So that’s it, you’re breaking up the group…
When you’re only given one issue to conclude a major story line and break up a growing team of kick-ass women, there are worse ways to do it.
When the fight comes to you, the best response is to turn the battle around and take the offense by striking the home base of your enemy. For the Birds of Prey the battle moves from Barbara Gordon’s Silicon Flats business (which she blows up to cover her tracks) to an all out assault of Netcracker Systems, the home of the Silicon Syndicate.
As far as battles go, this issue has everyone playing their part, from Misfit teleporting around causing chaos, to Zinda blowing things up real good with her plane. The odd part is Barbara overseeing the action in him Limo with the newest member of the team, Infinity, watching on. It takes the better part of the issue for Infinity to put two and two together to figure out that Barbara is Oracle.
From my perusing of other DC titles, Birds of Prey is the only one that has referenced when this issue takes place in relation to Final Crisis. Unfortunately, Tony Bedard also left a big gaping hole in both stories, as the Calculator ends the series as a cybertuned bringer of death, yet in Final Crisis he’s back to normal, hanging from a noose at one point. For some reason, I don’t see Calculator remaining a major foil for Oracle.
The other thing that really doesn’t sit well with this reviewer is the way in which Barbara breaks up the team. Instead of a well thought out decision, Barbara flees before the fight is over, leaving a Dear John letter for the rest of the team. Not Barbara’s finest moment as she essentially has a freak out and runs. We’ve seen Barbara break up the team before, but each time, she brings everyone back together bigger and better than before. Her goodbye note, seems to make it pretty final.
I don’t know what DC has planned for Barbara, but there’s going to have to be some major rebuilding of the character for readers and characters in the DCU to take her seriously in the future.
And what the other members of the team? While not an active member, Black Canary has her own series, and it is a pretty good guess that we’ll see cameo appearances by the Huntress in the Batman titles. With Misfit in the “care†of Huntress, there’s bound to be some sightings of the teleporting teenager. Manhunter has had her series cancelled twice, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing her any time soon. That goes double for Infinity, and more than likely Lady Blackhawk.
The issue ends with Barbara telling Misfit there’s a better than likely chance she’ll get everyone back together again, but man, it’s just like a jackass boyfriend giving his girl the heave-ho with the promise that once he’s done sowing his oats, he might come back to her. The individual members of the team are going their own way, and will probably grow as characters between now and December, so I’m hoping they don’t come skipping back when they get the Twitter that Babs wants to get the gang back together again until the next time she decides to shut down business.
I’m sure I’m being a bit hard on this final issue, but having gone through several of these situations before, both in business and in love, and the relationships are never the same when you try to patch things over after time apart.  Frankly, the team was getting too large, so here’s hoping if the Birds of Prey return, the team is trimmed to a few members like the good ol’ days.
Of the three Batman family titles that were cancelled over the last two weeks, Birds of Prey was my least favorite, earning a mere 2 out of 5 Stars.
17 Comments
hmm… I hope the fact that it’s your least favorite isn’t the reason why you gave it 2 stars.
I also didn’t like Barbara’s decision-making. Very out of character, especially the way she just dumps Misfit. I would have preferred her uncovering some major threat to the team and having it disband indefinitely, and at least a one-on-one convo with Misfit (who, btw, it seems will be in the Teen Titans from now on, so no worries about her…)
If they didn’t have the space to finish it properly, couldn’t they have made it a double sized issue??
I’m especially sad about Manhunter. I really like her character, so it’s sad it seems we’re not gonna see her for a while. IMO she would’ve made a great Batwoman.
I hope the next incarnation of BOP is just Oracle, Huntress and Manhunter.
The whole Silicon Flats felt like a kick to the nads for the fans, I still remember when Lady Shiva made appearences or Oracle was smart… they even added Infinity to the BoP roster for no real reason, Orcale already has her rollodeck full of phone numbers to call in case of emergency (or when she needs a particular skill) a new character was pointless.
They killed BoP ;-(
P.S.- the First comic to reference Crisis is the Batman and the Ousiders special.
