Birds of Prey, v. 8: Club Kids

Collects: Birds of Prey #109-12, 118 (2007-8)

Released: January 2009 (DC)

Format: 128 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401221751

What is this?: The Birds of Prey adapt to a new writer and developments in the DC universe.

The culprits: Writer Tony Bedard and artists Nicola Scott, Jason Orfalas, and David Cole

I had avoided Birds of Prey, v. 8: Club Kids for quite a while, afraid new writer Tony Bedard would turn the title and its characters into a flavorless waste of time. Happily, I found that was not the case.

Club Kids has little overall plot, as Bedard eschews an overarching story for the beginning of his run. Instead, he favors character pieces that deal with developments outside the title. Bedard deals with Black Canary choosing to marry Green Arrow and an assassin attacking the New Gods in #109 and #112. He also uses past continuity to his advantage in two other stories: the aftermath of Oracle destroying her clocktower base in 2004-5’s War Games crossover facilitates a face-to-face confrontation between Calculator and Oracle in #111, and Misfit’s origins are looked at in #118.

None of these stories are award winners. On the other hand, most of them are solid comics in the old-school mold. Huntress foils mad bombers, who turn out to be less “mad” and more naïve. Black Alice and Misfit are put into a superhero gladiatorial ring, a plot straight out of New Mutants. Lady Blackhawk honors a fallen comrade. Oracle and Calculator scrap over data. Simple stories, and all the characters are true to the personalities previous writer Gail Simone gave them. I would not say Bedard is as good with the characters as Simone was — although they easily coexist with Simone’s conceptions, they lack a certain je ne sais quoi. But Simone had several years to mold the characters; Club Kids contains Bedard’s first five issues on the title.

However, letting other titles dictate stories occasionally robs Birds of Prey‘s stories of their impact. All of #109 is dedicated to either reacting to a development outside the title or adding heat to a subplot running through the DCU. Although Oracle arguing with Black Canary over her boyfriend’s fidelity issues is long overdue, the discussion was engendered by Green Arrow’s marriage proposal in another title (Green Arrow). Developing another title’s dangling plots does no favors to Birds of Prey‘s narrative flow, especially since Black Canary wasn’t a character at this point — she left the title in #100. The issue still might have worked, however, if the assassination of the New Gods story hadn’t been shoehorned into the same issue. Bedard tries to give Knockout a fitting last moment, but her part of the story feels rushed. And the death Lady Blackhawk memorializes in #112, that of a prominent supporting character, seemingly comes from nowhere (the Death of the New Gods miniseries); #112 starts with a half page of her memorial service before getting on with the action. Brevity is laudable, but it feels as if the dead character is being cheated of the respect she is due.

(Although not as cheated as Manhunter is; I know she barely appears in Club Kids, but her head shot in the intro / recap section of the book is actually a picture of Scandal Savage, a villain, from #109.)

Why couldn’t Simone have worked with artists like Bedard gets? Nicola Scott draws #109, 110, and 118 and does an excellent job — action-packed, expressive, exceedingly pretty, with a tight line I admire. She even puts Huntress in a more modest costume than the Jim Lee monstrosity (thank God), although Big Barda’s red bikini costume is awful. (I don’t think Scott designed it, but it’s still awful.) Jason Orfalas does a good job on the quieter #111, and David Cole‘s slightly cartoony, looser style is perfect for the free-spirited Lady Blackhawk’s story.

Club Kids is the perfect book for a title that is coming off a big storyline and a change of writers; Bedard uses the characters respectfully, putting them in appropriate situations, and reacts to what DC editorial sends him. But that’s Club Kids’s shortcoming, as well: it’s reactive, and Birds of Prey loses all its momentum from Simone’s run without establishing any clear new direction. Over the long run, that’s death for a title, but for one collection, it can be enjoyable — and in this case, it is.

Rating: (4 of 5)

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)