BIRDS OF PREY #8 (New 52)

Previously…

It seems like the long, confusing first arc of Birds of Prey volume 3 is finally over.  Was anything accomplished by that story?  Have the characters grown or changed?  Did the finale make sense and feel deserved given the scope of what came before?  No, no, and no.

So let's move on.

Birds of Prey #8: "A Far Cry" is again written by Duane Swierczynski, with pencils by Jesus Saiz and inks/finishes by Javier Pina and colors by June Chung.  Saiz provides the cover, as well.

The issue opens three days ago* at the Cornwell Hotel where the Gotham City P.D. is investigating a brutal murder.  A mysterious man with more clout than the local cops kicks them out, taking charge of the case.  The murder victim's entire face was caved in, including his teeth, which were shattered, making facial or dental identification impossible.  Convenient.  But a fingerprint check reveals that the victim was a member of the investigator's mysterious organization.

The investigator believes that Dinah's sonic "Canary Cry" was the murder weapon.

Cut to Dinah Lance being burned…

In the Cornwell Hotel today, Black Canary, Batgirl, and Katana are fighting for their lives against a team of assassins called the Infiltrators.  The Infiltrators are led by a holographic commander whose name we never learn, because that's how Swierczynski rolls.  Dinah's narration explains that the Birds came here "on a tip" from "a man" who claimed "to have information that would interest [Dinah]."  If there is a lazier way of establishing the situation I would like to see it.

Dinah knows the hologram from her past.  The Infiltrators, however, seem new.  The first Infiltrator we meet is Napalm, who has flamethrowers attached to each wrist.  Napalm is really excited about torching Poison Ivy, and is really disappointed to discover that she's not here.

Next up is Flesh, who looks like a well-muscled sumo wrestler.  His skin is impervious to cuts and damage, so he spends the issue fighting Katana (also 'cuz they're Japanese…?).

The last Infiltrator we meet is Head (seriously), who has chemicals pumping into his brain that make it impossible to knock him unconscious.  That seems like a really, really super-specific and not-as-useful-as-you'd-think-superpower for an assassin, but whatever, his name is Head.  Head targets Batgirl, apparently, to exploit the weakness that she tends to knock out her opponents.  What a crutch she relies on!

Meanwhile, Starling has gone to an "undisclosed location" in South Dakota, which might be the base of operations for the Infiltrators, or at least close to it.  I guess South Dakota is a big state, but there's not a lot there other than Mount Rushmore.  Starling breaks into a safehouse looking for evidence that will either confirm or clear her friend Dinah of the murder charge against her.  That's when she's met by someone who looks like the investigator from the beginning.

Back in Gotham, the Birds and the Infiltrators have caused so much structural damage to the upper floors of the Cornwell Hotel that the walls are coming down and floors are collapsing.  At one point, another Infiltrator slaps a collar on Dinah, preventing her from using her Canary Cry.  This Infiltrator's name isn't mentioned (because: Swierczynski).  Dinah and Batgirl lead most of the Infiltrators down to the lower levels.  And then Katana joins them by riding Napalm down the elevator shaft.

Yeah, at first I was a little wowed that Katana was so casually killing another one of her enemies, but then I saw that the Birds brought down an entire luxury hotel!  Yeah, that entire damn building came down!  Think there's any chance that innocent lives were hurt or lost by that stunt?!!

But there's still another wall to knock down!

Next issue: Birds of Prey ties-in with the "Night of the Owls" crossover in all the Batman books.

The Characters

This version of Black Canary was married.  She was Dinah Drake, the name of the original Golden Age Canary.  Lance is her married name, but she didn't marry Larry Lance, as the original Dinah did.  She married a guy named Kurt Lance.

Also, she killed him.

Starling used to work for the Penguin.  We've been told that Starling is a spy, so maybe she was undercover at the time she was working for him.  Maybe not.

Katana kills.

Poison Ivy only appears on the cover of this issue.  She's not in the story.  This is a good thing.  Although, wasn't she dying at the end of issue #7?!!  Shouldn't that be addressed?

Impressions/Questions

This issue is a vast improvement over the last handful of installments of this series.  It still suffers from a lot of the same problems as before, though.

Swierczynski sets the table with the "anonymous tip" reference that is so cliche, so lazy, so stupid that it makes the characters seem dumb for going along with it.  As usual, the "mystery" element of these stories only works because the characters aren't smart enough to solve it.

