Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Birds of Prey

So the new BOP hit stands this week. The art is beautiful, but that's no surprise. I like Dinah's cape/coat look. I don't like Helena's hot pants, but ok. The bitty bios summing up our cast (that seem to be all the rage at DC) are a nice treat.

Black Canary is back and beating bad guys senseless. Zinda as her sidekick? Love that idea.

Oracle is getting the band back together. (Loved the reference,a nd even more, Zinda's ingorance of it!!)

Huntress is here. Her little breakdown, mirroring Dinah's, was almost a reflection of my own. I'm glad this book is back. (By the by, the description of her as an exxcellent marksman- don't know why, but it really tickled my fancy.)

Hawk and Dove waste no time making themselves part of the cotry. And I'm already intrigued.

Add to that callbacks to Spymaster and Savant, throw in a White (Jade?) Canary and I'm hooked.

I don't get my comics fix till next Friday (end of the work week before the long weekend-yep, we get Victoria Holiday). Looking forward to the return of The Birds and Legion #1!!!
Will I be at a disadvantage because I haven't picked up any of the Song of New Krypton, Action or Adventure Legion tie-ins?

This was a good issue and I'll be back for #2 but is anyone else as tired as I am of children being kidnapped and children about to be raped and children about to be murdered and children forced to work as prostitutes and children being abused and so on in their comics?

'Harming children' seems to be the new 'robbing banks'! Why do writers think it's something we readers want to read about? I certainly don't.

Fortunately, that element was only a small part of this issue, but added to all the other comics I've read it in recently it was enough to annoy me.

Benes' art was a lot better than I remembered it being too. Seems like he's toned down the T&A a bit which is a great relief. The inker and colourist did a great job too.

The other year, I wrote a story involving some "children". 2 brothers were trying to start a gang, and tried to beat up 2 other brothers who tried to stop them. It led to all sort of frightful complications for the parents later on. And, later on, one of the "good" kids had a run-in with an "indestructible serial killer" armed with a machete. Luckily he'd been taught by his Dad how to use an automatic pistol. Just like The Lone Ranger, SHOT the knife right out of the killer's hand!

I may have been inspired in part by Mick Dundee's young son in CROCODILE DUNDEE IN L.A. That kid was not only cute and smart, he was also fearless!

I keep finding a lot of what I write is in "answer" to other writers' awful stories...

Sadly, I've dropped Birds of Prey.

Well, I'm glad to say it: It's good to be home.

Whoever thought it was a smart move to cancel BOP in the first place should be sterilized or at the very least have their eyes plucked out. BOP is perhaps the greatest contribution of the 90's to the overall DCU, and has given the company that sometimes feels like it has no room left for anyone something that it always needed even though we might not have realized it. And it was Gail who came in and really took it to the next level, making the Huntress part of it, and making a great spy/adventure series become a tight-knit family series as well.

I thought #1 was an excellent start and it immediately brought us back to the glory days of BOP. Gail's tight script, excitingly paced with character bits and interactions between the Birds, great humor and an overall sense of fun without taking away from the tension. Ed Benes' incredible art, doing the series he was born to do; he sure draws some great Birds, and as Gail tells it, he draws great men too I guess.

Dinah at long last at long last acting like DC's *other* great iconic female again--which she hasn't since Gail last wrote her. Zinda being one of the most fun characters on the page anywhere. Babs & the Huntress too, and I'm sure we'll get more of them shortly. The scene with the three main Birds getting a little emotional was great: quickly done and effective.

Hawk & Dove joining the cast suddenly seems very interesting to me. I have to say I wasn't exactly thrilled about it but already in one issue Gail has me intrigued.

I know you're avoiding all Brightest Day stuff but honestly Birds of Prey is beyond all that marketing stuff. It was beyond the stupid change in status quo to the Bat-books and its beyond this here. I'm glad its back and I'm thrilled its by its best creative team.

And the final pages, leading to the (not quite) surprise villain? Perfect. She is not only the very best villain for the Birds, she's also one of the best, scariest and most awesome villains in all of the DCU. She's really the only other member of the DC that can fight Batman (Bruce) and maybe win. Love it.

People who never collected BOP before: do yourself a favor. Jump on now.

Well, I have a question. Isn't this, like, the second time Gail Simone used a villain who knows "everything"? Like Junior from Secret Six.

That and I am still reading them, just not buying them.

Has the villain been confirmed to be who you think she is CK? I got the impression that there was some misdirection going on there. I've seen theories elsewhere that she's actually the looooooonnng-thought dead sister of you-know-who, which would be a pretty cool development if so.

As for Lady Blackhawk. She's the weak link in this book IMO. I want to like her but under Gail's pen I really don't. She is so insufferably one-note. Her whole personality consists of drinking and fighting and being surly. I can't think of one plot point she's ever been given that wasn't one of those three. Maybe if I wasn't a non-drinking gay man I'd appreciate her character more but as she is - she needs a LOT of work.