Batman and the Outsiders special from last week? That may be, but the previous issue of BOP referenced FC too.
theres an oracle mini coming out as part of the battle of the cowl series, so we’ll see what character developments come with that for barbara gordon. i wonder if itll fit in post final crisis and neatly dovetail both the batman rip and fc debacles. wonder wonder…
the last four issues of this have been a bit bumpy, which is a shame as its had a couple of decent arcs and is usually pretty entertaining.
Wow, so I guess Marvel hasn’t come out with any comics, huh MJ. Just a page full of DC comics, movie, and merchandise…..
maybe we haven’t gotten around to any marvel stuff yet – or maybe there’s nothing worth reviewing – or maybe matthew covered a bunch of titles in his rapid fire review… hmmmm….
Define a bunch.
More than four…
Look, I can tell you are upset because you don’t see any of your precious Marvel titles being reviewed, but we can’t review everything being released, so we have to pick and choose what is placed on the site. This past week there were three long running DC titles being canceled, which warranted coverage. In most weeks there is more Marvel coverage than anything else – it just depends on what is being sent our way.
Think Didio mentioned that Manhunter is moving to Gotham to work as a D.A. post-Final Crisis. She’s slated to appear in one of the ‘Battle of the Cowl’ era Bat-Books.
A bunch is five out of thirteen, more than any other publisher, I might add.
Also worth noting:
If you have something specific you want us to review, mention it by name. The worst that could happen is that we say no.
In summary, we cover comics. We don’t promise to cover everything, we don’t owe our allegiances to any publisher, and we certainly don’t feel the need to make certain that the coverage that we provide is precisely equal, quid pro quo, one-for-them-now-one-for-them balanced. Major Spoilers is a zero-sum game. I apologize if that is an issue, but being passive-agressive and rude will only get you more of the same.
Rude? No. Passive aggressive quite possibly. I’m not trying to be an ass but that is the status quo of what I see on MJ. You are right Matthew and Stephen I’ll do this the right way. I’m in Switzerland and can’t catch up on many American comics so I would love some Dark Reign reviews.
While the book may have referenced FC, I think Black Lighting is the first character to talk about FC in a DC book (maybe talk is the wrong word since it’s in an iner monologue). Also FC will reach nexts JLA, which means we’ll have an “Aftermath” in the main books, now it REALLY gonna hit the fan.
Oh snap!
great news about Manhunter!
oh god… based on the O&O it looks like Barbara is going to be some kind of Lantern?? Or quite possibly Batgirl again? Isn’t that some kind of regression to make her BatGIRL again after all these years of establishing herself as this independent woman that overcame her disability to earn the respect of every DCU hero?
Something tells me I’m going to hate the outcome of Battle of the Cowl and The Cure…
@Duckface: it’s been in the works for a while to have Barbara walking again, at the end of the Brainiac arc (like what 2 years ago?) her legs were starting to move again. In the pic of the Battle for the Cowl, we see in the background a discarded wheel my theory is that she’ll be Batgirl again or take-over as Batwoman instead of Kane.
Battle for the Cowl, Superman leaving for New Krypton and Wonder Woman facing her very own Doomsday in Genocide… We are gonna have another “One Year Later” kind of situation where the big 3 are gonna disappear from the face of the Earth for a while, I’m gonna guess about a year or so.
@Ricco: yeah but she never showed any frustration with her current state really… that Brainiac thing kinda came up and left. The way she ended the team was still, in my opinion, completely out of character.
It looks like DC will either have her be Batgirl (there is a new Batgirl title coming, and seeing as Cass’s last mini didn’t sell…), have her be a Black Lantern (wtf??), or kill her. All of which are BAD IDEAS.
Batwoman is definitely going to stay Kate Kane, at least for now: why would DC go through so much effort publicizing her run in Detective Comics this year as the first lesbian to lead a title if they were gonna drop the her for Barbara.
I totaly agree with the way she disbanded the team (made no sense what so ever), but maybe her having her legs back wont hurt her character too much, she’ll no longer be a general controlling her troops from afar but a field commander fighting along site her soldiers, could work.
Kane hasn’t had any real panel time since 52, I half thought she had been erased from conitnuity but she poped up here and there since.