Birds of Prey (v2) #3, September 2010
Well, *that* was more than I needed to know about Penguin’s inner life. Ew.
This is a terrific action-packed, thrilled-packed issue where the story finally kicks into high gear! Simone is making great use of the back-story she herself wrote in many great arcs in volume 1, and that makes me think my hunch as to White Canary’s identity might be correct.
Not much to say that won’t be a spoiler, so I’ll just mention that there was a moment when I actually gasped out loud at a development in the story. This is rare and it was awesome storytelling and awesome for me to have that as a reader.
I’m still ambivalent about the newbies, but Hank/Hawk is developing as an interesting antagonist to all the other Birds — even irritating Lady Blackhawk with his sexist cracks — while Dove seems as if she’d fit in fine on her own. They still both feel a bit surplus to the story and to the team, but we shall see how things develop.
Adriana Melo and Mariah Benes lend a hand with the art this time around and the fusion of Benes’ and Melo’s pencils is the most gorgeous work on this rebooted book so far. Oracle looks wonderful, even while in some dire straits and in the same frumpy outfit as before — it’s just shown better this time around (though everyone seems to have forgotten she pulled her hair back last issue and that she’d gone into some sort of full-immersion virtual war room — she’s just back at her bank of screens with her hair down).
The interplay between Canary and Huntress is a highlight of this arc. They work so well together, and it’s great to see Huntress transformed from the angry lone wolf she used to be to a team player who is trusted and valued by her team.
The book ends on a major cliffhanger with everyone and everything in major disarray and revelations still to come which will, I’m sure, rock the Birds’ worlds.
Meet you back here next month for the finale of “Endrun.”