Birds of Prey #14 (Feb 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #14: "Apokolips Express Part 2" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land and Patrick Zircher, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Black Canary and Catwoman are trapped on Apokolips with the mutated miniature Parademon who brought them there.  The Parademon, Pharzoof, starts recounting his origin and motives for kidnapping the ladies and a U.S. Marshal transport train full of G-list super-villains.  Dinah, however, really doesn't care about Pharzoof's origin and motives.  She hates him and she wants him to boom-tube them back to Earth.

Elsewhere on the planet, Marshal Dina--not to be confused with Dinah--leads her outnumbered and outgunned squadron in a desperate defense against thousands of Parademon warriors.  To balance the scales, she unleashes the train's five prisoners, which includes a clone of Guy Gardner and some other assholes.

The marshals we don't know and the villains we don't care about spend five or six pages fighting Parademons because Chuck Dixon and Greg Land still haven't gotten the hang of depicting character moments in this series.  Meanwhile, Black Canary and Catwoman sneak through the slave-operated diamond mine to find a motherbox.

Leaving Catwoman to her selfish devices, Black Canary and Pharzoof sneak into the armory of Granny Goodness' Female Furies.  It doesn't take long for the little monster to uncover a working motherbox, but before Black Canary can escape, one of the Female Furies attacks.

Back on Earth, Oracle sent Power Girl to the site of the marshals' train disappearance.  Power Girl hears from the agent-in-charge that the radiation readings around the train tracks suggest the train and its occupants were boom-tubed to Apokolips.

As the hordes of Parademons threaten to overwhelm the marshals, Dina leads her men in one final counter-surge with a rousing speech comparing them to other valiant defenders who all died horribly.

Black Canary fights Lashina for a little while.  Then Catwoman returns and jumps the Fury.  She tells Dinah to get away with Pharzoof and the motherbox.

Black Canary miraculously returns to the scene of the marshals' last stand and creates a boom-tube.  Black Canary, Catwoman, the surviving marshals, and the super-villains all escape, leaving Pharzoof back on Apokolips to be dealt with by Parademons and Female Furies.

On Earth, the villains are taken back into custody.  Black Canary reunites with Oracle via audio communication, and Catwoman slips away to burgle another day.

Thus concludes the most underwhelming story involving the Apokolips and the New Gods... until every story involving Apokolips and the New Gods published between the mid-2000s to present day. Once again, Chuck Dixon fails to capture real human character moments or progress the characters in any meaningful way, because Oracle is nothing more than a cameo in this two-parter, and Black Canary takes a backseat to Catwoman, a bunch of federal agents dressed like stormtroopers, and some lame-ass villains that aren't even worthy of the likes of Invisible Destroyer and Signalman.

This is the last issue to feature Greg Land and Drew Geraci for quite a while.  That's good.  It pleases me, and that's all I'll say.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #15.

Birds of Prey #13 (Jan 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #13: "Apokolips Express" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land and Patrick Zircher, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Black Canary boarded a military train full of U.S. Marshals transporting a group of super-villains--and Catwoman who snuck aboard to spring the villains.  But then a mysterious evil-doer who has been manipulating Oracle for some time triggered a Boom Tube sending the train and its occupants across time and space to a distant world.

Dinah and Dina, the head of the marshals, climb out of the wrecked train trying to figure out what happened and where they landed.  Black Canary realizes pretty quickly where they ended up.

Marshal Dina shoots down some of the aircraft coming to investigate the train's sudden arrival and derailment.  The rest of the marshals secure the location and the prisoners on board, all except for Catwoman of course.

The mystery villain in the hat and trench coat makes his presence known and Marshal Dina opens fire and blasts him.  Black Canary freaks out, knowing that whoever that strange-o is he transported them to Apokolips and he can send them back to Earth.  So Black Canary and Catwoman head out looking for the mystery guy.

Back on Earth, Oracle has enlisted the aid of Power Girl to help her find Dinah and the mystery train.

Black Canary and Catwoman watch a flight of parademons soaring overhead toward the marshals' location.  Then the women find the damaged exo-suit of their mystery villain, which means whoever is behind this is actually really small and trying to hide his appearance.

