Birds od Prey #5

Title: Birds of Prey
Issue: 5
Date: March 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Jesus Saiz, Javier Pina
Colorist: June Chung
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Editor: Bobbie Chase, Katie Kubert
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend

The team finds themselves under attack, but even worse, they are all missing several hour of memories.

Left to figure out what happened in the missing time, they go their separate ways with plans to regroup after doing their own investigations. But can they trust those around them or even each other if they can't even trust their own memories?

The opening fight scene didn't seem to serve any purpose, but in a subjective reality scenario like this, it may just be that the significance has not yet been revealed. The same goes for pretty much everything in this issue.

In spite of the fuzzy reality of the scenario, this issue left a pretty decent amount of space for character development, and there were some good scenes. I particularly liked the training scene between Dinah and Tatsu.

By the end, we're not too far along from where we started, but I didn't mind the chance to let the characters have some individual and one-on-one interactions.

Rating: 7/10

Birds of Prey #4

Title: Birds of Prey
Issue: 4
Date: February 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Jesus Saiz
Colorist: June Chung
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Editor: Bobbie Chase, Katie Kubert
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Sonia Oback

Great opening as Canary tries to sacrifice herself to save innocent lives, and Sparrow comes up with an alternative plan in an awesome splash page shot. We jump forward and then flash back and get the conclusion of last issue's train battle in fast-paced recap form narrated by Sparrow, which includes just the right touch of humor.

I think I'm starting to "get" Sparrow. She's definitely the most entertaining character in this issue.

From there, Batgirl gets added to the team makes a guest appearance. Okay, that was a bit of a bait-and-switch, and there really isn't much explanation given for Barbara's arrival at this juncture except for the need for "extra muscle". This just seems like an excuse to put her on the cover.

Also, they decide to split up the party. That NEVER works! (Actually, they get away with it here; it's just an excuse to show the team members crawling around in ventilation shafts and such).

Weirdly, the bad guys' lair uses the exact same gimmick that the Court of Owls uses over in Batman: hidden spaces between the floors of buildings secretly built into the original design. It was so similar that I kept waiting to see if it's an actual crossover. If it isn't, then it's a pretty blatant failure at the brand editing level to be running essentially the same idea in two unrelated books (especially since this particular detail was pretty crucial to the plot in Batman). If this does turn out to be a crossover with Batman, then I'm all for it.

The infiltration appears to lead to a dead end at first, but of course things are not as they seem, and the ending cliffhanger is actually pretty clever.

This was the best issue so far in this series, in spite of some (hopefully; we'll see) minor flaws.

Rating: 7.5/10

Birds of Prey #3

Last bonus review for tonight.

Title: Birds of Prey
Issue: 3
Date: January 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Jesus Saiz
Colorist: June Chung
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Editor: Janelle Asselin, Bobbie Chase, Katie Kubert
Cover: Jesus Saiz, Nei Ruffino

Canary has invited Poison Ivy to join the team. That goes over about as well as could be expected, complete with all manner of pot-calling-kettle-black as trained assassins Starling and Katana suddenly get uptight because Ivy is "a terrorist and a killer". Which she has the audacity to just flat out deny! The inevitable fight-the-make-up follows, and in all of the grudging acceptance of Ivy by the rest of the team that follows, we don't get a single clue as to why Ivy would actually want any part of this.

We quickly move on to the clue-gathering portion of this issue's activities, which is made easier by the fact that the bad guys happened to leave a slip of paper with the names of their next two living-bomb assassin/victims in their abandoned hideout. Not exactly Batman-level detective skills needed here.

So the team mounts an "operation" on a train, and it very quickly goes badly as we finally get the rather contrived outcome of some odd moments in the main fight scene back in issue #1. At least there is some continuity here, folks, because not much else in this issue made any sense.

Writer Duane Swierczynski had to jump through some fairly ridiculous hoops to get to it, but the ending cliffhanger is really good. Sparrow continues to be entertaining. Otherwise, though, I had a too hard a time getting through the logical flaws to enjoy this one all that much.

Rating: 5.5/10

Birds of Prey #2

Back to the New 52! Here's another of the issue #2's.

Title: Birds of Prey
Issue: 2
Date: December 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Jesus Saiz
Colorist: Allen Passalaqua
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Editor: Janelle Asselin
Cover: Jesus Saiz, Nei Ruffino

We open with Katana killing a bunch of guys with, well, her katana. She mentions that she's heading for Gotham City.

Meanwhile, Canary and Starling learn what the rest of us have suspected for the last few years: That TSA screening is essentially useless. Kaboom follows. Investigation follows that. Katana joins the team and they are attempting to track down a mystery compound found at the scene of the bombing. Except they call it a mystery "element".