You know, I was so certain the villain was

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Lady Shiva--there, I said it </span></span>

that I never considered it wasn't her. I do hope it is her though, as she is just such a dynamic and awesome ass-kicking character. She's probably the only character in the DCU that could kick the crap out of Dinah and the Huntress at once.

As for Lady Blackhawk, I love her! I wonder if as a drinking, strait man, I'm loving every aspetc of her? I'll admit though that I like her as more of a supporting character than a lead. She's a bit one-note but with flashes of depth, and I don't mind her in that role. There was a pretty good Killer Shark arc in the last BOP run that focused more on her. I'd really love to see Gail do a Blackhawks story with the originals and Zinda, with Blackhawk himself being the icon he is but all those quirky other Blackhawks being gruff and cool. I think she could pull it off.

Got the first issue cause it was there, and I had a few extra bucks. Now I'll be getting issue #2,, cause I like it a lot so far.

Between this and Secret Six you're going to end up being a big Gail Simone fan, Dev--I can feel it.

Lady Blackhawk kind of occupies the same role that Ragdoll does in Secret Six. A firm member of the family but less super-serious and good for humor and tension relief. She rocks.

(Dinah is the Catman here, as the heart of the book, Huntress is the Scandal as the one most screwed up and Oracle is definitely the Deadshot.)

The comparison to the S6 is natural, and a little spot on. Gail's writing the same book, from different angles. The 6 are about a dysfunctional group doing their own thing to stay alive. The Birds are a group of capable confident people, trying to make the world a better place.

Count me in as a fan of Lady Blackhawk. She isn't as developed as Dinah or Babs, but she's a good Alfred/Jarvis for this group.

I love Lady Blackhawk.

Rather enjoyed BoP's return too. I'm thinking this will make the price-increase cut along with Gail's Secret 6 and Welcome to Tranquility.

The Benes art sure didn't hurt either.

Does she call Dinah "Siu Jerk Jai" (Little Bird)? I was thinking someone else entirely.

Love having this series back.

Yes, she does call her "Little Bird" which would naturally lead me to believe this is Shiva, but why a different code name? Has to be someone else who has ties to Dinah's past.
The Birds look awesome again. I wonder how long it'll be before Stephanie Brown as Batgirl shows up in this book. So many blond powerhouses running around DC. I sometimes confuse Zinda and Dinah when each are not in uniform.

I've got a horrible feeling White Canary is Sin. I've gotta be wrong, though.

New BoP on Wednesday!

Real reason I'm posting:

Does anyone know anything about Helena Bertinelli's altered origin? (See Wikipedia) Was there an in comic explanation for the reboot? What do you guys think of it? I've got mixed feelings. On the one hand, it takes her off the Women (Children?) in the Refrigerator list, but on the other hand, it kind of seems cowardly to just change things like that.

I don't read a lot of Huntress so I wouldn't know.

I'm not familiar with an altered origin for Helena. Is she still not the daughter of a mob family?

I take it her post-Crisis origin has seen some alteration from the context of these posts? My first thought was altered from being Batman of Earth-2's daughter (which it's been for a long while), but that's clearly not what we're talking about. Any clue as to what's different?

Sorry, I tried to put a link to her bio at Wikipedia, but it didn't work, something about brackets. Here\'s the ComicVine bio.

In her first origin after Crisis, she was kidnapped and assaulted, probably sexually, when she was six. When she was nineteen her family was massacred. (All of this was because her father was a mafia don.) Helena survived, but was still a target, so her bodyguard taught her how to fight (she was already an Olympic level gymnast), and she took on the identity of the Huntress. I don't think it ever said which city this took place in.

Later they rewrote her origin and changed it so there was, apparently, no kidnapping and her family (also a mafia family) was massacred when she was eight. She then went overseas to live with cousins who raised her to fight. This time the city she was from was definitely Gotham.

Here's the lowdown on the hodown. <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Fight between the Birds and the White Canary. Throughout the whole fight White Canary has got Dinah seriously freaked out.

Someone, however, leaks enough info on Dinah to the press. Her identity is exposed and a news network is doing an expose on how she "abandoned" Sin.

White Canary already delivers on her throat that those associated with the Birds, well, how one will die every hour for the next six hours.

Babs gets a call from Creote, horribly distressed, who tells her that White Canary killed his lover Savant, because they were guilty of association. Creote then kills himself.

The Birds try to deal with the cops swarming in on them.

Babs decides to step up to plate after realizing she's become complacent with the machines to do her work.

...

Well, two more characters dead. Two GAY characters. I know there's no agenda at DC, but I wonder if they're gonna be in for it.</span></span>

One of my favourite bad boys -- gone!

I'm sorry, I didn't know you liked them so much.

aw no.....another gay characters killed! groan....Tasmanian Devil....now this. grrr... Gail !!!!!!!