There's also some confusion about the timing of events.  The opening is tagged as "three days ago", but Dinah killed her husband three years ago.  The impression I got was that the investigator in the opening scene was discovering Kurt Lance's body, but he says, "Dinah Lance has struck again."  This suggests she killed her husband and then three days ago killed someone else in the same way.  But his hair in the opening scene is a lot shorter than it is later on when he meets Starling in North Dakota.  So what's going on?  I'm assuming the caption on the first page is wrong: that it should have said years, not days.

The issue has some strong qualities, too.  Despite being really simplistic baddies, the Infiltrators are decent villains.  Flesh has a cool gimmick, and Head at least looks interesting.  I'm not saying these guys deserve more than one issue, but they're fun for these pages.  The action keeps the story moving at a pretty good pace.

Starling isn't annoying in this issue.  That's good.

Best of all, we're finally--finally--acknowledging the murdered elephant in the room.  Why is Dinah wanted for murder?  Did she actually kill someone?  Who and why?  I guess we'll find out next issue.

Oh, wait.  Next issue they fight the Court of Owls.  Damn.

Grade:  C-

BIRDS OF PREY #6 (New 52)

Previously…

This series is an absolute mess!  I've hated the last three issues, especially the last one, which ended with Starling, a character I don't like, being set up, ambushed, and leaping off a bridge into the river and being shot!

But she seems okay on the cover of Birds of Prey #6: "Clean Getaway".

Jesus Saiz provides the best cover of the series so far.  It has a bit of action, a sense of place and background, and most of all: context.  It actually tells you a little bit of what the issue is about.  Sadly, though, Black Canary is not on this cover.  For the first time, Saiz does not provide interior pencils for the issue.  Last month's inker, Javier Pina, gets full art duties here.  I'm not sure if this is a compliment to Pina or a slight against Saiz, but it took me a couple pages to notice the difference.

Issue #6 opens up with a very different feel from the last couple issues.  We meet Brendan Bowman, a statistical analyst for an investment group or insurance company in Gotham City.  He's having a good day at work, and when he goes to get a coffee, there's a gorgeous blonde checking him out.  Before Bowman tries to pick her up, however, he realizes that his phone has been lifted by a brunette with bandages on her wrist and leg.  (So, Starling didn't die. Pshtt…)

Bowman follows the Starling outside to an alley, where he's ambushed by the blonde from the bar--Black Canary, of course.

Bowman pushes them away and rushes back to his office.  Dinah tells Katana to get ready.  This part is unclear whether Dinah wanted the target to escape her or not.  I don't think she did; I think they just did a horrible job of capturing the guy.

Anyway, Bowman gets back to his cubicle and decides to post his experience on something called The Hive before he calls the police.  Is this writer Duane Swierczynski's commentary on social media addiction, or is The Hive something more insidious?  We'll have to wait to find out, because we abruptly jump ahead forty minutes to Bowman being restrained by Katana.

I posted the three pages above because I want to point out that it takes three characters to subdue Brendan Bowman over the course of three pages.  Katana is a world-class martial artist who would eventually be selected by the U.S. government to take down $@#%ing Wonder Woman!  And she can't stick a syringe in an accountant's neck!  And we've seen Poison Ivy enthrall a Cleaner before, so what takes her so long this time that Batgirl shows up to finish the job?  The only reason Batgirl gets it done is because Bowman thinks she's there to rescue him.

So, yeah, three damn pages just to render this guy unconscious after he's captured.  Swierczynski and Pina spend the first eight out of twenty pages capturing this guy and he's barely capable of defending himself!  Yes, he is a sleeper agent for Choke and he can be "activated", becoming somewhat of a deadly stealth-suited warrior.  But that doesn't happen.  The first forty percent of the issue is a bunch of awesome female "superheroes" stalking and beating up an accountant.

Bowman wakes up in whatever compound the Birds are holed up in, and he's not alone.  The ladies, with help from Dr. Trevor Cahill, have neutralized half a dozen Cleaners, "deprogramming" them so they're no longer under Choke's influence.

This is the best explanation for who the Cleaners are and how they operate that we've gotten so far.  It's clean, simple, and relatively efficient as far as exposition goes, but we should have gotten this page back in issue #2 or #3.  This isn't revealing information for a mystery; this is clarifying poor storytelling.

After Bowman agrees to help the Birds take down Choke, we're finally shown the fallout of last issue's cliffhanger.  Starling survived her fall, bandaged herself up, realized her memory was altered by Choke, and rejoined her friends.

