G-Man, v. 1: Learning to Fly and v. 2: Cape Crisis: I’m a big fan of Chris Giarrusso, so it’s no surprise I loved his two G-Man books. Filled with his distinctive humor — a combination of subtle sight gags, running jokes, and absurdist dialogue — G-Man still manages to have an interesting plot, and Giarrusso seems to never forget how the world seems to children.

I actually did better than I thought with the timeliness of the reviews, although given how badly I thought I did, that’s not saying much; still, nearly half the reviews were of books that came out in 2010. Fortunately, G-Man, v. 2, and Usagi Yojimbo, v. 24, were among those, so they’re my picks of 2010. Honorable mention goes to Batwoman: Elegy, the beautiful but occasionally flawed book by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III.

The worst books I read this year were The Pulse, v. 2: Secret War and Gigantic. Writer Brian Michael Bendis, who occasionally puts out some great stuff, also generates some of the worst, and The Pulse was about as low as this blog goes: a frequently incomprehensible decompressed mess with bad characterization, saved from a 0 rating only by art from Michael Lark and Brent Anderson. Gigantic, by writer Rick Remender and artist Dustin Nguyen, was a high-concept piece that unfortunately did not live up to the promise of the concept; the writing veered from weird to surprisingly unsurprising, and Nguyen’s scratchy art didn’t help matters either. Since Gigantic was the one that came out this year, it gets my “Worst of the Year” tag despite being better than The Pulse.

What was the best (or worst) collected edition / graphic novel you read this year?

Previous year-end wrap ups:

• 2009 in review

Birds of Prey, v. 7: Dead of Winter

Collects: Birds of Prey #104-8 (2007)

Released: February 2008 (DC)

Format: 128 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401216412

What is this?: Gail Simone wraps up her run on the title with one final mission and a battle for the team’s leadership.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and penciler Nicola Scott

For reasons I can’t quite recall, it’s taken me almost two years to get to the end of writer Gail Simone’s four-year run on Birds of Prey. But with Birds of Prey, v. 7: Dead of Winter, Simone reaches the end, and I catch up with her there.

You would think that in modern comics, which both hallows and cannot sustain long runs, that there would be a great deal of attention paid to the ending of a long string of consecutive issues by a writer — throwing everything the book has on the page or trying to make this an “end of an era” sort of book, with a knowing wink (“Here we go again!”) thrown at the reader or at least a heart-felt “Thanks!” from the writer. But there’s none of that, just a simple “The End!” to mark the passing of Simone’s 53 issues. I appreciate that, and either DC does as well or they mandated it; after all, they’re trying to convince readers that the writers who follow, Tony Bedard and Sean McKeever, supply either the same or higher quality stories, and signaling that something big has passed is never the way to do that. On the other hand, the non-comics part of #108 could have been filled with all sorts of weepy goodbyes and eulogies, for all I know.

But I wouldn’t have begrudged Simone the chance to go out with a big bang; it is a comics tradition, after all. It used to be said of Spider-Man in the Bronze Age that you could tell when a writer was leaving the title because he’d wheel out his Green Goblin story. But the only green I see in this story is on the costumes of Spy Smasher and Knockout.

In Dead of Winter, Simone gives the team its biggest shakeup of her tenure, sending a squad out on another mission as team founder Oracle’s authority is being usurped by Spy Smasher, the revival of a Golden Age hero’s identity. Spy Smasher gained control of the Birds by revealing she knew Oracle’s real identity and threatening Oracle’s father’s reputation and career. She’s the only person to crack Oracle’s ID after so many have tried, so this should be a giant showdown, one that unspools in every issue of the book and in the background of every scene — or, if not in every scene, then at least a few of them. This should be epic, a huge stone carved with letters that say, “I made these minor characters into something that actually matters.”

But it’s not.

It’s another mission, albeit one with a little tension. The mission itself isn’t even morally dubious, even though we’re told Spy Smasher is a bad egg: Spy Smasher leads the team on a rescue of a hero who has been missing for years.

The conflict between Spy Smasher and Oracle is resolved by half of a fight between the two, followed by a little intimidation by all the living Birds of Prey. It’s just 12 pages, four of them taken up by two double-page spreads that involve people standing around and looking at Spy Smasher (or the reader, depending on your point of view). It doesn’t even address the power over Oracle’s dad that allowed Spy Smasher to take over the Birds in the first place. It’s a letdown, to say the least.

And that’s a shame, because it diverts attention from a very good Simone story. The plot itself is relatively simple, but Dead of Winter matches Simone’s previous work on Birds for character moments, quick wit, and plot twists. Matching the Birds against the other team Simone has had success with — the Secret Six — gives Simone a chance to write villains who are as witty as the protagonists. She seems to have a lot of fun with Big Barda as well, from her casual disregard of oozing bullet wounds to her joyful decision to start a fight. Zinda, Lady Blackhawk, gets her moment to show that she knows a thing or two about what you do with “tightass tinpots.” Even Spy Smasher is appropriately ambiguous while getting a decent share of the good lines.