The parademons attack the train, but the marshals are able to fall back and reposition.  Marshal Dina realizes she needs heavier weapons to defend the train and its cargo of villains.

Meanwhile, Catwoman wonders why Canary can't call Oracle for help.

As Black Canary and Catwoman skulk around Apokolips, they find a mining pit operated by slaves.  Catwoman is more interested in what the mine is producing than who is working it; she likes the shiny blood diamonds.

At the train, Dina fires a big honking bazooka weapon that blows away most of the parademons.  For the moment, the marshals have held them off but a prolonged defense will require a lot more power on their side.

Black Canary and Catwoman find the mystery villain crying behind a rock.  He turns out to be an unusually small parademon who wanted to kidnap the super-villains in order to lead a revolt.

At the train, Dina frees the five captives and tells them they all need to work together in order to survive.

Uh... I'll do more analysis when this arc is over, 'kay?

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #14.

Birds of Prey #12 (Dec 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #12: "Hellbound Train" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Dick Giordano, inks by Jordi Ensign, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Greg Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

We open with Black Canary dropping on top of a military train, guarded by U.S. Marshals in high tech armor, transporting a group of meta-human super-criminals.  As soon as Dinah lands on the roof of the train, the Marshals are hip to her presence and hold her at gunpoint.  Black Canary tries to warn them that the train is under threat of a jailbreak and she's there to defend it, but the guards aren't buying her story.  Oracle pleads with Black Canary through her transceiver to go easy on the marshals; they're not bad guys.

Unfortunately, Catwoman doesn't really care who or what they are, and she dives onto the train and knocks out two of the marshals before Black Canary can stop her.

Neither Canary or Catwoman are aware that their train ride is being observed by the mysterious, inhuman-looking stranger who set up Oracle and Black Canary to free Joe Gardner in the previous issues.  But Oracle already suspects a similar sinister presence behind this snafu.

While Black Canary and Catwoman argue about how they should proceed, more Marshals arrive, and open fire on the ladies.  The women drop down between two train cars.

The sonic bomb disrupts the marshals on the train roof while Catwoman gets herself and Canary inside the train's armory.  Catwoman says she was hired by some strange-o with a scary voice to knock out the train's communications network.  That's enough for Oracle to connect this operation with the Koroscovan op that went so terribly.

Then Black Canary shows Catwoman how little she wants to team-up again.

At that moment, a squad of marshals kicks in the door and demands Black Canary's surrender.  At the same time, more than a little conspicuously, Oracle gets a chat message from her online boyfriend, Bumblebeeb.  He still wants to meet her in person and asks her out on a date.  She reveals that she has tried to uncover his real identity and has failed, which means he could be more than just a really good hacker; he could be extremely dangerous to her.

But Bumblebeeb presses on with his flirtations and reveals something else that--if true--could be very interesting for Oracle.

Back in the train, Black Canary has been captured by the marshals who threaten to lock her up with the other super villains they have caught.  She continues to warn them about the pending breakout, but they don't want to listen.  We learn that the train is transporting five meta-humans: Shrapnel, Mammoth, Sudden Death, Spellbinder, and Joe Gardner, the last two of which the Birds of Prey have had some recent encounters with.  The military is shipping the villains to S.T.A.R. Labs so scientists can operate and see if they can cure them.

Black Canary keeps arguing that the marshals are in danger and someone or something is coming to steal these five super-villains.  Inexplicably, the head of the marshals listens to her.  Maybe because her name is Dina and that's sort of like Dinah?  I don't know.  Anyway, Dinah and Dina rush to the front of the train where the engineer tells them all of the reasons why nobody could penetrate or derail the train.

Then the mysterious stranger shows up standing on the tracks and summons a gigantic teleportation tunnel with a massive BOOM!  (Almost a boom-tube, if you will.)  The train passes through the tunnel and vanishes while also generating enough feedback to fry Oracle's entire system.

Oracle scrambles to get a backup computer online, but when she checks, the train and Black Canary have no signal.  They're gone.  So Oracle calls someone else she thinks might be able to help her.