WHAT?!!  Okay, I accept the comic book physics of her survival, but as she was leaping into the river to save herself, she thought that Dinah had set her up.  Where did that fear go?  Why didn't we get a chance to see her confront the other Birds and have her altered memory fixed by Cahill?  When and how was her memory modified by Choke?  And why was she the only one led into a trap?  Who are the mercenaries trying to kill her?

The only thing I like about this is Black Canary making fun of Starling's "Uncle Earl" wisdom, because seriously, it's really annoying.

So, after fourteen pages, seventy percent of the issue, the Birds finally take the fight to Choke by sending Brendan Bowman back to work at his office.  Starling, Batgirl and Dr. Trevor Cahill are the security team, controlling the elevators.  Before long, all of Bowman's coworkers begin reciting nursery rhymes, revealing an entire office full of Cleaner sleepers.  One woman is about to execute Bowman when Dinah springs into action!

Katana and Poison Ivy join Black Canary in fighting the brainwashed investment brokers.  Choke, speaking through the Cleaners, asks Dinah how much she trusts her team.  She responds:

The Characters

We don't learn anything new about the characters from this issue, other than Starling's Uncle Earl maybe tried to kill her.  (Who wouldn't?)

Once again, the script makes it impossible to tell whether Black Canary's strategy is carefully crafted and multi-layered, or whether each member of this team is atrocious at her job but somehow manages to luck into accomplishing something.

Impressions/Questions

This issue is leaps and bounds better than issue #5, but it still fails on many levels.  We finally get the exposition I've been wanting from the beginning, but at this point it's just too little, too late.  The characters still come off as stupid and their actions nonsensical.  The end of the issue should be thrilling, but it only serves to remind how much time was wasted on the first two-thirds of the issue.

The capital crime of Birds of Prey #6 is the ridiculous decompression.  This issue did not have twenty pages worth of story.  I would be generous in saying there was enough plot and characterization here to fill out six pages.  The rest is filler.  A lot of filler.

Grade: F+

BIRDS OF PREY #5 (New 52)

Previously…

Birds of Prey #5: "Chokepoint" is written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by Jesus Saiz, who uses an inker for the first time in this series.  The inks by Javier Pina, though, is pretty sparse.  June Chung is back to provide colors.

David Finch provides the cover, which for the first time gives a sense of context and background.  The image depicts Black Canary, Starling, and Katana squaring off against some unseen enemy in what looks like a warehouse.  There is a painted finish to the cover that gives Finch's lines an anime style that is quite different than previous covers.  Also, Dinah's back is about to snap from the weight of her breasts.  Maybe that's Power Girl in Canary's clothes…

Issue #5 opens with the Birds--like me--trying to understand what's happening.  The ladies had been   infiltrating the lair of Choke, a mysterious bad guy who can turn people into walking bombs.  They were surrounded by an army of Cleaners--soldiers with "stealth-suit" technology--when they abruptly "skipped ahead" to a daytime city street with no memory of how they got there or what happened in between.

And suddenly they're being attacked by soldiers who aren't wearing stealth-suits.  As the Birds fight back, they realize that their memories conflict with each other.  For instance, some remember sneaking into the building, and others don't.  Some remember Batgirl being with them; some don't.  And some have mysteriously healed from wounds.

We don't know who these soldiers are, and if the Birds know they don't say so, but, whatever, Starling shoots them, so I hope they weren't U.S. Army or a local S.W.A.T team just doing their jobs.  Katana, for her part, only slices their ankles with her husbandsword so as not to kill them.  After the soldiers are incapacitated, Black Canary orders the team to fall back to safehouse down the street because police cars are en route.

The only thing the ladies agree on is that their memories are full of gaps, so Dinah suggests they all split up, take time to recuperate, and meet again in twenty-four hours.  This makes no sense, but I don't have the energy to delve into why right now.  Dinah writes the name of their rendezvous location on each woman's forearm.  Is it because she doesn't trust texting?  Or she thinks the room is bugged and doesn't want to say it out loud?  Whatever.

The story then follows Starling during her time off.  Starling gets to narrate a few pages, which is great because we really need more insight into her character.  I want to believe there is more to her than shooting, drinking, and thinking about sex.  Unfortunately, from her narrative captions and the action on these two pages, "shooting, drinking, and thinking about sex" is really all there is to her.