Continuing from where she started in #100, Nicola Scott provides the art for this volume. Scott’s work shows how things have improved since the beginning of Simone’s run; Scott’s characters are attractive people, but unlike those in the work of, say, Ed Benes, they don’t look like they’re being posed for a series of cheesecake pinups. She doesn’t overplay the comedy, matching the understated humor in the dialogue. As I mentioned in Birds of Prey, v. 6: Blood and Circuits, I do dig her clean pencils, and she’s excellent at drawing fight scenes. Sometimes her faces are a little too similar; without costumes, for instance, it would be difficult to tell who is who in the fight between Scandal Savage and Hawkgirl. Still, she is probably the best of the artists Simone has worked with.

Dead of Winter delivers the consistently high quality that readers have come to expect from Simone and her Birds of Prey, and I’m glad I’ve read the entire run. However, it doesn’t transcend that level of quality — it isn’t greater than what came before, and it doesn’t seem like it fully capitalizes on the title’s past. Perhaps I shouldn’t expect it; it isn’t an obligation, but I still mark the book down a little for it. Still, instead of giving the book a big sendoff, Simone gives readers just another volume.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 6: Blood and Circuits

Collects: Birds of Prey #96-103 (2006-7)

Released: August 2007 (DC)

Format: 208 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401213718

What is this?:

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone (with a small assist from Tony Bedard) and pencilers Paulo Siqueira, James Raiz, and Nicola Scott

Despite writer Gail Simone’s tricks and plots, it was hard for me to avoid feeling that the Birds of Prey lacked a great deal of stunning plot developments. Things evolve, change, slightly mutate, but the status quo the book began with issue #56 hadn’t changed through five volumes of trade paperbacks. But building on the momentum from v. 5, Perfect Pitch, Birds of Prey, v. 6: Blood and Circuits changes that impression, and for the better.

It’s an expansion on the team’s concept: one member leaves, so Oracle calls in the services of other female heroes with the idea of eventually choosing one or more to become one of the Birds of Prey. After the new setup is introduced in #100 — odd to have the launching point for a new development in the middle of the book, but I suppose that’s the way the issues fall — the action doesn’t stop. Issues #100-103 are a high point on this series; issue by issue, Simone raises the stakes. It starts as a routine getting-to-know-you mission to a multi-front battle that spirals out of the heroes’ control to a war for the identity of the team and its founder. Throughout, Simone never relinquishes her strengths in characterization or dialogue — even bit player Judomaster gets a memorable moment of dialogue. Those four issues, by themselves, are more than enough reason to read this book, especially since they make a great jumping on place.

The first four issues — well, three and a half — are dedicated to tying up loose ends, or at least further developing past adversaries. In #96-7, the team tries to talk some sense into Black Alice, a teenager who can steal the magical abilities of other characters, just as the Secret Society makes a pitch to her. Simone introduced Black Alice in v. 4: The Battle Within as largely a one-off villain without any indication that she is important to the DC Universe at large. Here, though, we’re told she is immensely powerful, and Felix Faust tells the reader this every time he’s on the page. This is a technique that will grate on some readers — Faust’s “We’re attempting to bring a supernova to heel” could come off as Simone giving Black Alice some cheap heat — but Simone mostly gets away with it. Yes, Black Alice is powerful, but she’s also a teenager who is confused about what she wants, mitigating her power. It’s a setup that’s been seen before, and Simone’s heroes and villains, especially Faust and Talia al-Ghul, make it a pleasant reuse of the idea.

In #98-9, Huntress and Black Canary have to deal with Yasemin, a Turkish gunrunner the team put behind bars in v. 5. Obviously, she’s out for revenge, which doesn’t go so well for her. Other than humiliating some mob thugs, she’s a mainly distraction while the team figures out who the redhead impersonating Batgirl is. Although the new Batgirl, who quickly gets renamed Misfit, is charmingly wacky, she doesn’t really fit into the stories in which she’s inserted, and her power levels seem a bit too high, especially when she reveals she knows all the secret IDs of the Birds.

My only real complaint about the writing is part of #100, in which Tony Bedard and Simone recap Black Canary’s career and life. It’s … serviceable, but it’s an odd choice for a sendoff for the character. It’s an introduction to the character, and as an introduction, it feels clunky — Black Canary narrates her life to her new ward, Sin, and tries to justify her decision to leave the team. The story feels like something put into #100 to make it larger for an anniversary issue; like most stories meant to pad out annuals and double-sized issues, it’s missable and largely inconsequential without being offensive.

(I’m also not real fond of the volume’s title. Neither the literal interpretation nor the pun makes much sense for the stories within, and I can’t help but wonder if something about the story got lost somewhere — perhaps between the page and my brain.)