I've said it before: at this point in his career, Dick Giordano's art was inoffensive, but hardly as stylish and great as it was in the '70s and '80s.  Still, I prefer this to Greg Land's artwork nine times out of ten.  The story, too, is better than what Dixon has given us over the last few months.  The train robbery is a nice, classic setup with some interesting twists.

Throwing Catwoman in the mix didn't really seem to add much to this chapter, but hopefully more will come of her inclusion next time around.  Meanwhile, I'm really excited to see what Power Girl brings to the table.  I'm also further intrigued who Oracle's mystery suitor is and whether or not it aligns with my prediction.

Come back in two weeks for a review of Birds of Prey #13.

Birds of Prey #10 (Oct 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #10: "The Wrong Guy" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Last issue began with a splash page of the Iron Brigade, the high-tech-looking elite guard of the nation of Koroscova, pointing weapons at Black Canary.  This was followed by a double page splash of Black Canary standing there letting weapons be pointed at her, this followed by a fourth page of Black Canary taking out the Iron Brigade with as much effort as it takes to put on her costume.

This time we have the exact same formula, except on page two Black Canary is standing with a naked Guy Gardner, recently released from a genetic testing cell, and the mad scientist who put him there.  Also, the fourth page features Guy Gardner trashing the Iron Brigade while Black Canary tries to figure out how her former Justice League International partner got there.

Oracle tells Canary that the man isn't Guy Gardner, but rather "Joe" an alien clone created from Guy's DNA with Guy's memories.  Joe as much as confirms this to Black Canary and explains why he's in a Koroscovan prison instead of, like, a different prison.

Meanwhile, Koroscova is none too thrilled about a satellite super-laser being used against their property.  Koroscovan's government has a frank conversation with the President of the United States, and before long, the U.S. is putting Marines near Koroscova and the whole world is wide awake.

Back at the gulag, Oracle warns Black Canary that Koroscovan fighter jets are en route to bomb the place and kill "Joe".  At the same time, the more the mad scientist Popolynsklinov speaks, the crazier and nastier he sounds.  On a hunch, Oracle calls the humanitarian organization that hired her to rescue Popolynsklinov, but the woman she speaks to says they have no record of him as a political prisoner.  Afterwards, the woman leaves her office and meets a mysterious stranger, confirming that she did her part to set Oracle up.

Oracle now suspects Popolynsklinov wasn't a political dissident as she was led to believe, mostly when he says he volunteered for the chance to experiment on an alien clone and gave it super powers!  She does a little more research and discovers he is a legit mad scientist wanted for war crimes.  And she freed him, whilst violating international boarders and, y'know, laws.

Joe Gardner continues to wreak havoc with his new powers by throwing jeeps around the gulag and blowing crap up.  When Black Canary tells him they need to leave before the MIGs blow them all to hell, he grabs her and the doctor and flies away.

Joe leaves Canary and Popolynsklinov on a mountaintop for safety, but before he leaves he pulls Dinah in close for a big kiss.  Then he flies off toward the jets.

Dinah is so disgusted that Basically-Guy Gardner kissed her she might not even notice the fact that he's punching jets out of the sky and waging a war against Koroscova.  Koroscova, on the other hand, has no doubt taken notice.  As has the rest of the world.  The issue ends with Oracle watching the news as the United States, Koroscova, and any other interested player get ready for war.

As usual with a Dixon/Land comic, this issue took about ninety seconds to read.  There are some interesting developments--I like that Oracle is being manipulated so we know she's not infallible.  I also like how Dixon didn't spend too much time on the overly complicated history of Guy Gardner up to this point.  It's not important, and I wouldn't want to be more confused than necessary.

Greg Land's art isn't as offensive in this issue as in others, but there are still a ton of big panels and splashes that speed up the story without giving the impression of added value.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #11.

Birds of Prey #9 (Sep 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #9: "Girls Rules" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Dixon and Land open this issue with a splash page of some high-tech security guards pointing guns and calling themselves the Iron Brigade.  Then a double-page splash of Black Canary standing nonchalantly in her cool new outfit with guns and laser sights pointed at her.  Now her one-piece jumpsuit covers her legs and she's got a leather jacket again; and because this comic did come out in the '90s, her jacket and jumpsuit has plenty of pouches and padding.