Later that night, Dinah meets with Batgirl on a rooftop.  Batgirl restates her objection to working with the Birds that she voiced in the first issue and completely ignored in the fourth.  She also denies having met with them last night, so either her mind has been wiped, or the other women have been incepted.

The next morning, Dinah goes to her dojo to clear her mind by training.  Katana arrives and they spar while talking about how lonely Dinah is, how tough their lives are, and joking about how they shouldn't trust Poison Ivy.

Speaking of Ivy, she spends her morning in the park soaking up foliage or something.  She is met by a mysterious man carrying a mysterious suitcase.  From the sounds of their conversation, Ivy has a hidden agenda and isn't that loyal to Dinah and the others.

I know.  I was shocked, too.

Later, Dinah is sitting in a coffee shop, reading the paper, like any other fugitive wanted for murder.  She comes across a startling headline that we don't see.  This causes her to rush out of the diner can call Dr. Trevor Cahill, a neuro-chemist who she has flirted with over the past few days.

We then cut to the rooftop rendezvous the Birds had arranged the night before… so Dinah's date with Trevor… didn't matter?  Anyway, Starling doesn't show up but %@$#ing Batgirl does!  What the hell, Swierczynski?

Dinah explains that Choke, in addition to turning people into walking bombs and transceivers, has been making Cleaners out of everyday people.  She wants to locate one of these "sleeper agents" and follow them to Choke's lair.  Hang on, didn't they already find Choke's lair?  They went there last issue.  Why didn't they return to the last place they remembered instead of splitting up for twenty-four hours?

At the same time, Starling is on a bridge because she believed that was the rendezvous point.  So did Dinah set her up and write the wrong location on Ev's arm?  Or is her memory/perception being altered by Choke?  Then she is ambushed by yet another group of gunmen who don't look like the stealth-suit Cleaners and don't look like the soldiers from the beginning of the issue.

Starling dives off the bridge into the river below--because that's something she would do.  And of course she survives the fall into the river--which isn't something anyone would do.  She also gets shot in the hand and in the leg.

Falling from a bridge into the water below--if it didn't kill you instantly--would certainly knock you unconscious, leaving you to drown quickly.  Couple that with broken bones in the hand and leg and the accompanying blood loss would either weaken you to the point of drowning, or send you into shock, leaving you to drown.

So… I guess this is how Starling dies.  And if she doesn't, I'll be pissed come issue #6.


The Characters

Everyone acts and sounds stupid in this issue.

At first, Batgirl claims to want nothing to do with Black Canary's team, contradicting everything she said in issue #4.  But by the end of the issue, she joins them again just because she has the free time.

"ABILI"?  You mean alibi, Babs?  I thought you were smarter than that.

Poison Ivy is obviously plotting some kind of betrayal, and everyone suspects it, but no one does anything about it.  Only Batgirl openly voices her distrust of Ivy, and Dinah responds harshly to Batgirl for it.  This makes Dinah look foolish.

Calm down, Dinah.  Batgirl's concerns are valid; Ivy's a bad guy!

We learn a little more about Starling in this issue.  She has an Uncle Earl who taught her lessons about paranoia.  And goons have been trying to kill her for years.  And she's gay.  And, um… she likes shooting stuff and drinking stuff.


Impressions/Questions

I have expressed my fondness for Jesus Saiz's art in previous reviews, but I have also questioned what appears to be a disconnect between what is being told and what is being shown.  This feeling is exacerbated in issue #5.  The opening "action" scene is awful because the art and dialogue don't match.  There is no tension in this sequence.  You could take the dialogue in pages one through five and put it in any other scene or location.  The fight doesn't matter.

I "hear" gunfire SFX but don't see any.  Who is shooting?

I haven't read anything else written by Duane Swierczynski so I can't compare his writing on this title to his body of work as a whole.  I have read other books illustrated by Saiz, though, and I never felt like there was a disconnect between the writing and the art.  That's is all I feel while reading these issues.  And that tells me the problem is the script or the editing.

But there is no shortage of other flaws in this issue.  It moves like the trailer to a suspense movie, with characters and scenes only glimpsed, out of sequence, undeveloped, and entirely out of context.  That's how this issue felt: bereft of context.

All the momentum of what could charitably be called the "investigation" part of this story arc that was built last issue is tossed out when the ladies literally choose to take a day off.  This series is incapable of maintaining focus, building character, and building tension.  If I hadn't bought the rest of this series at a discount I would have blotted this issue out of my memory and shut down this blog.

Grade: F (as in f*** this comic!)