Hey, DC, if you need a chemistry teacher on the writing staff, I'm available. Just sayin.

Things proceed pretty quickly to the brawl portion of the story. Nice looking fight scene, but it's just the girls taking down a bunch of jobbers in stealthsuits. Haven't had your vegetables today? How about this nice helping of squash?

And speaking of vegetables, here's the new surprise addition to the team, which would be shocking except for the fact that she was on the cover of the first issue. Welcome to the side of good, Poison Ivy.

This issue was fun in a relatively harmless way. There isn't much depth to the characters other than Canary. Sparrow is the goofy reckless loose cannon and Katana is the scary psycho who talks to her dead husband's spirit (inhabiting her sword!). The villains are generic. But character devel0pment can happen with time, and the story is providing a fun ride in the meantime.

Rating: 7/10

Birds of Prey #1

As mentioned in my previous post, I'll be at New York Comic Con all day Saturday, so expect some upcoming reviews of book that I pick up there to be mixed in with the remaining books from MICE and the DC New 52 titles. Eventually I'll get back to my backlog! Here's another DC book.

Title: Birds of Prey
Issue: 1
Date: November 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Jesus Saiz
Colorist: Nei Ruffino
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Editor: Janelle Asselin
Cover: Jesus Saiz, Nei Ruffino

The cover features what I assume to be the full team of Black Canary, Sparrow, Katana (huh?) and Poison Ivy (!?!?). This issue is all Canary and Sparrow, although Barbara Gordon makes a guest appearance (to decline an offer of membership) and Katana gets a mention.

The story centers on a reporter who's been tipped off about the identities of the members of the Birds of Prey team. He's on his way to meet with his secret source unaware that 1) Canary and Sparrow are on to him, and 2) His source wants him dead.

And there are ninjas. Who might be clones, and who appear to be equipped with some pretty hardcore biological weaponry in addition to their usual (inadequate) ninja skilz.

Canary is written well. Nothing that's too much of a departure from the way she's been depicted in past versions of Birds of Prey. She's still got the sonic scream (which they refer to as the "canary cry", probably because someone finally informed them that all screams are, by definition, sonic).

I was a bit more dubious about Sparrow. Much of the action takes place in a church and Sparrow is apparently a somewhat lapsed Catholic who's got a good sense of humor about her situation, so she had some funny lines. But beyond that she seemed like a rather generic femme fatale.

The ending provided a bit of an interesting twist, but there just wasn't enough in this issue that felt original or creative. The storytelling was competent, but it lacked the kind of spark that past versions of this title had, the kind of spark that gets the reader caring about the characters.

Rating: 6/10

Countdown 51

From the backlog. This was a 2007 freebie that introduced Countdown, which was the lead-in series for Final Crisis. If only it really had been final.

Title: Countdown
Issue: 51
Date: 2007
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Dini
Penciler: Jesus Saiz
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: Tom Chu
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Jeanine Schaefer, Mike Marts

The Countdown series starts at #51 and counts backwards. Get it? This is the freebie version of the first issue (#51) and boy am I glad I didn't pay money for this.

We get things started with some impaled bodies right off the bat. Once the reader's attention has been gotten, it's revealed that Darkseid is the villain of the moment. He proceeds to use several sentences to say nothing.

But we quickly segue to... Duela (Dent), the Joker's Daughter? REALLY? Okay, awesomeness points for the writers being quite possibly the only people besides me who even remember this character. She attempts to kidnap a pop star and has the attempt thwarted by the Red Hood. She throws a slinky at him. That proves to be about as effective as one might imagine, but they exchange some (un)pleasantries and she makes her escape via the rooftops. I guess that would be called a draw.

Next up is Mary Batson, who has lost her powers. Moving on.

Trickster and Heat Wave are... I wasn't really sure what the point of that scene was. They're either planning to attack the Flash or not. Pied Piper eavesdrops. Still nothing happening. This is becoming a theme.

Back to Duela, who is killed off in short order by a dude in Monitor gear (I think) who is out to wipe out dimensional anomalies. And when he reports back to base, it looks like Ray Palmer may be next on the list.

Wow, this was supposed to get people to want to read a year-long weekly series? Really? Besides the return of Duela, there was nothing in here to care about. And I only care about Duela because I remember the obscure Batgirl story that introduced her ("I'm Duela Dent. I'm Two-Face's daughter. I was always a disappointment to him. I'm just trying to win his approval." "Disappointment? He was hoping for a boy?" "No, he was hoping for twins." :) ).

Oh, and then they killed her.

But hey, keep in mind that back in 2007, this was the lead-in to a HUGE crossover event that would change the DC Universe FOREVER.

Oh, wait.

Rating: 3.5/10