The art is provided by three different pencilers this time around. They’re all pretty good, and their styles are distinct yet similar enough to avoid style clash. Paolo Siqueira draws #96-7 and the backup in #100, James Raiz contributes #98-9, and Nicola Scott draws the rest. I prefer Scott’s work; it has a slightly smoother line, and I prefer Scott’s handling of action scenes. In fact, she’s part of what makes #100-3 so much fun. But Siqueira and Raiz are also good fits for the title, and none of them indulge in excessive cheesecake. Siqueira also seems to enjoy working with Black Alice, who gives him the chance to draw a character with many different looks, and the Secret Society.

I’ve been reading Birds of Prey because of its consistent quality; even when the art or the plots weren’t to my liking, Simone’s characters and dialogue kept me coming back. For the first time, I really feel excited about this title and really can’t wait for the next (and Simone’s last) volume, Birds of Prey, v. 7: Dead of Winter.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 5: Perfect Pitch

Collects: Birds of Prey #86-90, 92-5 (2005-6)

Released: February 2007 (DC)

Format: 224 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401211912

What is this?: The Birds of Prey set up shop in Superman’s hometown, but the roster of the all-female team keeps shifting.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and penciler Paulo Siqueira (with others)

Birds of Prey, v. 5: Perfect Pitch is a big step up over the previous volumes. And not just because it’s the first volume to feature no art by Ed Benes.

No, in this volume, writer Gail Simone has two stories to tell, and she doesn’t let fill-in issues or a line-wide “one year later” mandate get in the way. Perfect Pitch is filled with fun, action-filled stories without skimping on characterization, witty banter, or victories for each character.

There are two main storylines in Perfect Pitch. In the first, which lasts from #87-90, Oracle and the Birds of Prey follow through with Huntress’s plan to infiltrate and neuter the Gotham mobs while Calculator tries to discover Oracle’s identity. In the second, lasting from #92-5, the Birds of Prey — now counting Lady Shiva as a member — tries to keep Matthew Thorne, the Crime Doctor, and his daughter safe as he tries to defect to the side of angels.

The first arc sets up the Calculator as a nemesis for Oracle. This is fitting; they fulfill the same roles, although Oracle gives information and computer hacking to the heroes (primarily Bat-Family) and Calculator, for a fee, to the villains. I appreciate Simone keeping the heroes occupied with a previous plot involving the Gotham mobs while Calculator is making his move; it gives Calculator some credit, being able to put his pieces in place without the heroes knowing what’s coming. Of course, his pieces aren’t as good as Oracle’s, but that’s to be expected. Oracle’s new, sunnier disposition and Black Canary’s banter with Green Arrow are a pleasure, and Oracle letting her father know about her work is a good decision for the character.

Two big guest stars loom over this arc: Batman and Deathstroke. Batman is used well, glowering disapprovingly at Oracle and Huntress and generally acting like a holier-than-thou jackhole. Which is fine, as Batman, even at his most heroic, can sometimes come off that way. On the other hand, Deathstroke seems weakened by disinterest, delaying and talking when he could have had his opponents at his mercy. He never really seems interested in fighting, as if fighting or the opponents are not worth his time. His entire appearance, after a menacing opening sniper shot he doesn’t ending up taking, consists of him telling his adversaries to give up, with occasional punches used as punctuation.

The second arc makes good use of DC’s post Infinite Crisis “one year later” gimmick to have Black Canary and assassin Lady Shiva switch places — Lady Shiva becomes a member of the Birds of Prey, while Canary undergoes the training that made Sandra Wu-San into the deadliest assassin in the world. Shiva as the “Jade Canary” is amusing and vicious. She refuses to take the mental illness of the Ventriloquist seriously and has an unreasonable antipathy toward dolls; she attacks villains without pity or regard for their long-term well-being — or their competence level, really.

Black Canary’s training is less successful as a sequence; it is necessarily truncated, as it’s shown in occurring in the same time span as the rush to save the Crime Doctor. In the end, there are only three sequences in the training regimen, so it is difficult to show much development or how hard the long-term conditioning would be. The final sequence, with Canary battling a warlord’s entire army, is intellectually an impressive feat, but it’s hard to judge how much her training aided her victory.

The plan to help the Crime Doctor defect in return for his library of villain’s medical files works as a vehicle for Shiva’s tenure with the Birds, although since his information is so important, I’m not sure why the organized villains don’t send more muscle to stop him. Granted, Prometheus is impressive, so it’s easy to argue the villains would consider him more than enough to take care of things. The story has a powerful ending, full of compromise and sacrifice; the exchange of students between Canary and Shiva illustrates evil can’t be averted, just diverted.

(One thing I couldn’t figure out: Why did it take a couple of issues before Simone identified who Gypsy was? She appears, the Birds accept her without identifying her, and then her name is given two issues later. It just seems a basic piece of information to reveal. A simple “You’ll be working with Gypsy” or “Hi, Gypsy!” or “Gypsy?” would have sufficed. It wasn’t a secret reveal, since there was no fanfare over the revelation. Is there something about Gypsy and secrecy I don’t understand?)

