Birds of Prey #17 (May 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #17: "Nuclear Roulette" is written by Chuck Dixon with art by Butch Guice.  His cover, depicting Power Girl desperately catching or stopping a nuclear missile pointed at New York is exciting, but the text on this cover is a little bizarre.  "Where are the Birds of Prey?  Power Girl would like to know."  Um, is that question supposed to be rhetorical?  Because Black Canary and Oracle are all over this issue.  And Power Girl is with them, working alongside Dinah and getting updates from Oracle.  There is some tension between them, yes, but it's not like the Birds have disappeared or like they're not trying to stop the Joker's plan to murder everyone in New York City.

Anyway, the issue opens with Black Canary flying over the ocean looking for the ship carrying a nuclear warhead bound for the Big Apple.  How is Canary flying?  Well, it has a lot to do with Power Girl and her post-Crisis crazy-ass Atlantean origin and powers.

Power Girl and Black Canary find a Liberian ship and Power Girl scans it and knows that this is the ship they're looking for.  She tells Oracle to get off her back, so there is clearly some history between them and PG doesn't care for her.  The blondes drop onto the ship where they immediately come under heavy fire from the crew.

Power Girl is mostly impervious to the bullets so she takes the brunt of the crew's attack while Dinah fights her way to the bridge to interrupt the missile launch.  She arrives too late, though, as the captain presses the button.

Six missiles launch from the ship, one of them slamming into Power Girl who is hovering in the air.  The missile that bumped her careens out of control and detonates in the water.  Oracle screams at Power Girl to get away from the blast sight, but Power Girl tells her it was only a conventional missile, not a neutron bomb.

Black Canary decides to interrogate the ship's captain to see how many, if any, of the missiles are nuclear.

As Power Girl races through the sky to stop the missiles, Oracle updates her that only one of the five remaining is neutron capable.  Then Power Girl shows an embarrassingly poor understanding of rudimentary mathematics, so either she's an idiot or Chuck Dixon is.  But anyway, Power Girl takes out two more of the missiles, neither of them being the nuclear bomb.

Now it's up to Oracle and her back up plans to stop the three remaining missiles.

The second half of the book is some tense Tom Clancy stuff, full of technical jargon pertaining to the Navy and national security (and kind of an awkward slam against President Carter).  I won't go into as much detail because you lose a lot of the suspense, but it's a cool sequence.

Essentially, Oracle contacts Major Van Lewton at the Pentagon and coordinates attacks with the United States Navy along the Atlantic Coast and violates some international laws.  U.S. Warships shoot down two of the three remaining missiles.

For the last missile, Oracle takes control of several satellites and bounces a laser off more than one, doing a "bank shot from pool" in order to blast the last missile before it hits New York.  The day is saved, everyone rejoices even though no one can ever speak a word of what happened hear because they all violated laws and treaties.

Back at the ship, Power Girl talks cryptically about why she doesn't like Oracle.  I have no idea what this tension is about, because PG just worked with Oracle a couple issues ago and they seemed fine.  Also, Power Girl's white and gold costume in this issue is stupid and her Atlantean origin is stupid.

This was a better issue than the last one.  It was nice to see Oracle do her thing and do it well, but Black Canary was shoved to the way background for this chapter.

Come back next week for a review of Birds of Prey #18.

Birds of Prey #16 (April 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

While the last issue of Birds of Prey set a newly raised bar for the title with the addition of Butch Guice on art duties, issue #16, "The Joker's Tale" takes another step in the wrong direction.  This time, writer Chuck Dixon wastes Guice's considerable talent by forcing him to draw 40 panels on about ten pages of the Joker talking to a wall in his cell.

We begin some time after the Joker addressed the United Nations as Qurac's ambassador where he apparently announced that everyone in New York City would die in a matter of hours.  The Joker has been captured, and he figures he's back at Arkham Asylum, safe from whatever doom awaits New York.  He doesn't know who is interrogating him, but he wastes a lot of time trying to talk about his origin and stuff.

When pressed, he suggests that New York will be rendered lifeless by a neutron bomb and kind of rambles about how the bomb came into his possession.  Then he talks about how he got to Qurac by murdering the ambulance crew transferring him to Arkham the last time Batman beat him up.

Then he tells a would-be origin story of murdering his abusive father on his eighteenth birthday, but his interrogator doesn't believe the story is true and doesn't care any.  The Joker is stalling, like Chuck Dixon is stalling.

Finally the Joker recounts how he addressed the United Nations and then luxuriated in his diplomatic limousine, believing he had immunity.  Then the diplomatic convoy is attacked by Power Girl.

While Power Girl takes out Quraci henchmen in her new yellow and white costume, the Joker makes a run for it.  But Black Canary chases him.

The Joker is struck by a pedestrian bicyclist and knocked into traffic, where he is finally caught and brought to Arkham.

Only he wasn't brought to Arkham.  Barbara Gordon surprises Joker by revealing she's holding him in New York so he'll reveal where the bomb is in order to save himself.

He tells her there are nuclear warheads on a ship in the mid-Atlantic.  As she starts to leave, he asks if he's the one who put her in the wheelchair so maybe he doesn't recognize or remember her.

Babs contacts Dinah and Power Girl...