The Iron Brigade soldiers are the defenders of the nation of Koroscova, whose sovereignty Black Canary has violated.  She doesn't seem too concerned about the soldiers, though, because she can rely on her Canary Cry--not the sonic scream she used to have, but a sonic-weapon that looks a lot like a thermal detonator from Return of the Jedi.

Standing amidst the unconscious bodies of the soldiers, Dinah turns her communication devices back on, having spared Oracle's equipment the harsh feedback of her sonic bomb.  Then a Koroscovan gunship targets Dinah and opens fire.  She sprints across the field into the woods, dodging bullets and missiles and trying to convince Oracle that she's not in any real danger.

Black Canary loses the helicopter by diving into the river.  Oracle tells her that's good because the river will take her to her target and they're in a time crunch.  Black Canary continues on foot, thinking about the last target Oracle sent her to rescue (back in issue #8).  She overhears Oracle getting mail from her cyber-boyfriend, the mysterious Bumblebeeb.

Finally, Black Canary arrives at her target destination, a military prison compound.  She feeds Oracle the layout of the place, especially noting the highly combustible parts of the joint so she can line them up for a shot.

A shot from what?  Well, that brings us to the Pentagon and the characters I have never asked to see more of, Major Van Lewton and his aide, Lieutenant Providence.  The lieutenant tells Van Lewton that someone has accessed Whitehorse, a super secret satellite weapons project.  Van Lewton's cyber-security team figure that the satellite has been hacked by the same person who hacked their network, too.  All Van Lewton and the others can do is watch as Whitehorse is taken over.

At that point, the skies over Koroscova are lit up as a supermassive laser from space shoots down and destroys the fuel plant by the prison.

Black Canary tells Oracle to target the power generators, too, and another blast from the satellite destroys the power station.  Canary heads for the prison while Oracle tells her that Jason Bard should get his sight back eventually.  She also tells her that the target is a science whiz of some sort, and, after Dinah beats the crap out of some prison guards, Oracle gives her the target's cell number.  I mean the number of the prison cell, not his phone number.

Back at the Pentagon, Van Lewton's men tell him they have reacquired control over the Whitehorse satellite.  The project was supposed to be a deep, deep secret so he hopes nobody notices.  At the same time, the premier of Koroscova is woken from sleep by aides telling him about the catastrophe at the Brnsko prison.  The premier guesses the target is Linus Popolynsklinov.

Black Canary finds Popolynsklinov and frees him from his cell, but the scientist refuses to leave the prison camp without freeing one more prisoner.  He leads Black Canary to a laboratory where someone has been imprisoned in something that looks like a bacta tank from The Empire Strikes Back.

Oracle asks what is going on?  Who is coming out of the tank?  And Dinah tells her it sure looks a lot like former Green Lantern Guy Gardner.

Dixon and Land turn the action on in this issue which distracts from the thinness of most of their stories.  Land likes to draw big splashy pages and Dixon writes pretty quick scripts, so I guess they work well together.  The first seven pages or so is Black Canary beating up guards and running from explosions and talking to Oracle about stuff we already know.  I don't care about Van Lewton's team in the Pentagon and had hoped he would go away after Blockbuster handed him his ass.  The final reveal is interesting, but I think it's a misdirect.

I had forgotten who Oracle's online beau was, but I'm almost positive it turns out to be Blue Beetle.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #10.

Birds of Prey #8 (Aug 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #8: "On Wings" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

The issue begins with Black Canary trying to contact Oracle only to hear a man's voice pick up the communicator.

Dinah has picked up on the stranger's reference to "Babs", the closest thing to a name she has for Oracle.  She asks the man we know is Nightwing if he's friends with Babs, or "more than friends".  It turns out, the answer to that question isn't so simple.

Nightwing thinks back to the last time he saw Barbara Gordon.  She came to visit him in Bludhaven and they got dinner and a show.  Not a movie, though; this is Dick Grayson.  When he takes someone to a show, he means the circus.  For Dick Grayson, revisiting Haly's Circus brings back all the joyful sights, sounds, and smells of his childhood.  But for Barbara, the circus brings back much darker memories.