Usually, I would complain about a missing issue in the middle of a trade paperback, but the issue in question, #91, was a fill-in issue written by Jim Alexander and penciled by Brad Walker. I have nothing against these two creators — or for them, either — but a fill-in in the middle of Simone’s 50 or so issue run just before a big editorial gimmick is probably going to be as missable as an issue can be. So DC probably made the right choice here to omit #91.

As I mentioned, this is the first Birds of Prey without Benes, and I couldn’t be happier. Paulo Siquiero provides the bulk of the pencils; his work is good, more than slightly reminiscent of Terry Dodson in line and style. Appropriate, considering Dodson provides the cover for the volume. On the other hand, someone should really get him a picture of what a shotgun is, as the gun he draws as the punchline of the joke on the right is more of a machine gun. Joe Bennett, who has worked on previous volumes, does part of two issues and turns in decent work, and although it’s a little too much like Benes’s work for me, it does avoid most of Benes’s cheesecake tendencies. Among the other artists, Bruce Timm provides the art for one of two stories in #86, an amusing tale well suited for his art.

This is, I think, my favorite volume of Simone’s Birds of Prey. It’s got unexpected twists, snappy dialogue, and plenty of action, and even though it might not appeal to those who aren’t into Birds of Prey (at least until they read the first four volumes of Simone’s run), it’s worth catching up for. (And yes, I know I’m quite a bit behind.)

Rating: (4 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 4: The Battle Within

Collects: Birds of Prey #76-85 (2005)

Released: October 2006 (DC)

Format: 240 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401210960

What is this?: The Birds go after violent femme vigilantes, and then everyone tries to stop the Singapore-to-Gotham drug pipeline.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone

I have been meaning to write about Birds of Prey, v. 4: The Battle Within for a couple of months now, but something always gets in the way: a Snowpocalypse, a Human Target, something. And now, here I am, getting to write about it, and I can’t quite remember what I was going to say in the first place.

I remember being slightly disappointed by Battle when I first read it. Looking over it now, I can’t quite see why. Battle is a heck of a value: ten issues for $17.99. (I tend to say this with the DC books I review but rarely the Marvel books.) It really feels like you’re getting two books in one with this one — and I mean that literally: #76-80 makes up one book, and #81-5 is a completely different storyline. Although it gives the reader more for the dollar, it does take away from a dramatic departure at the end of the first storyline. (On the other hand, that character stays in the book, if not always with the team, so the departure isn’t that big of a cliffhanger.)

The plot seems a little thin in places. The first half of the book follows the Birds as they hunt down female vigilantes; as Oracle later notes, they get a win, a draw, and a loss, and I don’t know that that speaks all that well of the team. Although there are some chances to work some obvious parallels in those five issues, I feel those opportunities were missed. The second half involves stopping a Singaporean drug supplier and an attempt to infiltrate the Gotham mob. The stateside story works fine, but the Singapore side seems too steeped in “honor” stereotypes for me to get into. And I still don’t buy Oracle’s cyberinterface or its complications, which are resolved way too easily here.

Writer Gail Simone keeps the team humming along. The dialogue is excellent, especially when Simone stays away from the sappy moments. Zinda (Lady Blackhawk), who was introduced last volume, shows why she’s part of the team; Simone never forgets that Zinda is both from a different time and very good at what she does, and she manages to get those characteristics across to readers without banging them over the head with it. (I think Zinda is my favorite Bird now.) Simone keeps track of her loose ends and keeps the reader feeling like it’s the characters, not the team or the book’s gimmick, that matters. Simone also uses the DC Universe to her advantage, bringing in characters that advance the storyline without letting those characters overwhelm her story.

The good news: this is the end of Ed Benes’s run on the title. If you’ve read my previous reviews of Birds of Prey, you might remember my complaints about his cheesecake art. Nothing changes about that here: he’s a good artist who lets his predilection for certain parts of pretty ladies show through too much.

His job is taken over by Joe Bennett, who draws five of the remaining eight issues in Battle. He draws action scenes pretty well, which is good, because he gets to draw a lot of them in Battle. I never warmed to his style, however; his women lack well-defined noses, have slack, open mouths, and generally don’t have much expression on their faces. They look a little like blow-up dolls, to be frank. I really like the art from Joe Prado, who draws a slightly scratchy #76, featuring the Birds vs. a Goth teenage Wicca with real power, and Tom Derenick, who draws #77-8 in a style more than slightly reminiscent of Sal Buscema, whom I never get tired of.

I suppose that feeling of disappointment I remember comes from being slightly underwhelmed by the story. Simone’s characters and dialogue once again meet my high expectations, but I miss the feeling of a deeper plot. Huntress’s storyline is a move in the right direction, and it might be even better in the next volume, but it isn’t quite there yet. I suppose I also didn’t care for the heaviest artistic workloads being given to my least favorite of the four pencilers.

