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Part of my massive Barbara Gordon Re-read which I had a glorious amazing time with. Birds of Prey, under the hands of Gail Simone, was a gorgeous thing and It made me super happy to have all my amazing women back together doing amazing things! ( )

This time, the Huntress is the agent of the Oracle out in the field doing crazy things, and it's a nice contrast to what Dinah is normally tasked with; we get to dig into the head of the Gotham vigilante too hardcore for even Batman. Meanwhile, Dinah has to stop Barbara from snapping. There's even a Superman cameo, though it perhaps raises too many questions in the long run. Oracle is given an opponent worthy of her skill, and there's some disturbing visions within her own mind. On the whole a competent storyline, though perhaps the least interesting one since Simone took over the Birds of Prey title.

A couple single-issue stories finish out the volume. The first features Black Canary and the Huntress beating up some henchmen, and then Black Canary laying the smackdown on Savant, who tortured her back in Of Like Minds; this was an okay story, let down by stiff and difficult artwork.

The last story is just confusing. All of a sudden, Barbara's clocktower and the Birds' base has been blown up! I guess this happening in a Batman story running at the same time, but it seems off that an event of such importance to Birds of Prey would happen in a completely different title, and with us barely getting a glimpse of it. What would bring Barbara to do this? I'll never know, or at least not for a while. This paves the way for a new setup, with Lady Blackhawk joining the team as they move to a mobile aerial base. I was really surprised by this, as it means that the ostensibly classic setup of Simone writing (and Benes usually drawing) Black Canary, Oracle, and Huntress on the team while in Gotham lasts a mere three collections. Given what an impact the series had in this form, I had expected it to last longer.

Birds of Prey: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

This is the fifth collection of the Birds of Prey comic. It is the third one written by Gail Simone. I've loved the two collections before this one, but this one seemed a little off to me.

For one thing, the action seemed rushed. In the last two books, the relationships between the characters developed slowly. The action was well thought out and really hooked me in. In this book, a new character, Vixen, is introduced... but I never really felt like I got to know who she was. She was just there, and then gone. Disappointing after the nice story lines with Lady Shiva and Cheshire in the last book, Sensei and Student.

Things just happened too fast and left me with too many questions. Who the hell is Brainiac? and Is Vixen just crazy? and Wait... What happened to the clock tower... and now they're going to fly around in a plane?!

I'm still going to read the comic, though. The next collection comes out in a couple of weeks. I like the story of Lady Blackhawk. ( )