Barbara teases Dick as much as she can, but he knows she's having a good time.  Though Dick is the owner of the circus now, he introduces her to Mr. Haly, the manager and one-time surrogate uncle.  Haly tells Dick about the hardships they've had lately and then bids them goodnight.

Barbara asks Dick if it's painful for him to return to the place where his parents were murdered.  He says no; he still thinks of the place as a second home full of good memories.  Dick says he's at peace, maybe because the man who killed his parents met justice, unlike the man who killed Bruce's parents or the Joker who shot Barbara.

Barbara tells Dick that she has dealt with her pain and she's moved on.  She won't dwell in the past and feel victimized like she thinks the "Batguys" want her to.  She has a new life and a new direction; it's different but it fulfills her.  Dick respects her words, but asks what's the one thing she misses most about having full mobility.  She describes swinging from a rope as Batgirl.

Dick can make this particular wish come true.  After the bigtop has been cleared out, he changes into his Nightwing costume and puts her in a leotard.  They swing from the acrobatics bars and he runs her through the routine that The Flying Graysons used to perform.  Then Dick drops away from her, bounces off the trampoline and grabs a ladder.  He climbs up to the next platform leaving her to swing alone.  She has to swing and let go for him to catch her--a flying transfer he's performed hundreds of times.

But she hasn't done this, certainly not since she was paralyzed, and she's scared.  And angry.  But she trusts Dick, and she swings alone and let's go at the right moment.

Alone on the platform after their death-defying tricks, Barbara and Dick kiss... and perhaps more.  When he takes her to her car, he asks if they can see each other again and often.  Barbara says she had a great time but she doesn't want to date him.  Their relationship can never work because of the lives they live.

Dick ends his reminiscence thinking of how much he loves her when Dinah presses him for more details.

So... this was an issue of Birds of Prey in name only.  Really, this was a Nightwing story.  Nightwing narrated it and it was about Dick's feeling for Babs.  Black Canary appears in the first and last pages, but doesn't do much.  Barbara Gordon is a major character in the story, but she's not being Oracle, she's being Dick's ex-girlfriend.

Apparently this is an important issue because of what happens in the Nightwing series after this story.  That should be further evidence that this story was misplaced.  The only thing of significance for Black Canary in this issue is that she realizes her boss is dating Nightwing and Nightwing called her boss "Babs".  Will she be solve the mystery of Oracle's identity on her own?

One other note: the first panel on page 8 where Barbara says circuses are corny and goofy... Greg Land has drawn her face many times since then.  He's a tracer and frequently reuses the same poses and pictures for other stories.  I can't find the exact image, but I know he's used that shape for a woman's face since then.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #9.

Birds of Prey #7 (July 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #7: "The Villain" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Peter Krause, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover, once again, was penciled by Greg Land over a Brian Stelfreeze sketch, who then inked over Land's pencils.

General Garanza of the sovereign nation of Bosqueverde has been captured in Markovia and slated to be executed for war crimes.  Thing is, Markovia wasn't too concerned about Garanza's right to a trial, so Oracle sent Black Canary on a one-woman mission to rescue Garanza and bring him back to his homeland... so they could put him on trial for war crimes.

When we find Black Canary, she's throwing the general in the back of a Stryker infantry assault vehicle and crashing through a Markovian barricade.

Oracle feeds Black Canary directions to her extraction point, but the counterattacks force Dinah and the General to take a different course.  And then, a local driver in a suicide vest forces them out of the IAV.

As Black Canary and Garanza take their escape to the rooftops, her conversation with Oracle fills in the backstory I already summarized above.  We also learn how Dinah feels about this mission: she ain't thrilled.  She thinks Garanza is a Pol Pot-level monster, and if he died unglamorously during their escape, Dinah would call it righteous and sleep just fine.

Then a sniper challenges her resolve by shooting the general from a building across the street.  She pulls Garanza out of the way and says, "One Canary Cry coming up."  Of course, Dinah lost the use of her sonic scream in The Longbow Hunters, so when she refers to the Canary Cry this time, she's talking about a weaponized grenade that fires off damaging sonic pulses.  Just like the device used by Canary in Arrow.