Although, if I had paid for Battle rather than checking it out of the library, I suppose getting so much story for so little might have mitigated those feelings.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Wonder Woman: The Ends of the Earth

Collects: Wonder Woman #20-5 (2008)

Released: March 2009 (DC)

Format: 144 pages / color / $24.99 (hardcover) / ISBN: 9781401221362

What is this?: A man with no soul sends Wonder Woman on a quest against a great evil, along with Beowulf.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and pencilers Aaron Lopresti and Bernard Chang

And to end Gail Simone Week, we have Wonder Woman: The Ends of the Earth. This is Simone’s second volume as writer of Wonder Woman (although again, it’s not like DC will tell anyone, omitting volume numbers).

Issues #20-3 make up the eponymous story, in which a nameless man with no soul forces Wonder Woman to gather Beowulf and a barbarian to fight the demon who has taken his soul. It’s a straightforward story, although Simone manages to get a few twists in. However, the major drama in “Ends of the Earth” seems to be whether Wonder Woman will lose touch with mercy and / or kill someone. Although that is threatened, it’s something that doesn’t seem very likely … Wonder Woman’s death seems more likely, since you can come back from death but not from being a murderer.

On the other hand, Wonder Woman has murdered a man, and the demon torments her with the knowledge. Wonder Woman did it for a greater good, but … the mercy / murder dichotomy seems to be part of Simone’s grand unifying plan for Wonder Woman, the idea that assimilates (or tosses aside) all the piecemeal characterizations Wonder Woman has had and finally gives her a proper concept. It doesn’t quite work here, I think; the opponent feels generic, and the threat doesn’t have enough dramatic heft to make Simone’s concept stand out.

The final two issues have two stories: Nemesis meeting with Wonder Woman’s mother, Hippolyta, for half an issue, and the rest with Wonder Woman on the set of the Wonder Woman movie, which has been hijacked by a villainess. Both of these B stories are better than the main tale. Hippolyta and Wonder Woman put the bewildered Nemesis through hell, tormenting him both as a test and because they can, and it is, at times, hilarious, although it is over the top. The Wonder Woman movie is amusing as it goes through all the bad ideas that have been thrown at the Wonder Woman character over the years and forces the character to face them. She is rightly embarrassed and wishes they would go away. The villainess is forgettable, but Diana’s superintelligent ape advisors amuse me greatly. I’m not sure I’d want their help on contract negotiations, as they’re too distracted by offers of fresh fruit, but I’m sure they’d be a benefit if discussions got too sticky.

The Ends of the Earth features a couple of strong artists. As I mentioned in my review of Wonder Woman: The Circle, I like the work of penciler Bernard Chang, who drew the final two issues. His Wonder Woman stands out as a warrior and not a pinup. Aaron Lopresti penciled “Ends of the Earth” and did a very good job, although his work is a little too generic — or perhaps Dodson-like — to truly stand out. Still, I have no quibbles about the art itself.

This one’s out only in hardback, which I’m a little disappointed in; the paperback is due out next March, according to Amazon. (Obviously, solicitations aren’t announced that far ahead of time.) DC often waits a year before putting out paperback version of hardbacks. I don’t like that, but it’s their company. On the other hand, this is my review, and I can’t recommend buying this in hardback. If you’re a Wonder Woman or Simone fan, by all means, get the paperback — but $25 is too much for this.

Rating: (2 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 3: Between Dark & Dawn

Collects: Birds of Prey #69-75 (2004)

Released: February 2006 (DC)

Format: 176 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401209407

What is this?: Huntress infiltrates a cult while Oracle battles the enemy within; then, the Birds clear up loose ends before leaving Gotham.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and pencilers Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eduardo Barretto, and Eric Battle

Gail Simone Week begins with Birds of Prey, v. 3: Between Dark & Dawn, the third volume (even if DC is loathe to admit it) of the Gail Simone-written run on the title.

I’ve reviewed the first and second volumes of the series, but this is the first one that has disappointed me. The main plot, which takes place in issues #69-73, has Huntress investigating a cult that revolves around superheroes and Oracle dealing with what appears to be a cybervirus. (There’s also an amusing sideplot about Oracle giving Savant a job to prove himself worthy, but that one pays off in #74.)

Neither of the plots worked. Despite having fun dialogue and the characters readers have come to enjoy, this was too by-the-numbers. First, showing a character interfacing between “cyberspace” and the real world is always a dicey proposition, and even though the explanation for Oracle’s infection makes sense, it still doesn’t feel right. It starts out interesting — Oracle seeing patterns in an unplugged screen is suitably creepy — but the more it becomes concrete, the less interesting it is, the less possible madness is for an explanation and the more it becomes a standard fight that Oracle shouldn’t win. She does win, of course, through the most hackneyed way possible: beating the logical machine with emotion.

I have only one word for the hybrid of Oracle and the infection: no. Silver skin with thick electrical cables for dreadlocks does not work as a look.

