By Gail Simone, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-423-4
One of DC’s best and most consistent action adventure series, Birds of Prey recounts the missions and lives of a rotating team of female crime-fighters led by Barbara Gordon, the computer genius known as Oracle. Daughter of the Police Commissioner of Gotham City, her own career as Batgirl was ended when the Joker destroyed her spine in a terrifying kidnap attempt. This volume comprises stories that neatly straddle either side of the Infinite Crisis/One Year Later publishing events.
The Crisis was a massive re-setting of the DC universe involving cosmic upheaval, space war, the unleashing of wild magic, a anti-metahuman conspiracy and a global uniting of the world’s super-villains as well as the assault on reality by the sole survivors of the 1980s blockbuster Crisis on Infinite Earths, whilst One Year Later restarted the continuity of the DC Universe for all characters 365 days after the conclusion of said Crisis. This narrative ploy allowed the adventures to unfold with an aura of solidity and veracity whilst creating ready-made mysteries to intrigue the readers.
This volume (collecting issues #86-90 and #92-95 of the monthly comic book) starts with a delightful triptych of vignettes from guest illustrators Adriana Melo & Will Conrad (Lady Blackhawk), Bruce Timm (Black Canary) and David Lopez & Fernando Blanco (The Huntress), which serves as a deceptive set-up for the next story-arc.
The confederation of villains called the Society has a counterpart to Oracle. The Calculator, an obsessive knowledge-broker, is going crazy trying to discover his electronic rival’s identity and so instigates a deadly Machiavellian plot to solve his problem. Squandering Society resources he kidnaps one of her operatives to force a revelation from the team, whilst simultaneously employing super-assassin Deathstroke to kill everybody before his own bosses discover his mistakes. This superb and hyper-tense thriller has guest-shots from Batman and Green Arrow but the real pay-off (as always) comes from the grit and resilience of the core team. Gail Simone continues to show why she’s one of the most popular action writers in the business and the enthralling art is divided between Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson, Eddy Barrows & Robin Riggs, Paulo Siqueira, Adam Dekraker & Riggs again.
Issue #92 was the Infinite Crisis tie-in, so this volume excludes it and resumes One Year Later with a new team cleaning up Gotham’s super-villains since Batman and Robin have been missing since the Crisis ended. Replacing Black Canary is Lady Shiva, the world’s deadliest woman, and a ruthless killer. The Canary is deep in the jungles of Indo-China, being subjected to a brutalizing retraining at a sinister Martial Arts training Camp. As she hones her skill her old team-mates are trying to save a little girl from being killed because her father betrayed The Society.
The narrative device of resuming storytelling in the middle works well in this case. Not knowing how we got here enhances the tension of this two-track drama, the art and action (from Siqueira & Riggs, and Joe Prado & Dick Giordano) are utterly engrossing and Simone’s deftness with dialogue and character, not to mention the skilful way she drops clues and references to the unseen recent past teases without confusing.
Despite all the potential bewilderment that the continuity shuffling might have caused, this is still a superb superhero thriller with as much to offer the newcomer as the dedicated fan. All action comics should be this good.
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