When she gets back to Garanza, she finds that he was wearing a bulletproof vest that saved him from the sniper's round.  Oracle tells Black Canary that her window of escape is closing; the authorities are beefing up security, but the media revealed Garanza's escape and now mercenaries are flocking to the area hoping to kill him.

Black Canary and her charge make it to the subway, but instead of keeping a low profile and staying off the police's radar, they engage in a heated shouting match about the people he killed.  Garanza defends his actions because the Bosqueverdan citizens he executed were violent separatists who themselves would have committed crimes against humanity if he didn't put them down.  Garanza is actually hoping for a trial in his homeland because his people will vindicate him whereas the world media condemned him.

Naturally, a cop engages them, drawing everyone's attention to Garanza.  Some assassins open fire, killing the cop and forcing Black Canary and the general to run.  The gunmen follow them into the subway tunnel, but Black Canary uses the dark to her advantage to takes them out pretty quickly.

Garanza shoots and kills the gunman who got the drop on Dinah, but she doesn't sound grateful, no, sir, she all mad.  She accuses him of murder while he debates the morality of killing an enemy.

They take the argument all the way to the building where Oracle set up their extraction, but when the elevator door opens, a man inside pulls a gun.  Garanza pushes Dinah out of the way and takes three bullets to the chest.  I guess these bullets went around the vest or he took it off, but it definitely looks like they tagged him.  Black Canary takes out the gunman.

After the general dies, Black Canary makes her way out of Markovia using an ultralight aircraft.  Now she's all sad about the guy she hated and wanted dead dying for her.  Oracle tells her it wasn't her fault, but Dinah thinks she let her emotions cloud her judgement and that's why she didn't see the final gunman until it was too late.

The last three issues of this series felt atypical, what with the time-travel and the sea monsters.  This one, however, is like the quintessential Birds of Prey adventure from Dixon.  It's a smaller, simpler version of the one-shots that preceded the ongoing series.  Oracle's position is clearly defined by her intellectual attachment to law and order.  General Garanza, however evil, deserves the same rights as anybody.  Black Canary, on the other hand, comes from a more emotional place.  Her loyalty is to the innocent dead, but she'll do the job out of respect for her boss.

It's not a complex story, which is good, because Dixon doesn't excel at complex stories.  Peter Krause's art is a nice change from Greg Land; Krause might not draw as photorealistic beautiful a Black Canary as Land, but his panel construction and action beats feel more organic.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #8.

Birds of Prey #6 (June 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Deep in Lake Mackachitahoo in Minnesota is a lost soviet satellite leaking neutrinos that play havoc with time and space.  First Black Canary was attacked by a prehistoric amphibious monster, then Cheshire and the Ravens traveled thousands if not millions of years into the past.  Amidst this chaos, the terrorist group known as Kobra has come to the lake to retrieve the satellite and kill Black Canary.  Also, the Pentagon's Counter-Cyberwarfare Division has backtracked the hacker stealing their bandwidth to somewhere in Gotham City.

Birds of Prey #6: "Time's Rainbow" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was penciled by Land over a Brian Stelfreeze sketch, who then inked over Land's pencils.  Figure that out!

For the last couple issues, someone has been spying on Oracle through a network of hidden cameras installed in her apartment.  In this issue, we discover the identity of the voyeur is none other than... Batman!  The Dark Knight tells Alfred that he's been surveilling Oracle to ensure that she is mentally sound enough to handle the enormous responsibility on her shoulder.  He can't afford for someone in her delicate position to have any kind of breakdown.

Just as Batman discontinues the surveillance, telling Alfred, he has no doubts about her faculties, Oracle one-ups him by hacking the Batcomputer and revealing that she's known all along that he's been watching her.  She let him do it for his peace of mind, but she's still hella pissed at the audacity.

Meanwhile, in a stretch of prehistoric land that will someday be Lake Mackachitahoo, the Ravens argue about their dire circumstances.  While Vicious and Pistolera bicker about the when and where they are, their leader, Cheshire, tells them she intends to swim back down to the bottom of the lake and find the wrecked satellite.  She figures that their time travel has to do with the neutrinos around the satellite, so by finding the satellite again, they can ride the effect back to their present.