I also have my troubles with Huntress and the cult. Simone has fun with Huntress, making her sharp witted and sharp tongued. But I’m not quite sure Simone pulls off the idea of a cult leader with mind control (unoriginal) and faith in superheroes. That the mind control works only on those with faith doesn’t help; instead, it only muddies matters, throwing another element into a story that might have needed something different to help it along but didn’t need what feels like tacked-on mutterings about belief.

The final two issues are excellent and raise the book out of the doldrums. Issue #74 has a few different elements, but most of them are amusing, and even though it’s an overall mishmash, it is wrapping up some dangling plots. Issue #75 blows up Oracle’s base with no warning of plot development — it’s a fait accompli when the issue begins, so I don’t feel bad about spoiling it — but it takes off from there, with the Birds of Prey running one last mission before leaving Gotham. The issue also introduces Lady Blackhawk to the Birds with a bittersweet story of a timelost character — it’s not a new idea, but on the other hand, her gender and feelings of discrimination make her a unique fit for Birds.

If you’ve read my reviews of the other Simone Birds, you know my feelings about Ed Benes’s art: overemphasis on cheesecake, but other than that, a good artist. I particularly like his work on the Lady Blackhawk story (if that’s who it was; DC doesn’t provide credits on individual issues). On the other hand, dreadlock cyberOracle was his fault, and he makes Black Canary wear a flyaway frilled blouse to the hospital; it’s aggressively ugly. Some artist also thinks bait for fishing looks like hotdogs, but I believe that’s Ron Adrian who drew #69. Adrian does an admirable job of fitting in with Benes’s work. Adrian and Eric Battle pencil #73, and Jim Fern contributes #74; I imagine Eduardo Barretto does #75, but I have no proof. None of these artists really stand out, except for Adrian.

Although this is below average for Simone, I think this is just a bump in the Birds of Prey road. I’ll keep reading along — and I’m excited, because in only two more volumes, there will be a new artist.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 2: Sensei & Student

Collects: Birds of Prey #62-8 (2004)

Released: January 2005 (DC)

Format: 168 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401204341

What is this?: Black Canary and Lady Shiva meet for the death of their sensei and are entangled in Cheshire’s poisonous plots; Oracle is menaced by a talented hacker.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and pencilers Ed Benes, Cliff Richards, Michael Golden, and Joe Bennett

When it comes to Birds of Prey, v. 2: Sensei & Student, there is a strong temptation to say, “Second verse, same as the first, good job,” and call it a day. Very strong temptation — hmm, I wonder when happy hour begins down at that tiki bar down near the public beach …

No! No, I have to do a better job than that. This isn’t a retread of the first volume, Of Like Minds. Writer Gail Simone didn’t slack off, and I shouldn’t either. There are new antagonists, a new interaction for Black Canary, and thrilling new hacking action! OK, that last part isn’t true: the hacking is decidedly not thrilling.

The most interesting part of Sensei is Black Canary’s story. She heads to Hong Kong to see her dying sensei; while there, she meets the assassin Lady Shiva, who is also there to pay her respects. When the sensei is murdered before he can die, they team up to find the culprit; the trail leads to assassin / poisoner Cheshire, who insists she’s being set up.

The interaction between the three is great; a grudging respect between Canary and Shiva is turned into a genuine partnership when the truly evil Cheshire is thrown into the mix. The dialogue and characterization of the three is great, even if Cheshire shies away from some of her evil (mutilating Shiva) for no defined reason. Simone does her best work in this part of the story; every time Shiva is on the page, the story seems more lively, more interesting, and more dangerous, and some of that rubs off on Black Canary.

Unfortunately, Oracle’s subplot, in which she is menaced by a hacker whose abilities seem to outstrip hers, seems lacking. Although it’s nice — and it would have been eventually necessary — for Oracle to run into someone better at the keyboards, there’s no effective payoff for that part of the story. Oracle is also abducted by a mysterious government group, forcing her to call on Huntress for rescue; even though those two storylines have a connection, they never feel related, just like Canary’s story doesn’t feel connected with Oracle’s despite common antagonists. That’s worse, in its way, than a swarm of completely unconnected plots.

That has me worried; I’m not quite convinced about Simone’s overall plotting skills. There’s too much coincidence in the story; the plans of Cheshire, the hacker’s employer, and an old serial killer investigated by the original Black Canary come to a head all of once, and the evil is all related by blood. This raises certain nature / nurture questions Simone doesn’t address, despite the presence of a perfect candidate: Huntress, a daughter of the mob. Speaking of Huntress, if a male writer had emphasized her sexual proclivities as Simone does, he would probably be accused of titillating his readers. And while we’re on gender politics, doesn’t Oracle know any male superheroes? All the ones who aid in her escape are female, except Savant; although I appreciate his presence as a tie in to the previous storyline, I’m not sure about his long-term viability as a character.

