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)

Jinx

Collects: Jinx v. 1 #1-7, Jinx v. 2 #1-5, various one shots and specials (1996-8)

Released: February 2001 (Image)

Format: 480 pages / black and white / $24.95 / ISBN: 9781582401799

Once there was a time when the millennium was new and shining, when all foreign and domestic policies didn’t begin with “9” and end in “/11,” when Brian Michael Bendis didn’t dictate the direction of all Marvel’s titles. During that time, Bendis wrote and drew Jinx

Jinx is the story of the eponymous female bounty hunter, who runs into a pair of small-time con men named Goldfish (who Bendis also featured in Goldfish) and Columbia. Goldfish and Columbia themselves have stumbled into The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: while Columbia is savagely beating Goldfish for abandoning their life of crime and for being better than him, a severely injured criminal crashes his car nearby, then gives half the location of a $3 million to each before conveniently dying.

Hey, it happens.

Coumbia is paranoid after Goldfish hooks up with Jinx in a wholly unconvincing romance made up of violence, vocalized pauses, and sex. Their attempts to get the Confederate gold — no, wait, stolen cash — drives the “realistic dialogue” and flashbacks … er, plot.

Bendis’s art is surprisingly good for someone who’s never had much cause to use it with the Big Two. Not that I particularly enjoy looking at it; 50 percent of the art is filled with shadow, and 40 percent is word balloons. This makes it frequently difficult to tell what’s going on. It is interesting artwork, though. Bendis admits to using models, including himself (as Columbia). It’s a valid approach, and for the most part, Bendis avoids making his subjects look stiff or posed. However, when he adds photorealistic elements — what looks like photocopied $20 bills atop his art, for instance — it’s offputting, because it looks like badly photocopied $20 bills atop comic art.

Readers’ enjoyment of Jinx is largely going to depend on their evaluation of Bendis’s dialogue. If you find starts and stops, vocalized pauses, and occasional explosive profanities realistic and engrossing, you’ll love Jinx. It is Bendis’s trademark, and it sounds like no one else. This is earlier Bendis, without much restraint or refinement, though; if you don’t really appreciate Bendis’s style, you’ll likely find the dialogue tedious and the story padded. Myself, I don’t think it would have been so bad if Bendis had hired a copy editor; missing and misplaced punctuation and misspellings changed the tedious to aggravating.

Despite the killer hook — female bounty hunter — the story fails to grab. Jinx is too abrasive to be compelling. The romance doesn’t sizzle; rather, it lies there and slowly rises to room temperature. The plot, as I said, is derivative. And f*&k Bendis for taking Lauren Bacall’s name in vain.

As a side note, David Mack’s introduction is one of the worst pieces of text I’ve ever read.

Rating: (1 of 5)