Speaking of the present time, remember how last issue ended with Black Canary freaking out about something we couldn't see so we had no idea how to feel about her situation?  Well that's finally explained as Dinah tells Oracle that a Kobra submarine is in the Lake, along with a squad of Kobra divers rigging the satellite to the sub for towing.

How cute is it that Kobra divers look just like Aquaman?!!

Anyway, Kobra Prime explains to one of his underlings that the satellite, called Solaris II, was a solar orbiter that the Soviets forgot about decades ago, but that Kobra had been monitoring all along.  The satellite passed through and collected some neutrinos in its revolution around the sun, and then Kobra directed it back to Earth, but accidentally lost it in Minnesota.

As the satellite is being hauled up to the submarine, the squad of Kobra divers are brutally attacked by the Ravens who have swum back to the right timeline.  Black Canary doesn't recognize the Ravens and asks Oracle for some intel, but Oracle is distracted.

At that moment, Major Van Lewton orders his special ops team into action.  They bust into the phantom hacker's headquarters... which isn't Oracle's hideout, as a matter of fact.  It turns out, the hacker they've been tracking all along was Blockbuster.

He beats the crap out of the special ops guys and gets on their radio frequency.  He threatens Van Lewton and tells him he can have the men back as long as he never interferes--illegally--with his business again.  Van Lewton is appropriately terrified, and his aide is appropriately satisfied.

Oracle, as it happens, was only distracted by a bird in her apartment.  When she finally gets back to her computer, Dinah has tired of waiting for her.  Black Canary is already engaging the Ravens as Oracle protests and tells her who they are.  Babs has quite a warning regarding Cheshire, as if Black Canary doesn't already know plenty about Roy Harper's baby mama.

However badass Oracle thought Cheshire and the Ravens were, Black Canary takes them out in about thirty seconds.  Oracle tells her she can't let Kobra get their hands on the satellite, but that doesn't look like it's going to be a problem as the plesiosaurus returns and slams into the Kobra sub.

In the aftermath of Kobra Prime's cowardly retreat and the sinking of the submarine, the authorities round up the surviving members of Kobra.  S.T.A.R. Labs technicians show up to deal with the funky satellite.  The lake monster, it seems, is going to be sticking around for a while, so Dinah tells her new friend Gary and his uncle to paint signs and market the crap out of it for tourists.

The Ravens, Black Canary believes, got away clean.  In truth, they did slip away, but they passed through the neutrino time wave again and wound up trapped in an era of early human civilization.  Hey, maybe Vandal Savage can help them!

Here we have another one of Dixon's comics that took about two minutes to read.  The only benefit to that is it didn't take very long to write this recap.  There were certainly some enjoyable moments to this story.  There's a lot of action, first with the Ravens slaughtering the Kobras, and then with Black Canary trouncing the Ravens.  Dixon did a fine job setting up how formidable they should have been with Oracle's running commentary even as Black Canary handles them effortlessly.  It shows how much better she is and how she really ought to be considered one of the best fighters in the DC Universe.

On the other hand, the pacing, particularly with those action beats, goes by way too quickly.  And Land's art isn't memorable enough to capture the eye for extra time, especially in the underwater sequences that all look kind of the same.

The greatest affront, though, is the first scene with Batman spying on Oracle.  I'm not complaining about the content of the scene, but the presentation.  The scene is four pages long and only seven panels.  Four pages, seven panels.  Do the math and it adds up to less than two panels per page on average.  And these aren't exciting, visually dynamic pages.  It's just Batman talking to Alfred and Barbara's face on some cameras.  There isn't even much dialogue.  The scene could have been two pages--or one page--but Dixon and Land stretch it out to four.  That's a criminal use of real estate in a comic that's only twenty-one pages already.

Overall, this was a cute little story arc that should have been two issues instead of three.  The decompression of Dixon's writing is starting to hinder the momentum and enjoyment of the story.  Greg Land's art still looks good most of the time, but cracks are showing.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #7.