Ed Benes provides most of the pencils (and some inks) for Sensei, and he shows his usual restraint and taste when drawing the female form. There’s nothing I can say that I didn’t say in the review of Of Like Minds: he’s a good artist who lets the female anatomy dominate his style. I have nothing to say about Joe Bennett (penciler for #68) or Cliff Richards, who pitched in with pencils on the first two issues. For Richards, that’s good, since he’s obviously supposed to blend in with Benes’s work. It’s good for Bennett as well; his style differs from Benes’s more than Richards, but he definitely fits in with the artistic tone of the book: I mean, just look at the crop top he gave Canary in that issue.

I’m torn on Michael Golden’s work on #66; it’s a flashback, in which the bulk of the issue is narrated by Canary’s mother, the original Black Canary. It’s a nice idea to have a different artist for the flashback issue, and Benes’s pencils would have looked odd in the shadowily defined past. But Golden’s work doesn’t say “past” to me either, for the most part; he does better on the more detail-oriented pages — in the hospital, for instance. At one point in the story, though, I had trouble figuring out a murder victim was a woman rather than an Albert Einstein impersonator. Perhaps she was both. I don’t know.

Although the comments in this review are different than the ones for the first Birds of Prey volume, the summary and rating aren’t: I’m looking forward to the next volume, and I’ll be very happy when Benes has moved on. Now, if you will excuse me, I can already hear the steak sizzling, and the beach is calling …

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Wonder Woman: The Circle

Collects: Wonder Woman v. 3 #14-9 (2008)

Released: August 2008 (DC)

Format: 160 pages / color / $24.99 / ISBN: 9781401219321

What is this?: A reinvisioning of just what it means to be Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess in Man’s World

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and pencilers Terry Dodson and Bernard Chang (with some help)

Many comic fans much more prominent than I have wondered what is compelling about Wonder Woman. Does she have a claim to prominence other than being an editorially mandated peer of Batman and Superman? What is Wonder Woman, other than a female superhero — what’s her schtick?

Is she a warrior? A soldier? A diplomat? Martial artist Diana Prince? A superspy? The ambassador to Man’s World?²⁸ A goddess? She’s been all this and more, really, although she’s never really staked a solid, long-term claim to anything other than a warrior, and warriors in superhero comics are a drachma a dozen.

In Wonder Woman: The Circle, writer Gail Simone goes for the best of all of these things. As helpfully pointed out by writer Mercedes Lackey in her introduction to the volume, Simone has made Wonder Woman into the “Supreme Warrior,” who wants to end conflict — a diplomat, a warrior, a tactician, with compassion and strength. With a bit of the goddess thrown in.

That’s a heck of a standard to live up to, and to be honest, it doesn’t resemble the character I’d read about in Jodi Picoult’s Wonder Woman, v. 2: Love and War. But I have to admit, for the most part, Simone’s Wonder Woman does live up to the billing.

The Circle has two stories: one in which Wonder Woman deals with Nazi invaders and native fanatics in Themiscyra, and the other in which she is brought to a world of aliens, whose prior invasion of Earth she had thwarted, to end a war they are losing badly. The first, the eponymous “The Circle,” is the big one, in which Simone sets up her status quo and tells the reader who her Wonder Woman is going to be. And she pulls out all the stops to make us like her: there’s a couple of fights with intelligent gorillas from Gorilla City, a lot of punching of Nazis. Superpowered Nazis, even. And I’m impressed with how well the mostly-new, a-good-deal-different Wonder Woman works. She converts enemies into allies. She shows a decent handle on diplomacy, although some of it seems to be at the cost of long-term consequences. She tries to use tactics, although again I doubt some of her wisdom. And the reappearance of Lt. Col. Candy comes out of nowhere, but at least she’s a long-standing Wonder Woman character. The point is, Simone tries to pull off her Supreme Warrior Woman, and it mainly works.

I didn’t think the subplot worked, though. In it, Wonder Woman’s mother, Hippolyta, appoints four Amazons as her personal guards before Wonder Woman was born; when they see their queen pregnant, they think the child’s birth will tear the island apart, so they try to murder poor infant Diana. And fail. And when the island is invaded, many years later, they get free and try to kill the adult Wonder Woman. But the four Amazons have the feel of characters ret-conned in for a specific story — even if they weren’t, they have that aura — a story I felt went nowhere. Also, I remained unconvinced as to why those four felt so sure their queen having a baby would be such a catastrophe. Perhaps I underestimate the emotional power of an island full of childless women (who will likely remain childless), but the betrayal felt arbitrary. Simone may be setting them up for a longer-term plot, but that doesn’t make me optimistic.

The second story, “Expatriate,” is much more to my liking. Wonder Woman begins her formal and funny courtship of Nemesis, and an alien race she had trounced before calls her for help. And then a Green Lantern gets involved, and the questions of justice and genocide are put into play, and it really does seem deeper, in two issues, than four issues of punching Nazis and rogue Amazons do in four. The situation Wonder Woman finds herself in makes diplomacy a better option than in “The Circle,” although Diana’s solution should come back and bite someone on the ass, even if it doesn’t.

The art on “The Circle” is furnished by Terry Dodson on pencils and Rachel Dodson on inks. If you’ve seen the Dodsons’ work before, “The Circle” looks exactly like that, down to the identical noseline on every female character. It’s very pretty, and I have no real complaints, other than Wonder Woman usually seeming more like a model than a Supreme Warrior. Ron Randall fills in for half of one issue and most of another and does a good job — the same sort of pretty, smooth line but without aping Dodson’s style. However, I prefer the work of Bernard Chang on “Expatriate.” His Wonder Woman looks stronger, more human, and slightly different — definitely not standard Western European supermodel that most artists provide. His aliens are a little too human in their trappings, I think, but at least his females look different.

The Circle is the best Wonder Woman story I’ve read — not a major competition, really, but still an accomplishment. I have some misgivings about the plot, but I enjoyed the audacity of the character, the depth given to someone who was previously “the female one.” But this doesn’t feel like the same character I’ve read about before, and I have a hard time expressing how uncomfortable that makes me feel. Is this the real Wonder Woman? I have a hard time saying anything but “Yes.” If that’s true, then who was that other woman I read about? For some reason — unlike, say, Batman — I have a hard time considering multiple takes on Wonder Woman. (I have the same problem with Superman.) Given the mediocre / forgettable Wonder Woman stories I’ve read in the past, I’d almost rather Simone have created a new character; but given that Wonder Woman has cachet and a need for a definitive characterization (other than bondage model), then this will do well.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 1: Of Like Minds

Collects: Birds of Prey #56-61 (2003-4)

Released: February 2004 (DC)

Format: 138 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401201920

What is this?: Oracle and Black Canary battle a rival information broker and decide about what to do with Huntress.

The culprits: Writer Gail Simone and penciler Ed Benes

In Birds of Prey, Vol. 1: Of Like Minds, writer Gail Simone takes over the reins of a mid-list Batman Universe title and makes it into something to talk about, whether or not the person talking had ever read Birds of Prey.

Is Simone experienced enough? Will having a woman write a book featuring women as its leads help the book? Will she start writing it as womyn? Will it hurt sales? Will it help sales? Frankly, these questions are unimportant to me. All I care about are the stories the book tells. I liked the earlier v. 1 of Birds of Prey, but it’s not like I had some sort of attachment to the title or creative team, so I have a relative open mind on where Simone takes the title.

So we have Simone, who seems to be living the kind of life story every comics fan would like to experience. Gaining attention with Women in Refrigerators, Simone moved on to a humor column, You’ll All Be Sorry. From there, it was a clear path to full-time comic book writing, fame, money, and respect.

Well, not really. But it makes a shorter story that way, and my attention span isn’t … hey, isn’t Lost on tonight?

Simone makes some changes to Birds right away. She introduces humor into the story, although the good lines are unobtrusive and rarely require sacrificing plot or characterization. She also brings Huntress into Oracle and Black Canary’s group, and she introduces a new villain — Oracle’s opposite number, Savant, who uses his data hacking abilities for blackmail instead of justice. As is common for a new writer on a title, they seem to have a special fondness for their new characters. Savant is fun, in a savage way, although that might just be me — I like humor based on cruelty. Huntress is similar in some ways, her best lines playing off her greater willingness to inflict pain than the other heroes. The characters play well off each other; Simone’s facility with their interactions would be a credit to much more experienced writers.

It’s not all smiles and sunshine, though. I’m not sure what to make of Savant’s mental disability, in which he has a non-linear memory. Savant seems a little overpowered, which happens with new villains. The pacing seems a little off; the main story takes up four issues, making the final issues feel tacked on, stalling for time. That might be an artifact of the trade paperback, but, well, that’s what I’m reading. There’s an off-page breakup that smacks of clearing the decks. The moral dilemmas, involving blackmail information and Oracle’s fear for Black Canary’s well being, seemed contrived to me, a new reader.

Like many (most?) comic book artists, Ed Benes likes drawing pretty females, and he’s pretty good at it, although he is the first artist I can think of with a “long abdomen” fetish. (The legs are more out of proportion, but that’s not uncommon.) For some reason, Benes’s cheesecake irritates me, despite it not being an uncommon flaw. He revels in the cheesecake, and he makes no apology for it, not even when he gives us crotch or butt shots. Benes isn’t the one who gave Huntress that horrible new ludicrous bare-midriff costume — that was Jim Lee in Hush — but I don’t approve of its continuation. There are more than a few moments of physical comedy he seems to overplay as well, and I’m not sure he’s the right artist for Simone’s writing, which seems to require someone with greater delicacy of facial expressions.

I have a feeling Simone is going to improve as the title goes on (all right, I’m partially basing that on what I’ve heard from others). I’m excited to read the next volume, even more excited than I would have been to read the next Chuck Dixon volume of Birds, if there had been another. I’ll be even more excited for v. 4 of the Simone experience, when Benes leaves the title.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)