... then she makes a surprise call to Major Van Lewton of the Pentagon's cyber-warfare devision.

I like the Joker, but does anyone really want to read 19 pages of him sitting in a cell, toying with his interrogators, occasionally flashing back to random acts of violence against people we don't care about.  After the joy of issue #15, this issue might be the worst Birds of Prey yet because nothing happens and it's not about the titular characters.

Come back in two weeks for a review of Birds of Prey #17.

Birds of Prey #15 (March 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #15: "Face Time" turns a corner as Chuck Dixon finally gets an artist who can elevate his limited scripts into something special.  Butch Guice comes aboard as the regular artist and his first issue is possibly the best of the series for his involvement.

After spending the last couple months dealing with super-powered villains and other-dimensional landscapes, Dixon lets Black Canary and Oracle let their hair down a little and spend some free time on character progression.  Of course, Dixon's better angels can't shout down all of his problems as he still wastes precious comic page real estate at the beginning of the issue.  This time, thankfully, it's not an unnecessary splash page followed by an equally unnecessary double-page splash.

Instead, he devotes the first two and a half pages to TV news coverage of horrible violence in the nation of Qurac.  Guice does a great job rendering the ugliness of the war and its combatants, but then we pull away from the news footage to reveal a salesman hocking high definition TVs and computer monitors to Barbara Gordon.  She ends up rolling over his foot with her wheelchair.  Yeah, the first four pages are just set-up for a not-that-funny gag.

Babs has come to a tech convention, but not to shop for new products.  After months or years of dancing around cyber-dating, she has finally come to meet her online friend, "Bumblebeeb".

Meanwhile, Dinah Lance spends her day off retrieving piles and piles of junk mail from the mailbox of her apartment.  She complains to Henry, the doorman.  Another tenant comes home, and when she goes up the elevator, Dinah notices the woman has a black eye.  Henry tells Dinah the woman is Olivia Crichton, Dinah's next-door neighbor, and she's single but has one gentleman caller.

Later, Dinah goes to Olivia's apartment and makes up a lame excuse to get inside and check out the bruise on her face.  Olivia insists that she's fine and her situation is none of Dinah's business.  Dinah offers her friendship and any help she can provide before Olivia makes her leave.

Back at the tech convention, Babs avoids more cheesy product placements while the news talks about the United Nations new, mysterious ambassador from Qurac.  This is foreshadowing, so you know.  Then, at last, she meets her blind date.  Bumblebeeb reveals his real identity, and would you believe it  it's Ted Kord!  They awkwardly introduce themselves and make up some half-truth cover stories for their jobs.

Elsewhere in Gotham, Babs' ex-boyfriend Jason Bard goes to see her at her apartment.  But instead of Barbara Gordon, he finds her other ex-boyfriend Dick Grayson hanging around, making repairs to stuff damaged during the Gotham Earthquake.  Boy, that's a little awkward; two exes meeting each other at Babs' apartment while she's out on a date with someone else.

Meanwhile Dinah gets more junk mail as a menu is shoved under her door.

I love this page, not because of Dinah's skimpy outfit but because of the Toth's Gym shirt, a nice little reference to the work of Alex Toth who drew a gorgeous Black Canary in Adventure Comics.  Anyway, out in the hall Dinah notices Olivia's "gentleman caller" go inside with two bodyguards left standing by the door.

Babs and Ted go to a diner to get to know each other better.  Ted tries to impress Babs by saying he  works in a similar law-enforcement capacity by designing nonlethal crime-fighting hardware such as gases, armor, and other kinds of deterrents.  She asks if he ever gets out in the field and he says no way, he's just in R&D.  Then she asks why he chose the avatar Bumblebeeb and he insists there is nothing significant about the name.

Meanwhile, Dinah watches TV in her bedroom in the fourth different outfit we've seen her wear this issue, and presumably only about an hour has passed.  She flips through channels and we get more foreshadowing of the mysterious, unseen ambassador from Qurac going to speak at the U.N.  Above Dinah's bed is a portrait of her father, Larry Lance.  A bump on the wall from next-door nearly knocks the photo on her head.  Sounds like Olivia is getting beaten by her man again.

After knocking out the bodyguards, Dinah hears gunshots coming from Olivia's bedroom.  When she sneaks in, she finds Olivia with the gun and the man lying dead on the floor.  Olivia sobs, saying she warned the man not to hit her again.

Babs and Ted walk through the lobby of the tech conference.  She confesses to knowing the truth about him, that he's secretly the costumed adventurer known as Blue Beetle.  He freaks out at first, telling her to keep it secret, but then he puts two and two together and realizes the only way she could know his double identity is because she had one of her own.  He stops her from rolling away and calls her Oracle.

They go back to the diner to start their date over again with their cards metaphorically on the table.

Then the news in the restaurant turns to coverage of the Quraci ambassador addressing the United Nations.  As he begins to speak, Babs is horrified that she recognizes the voice.

No costumes and no superhero antics, but still probably the best Birds of Prey story up to this point.  It's great seeing Babs and Ted Kord feel each other out on their date.  It reads like Barbara was legitimately surprised to find her date was Ted Kord, but once he introduced himself, she knew who he was.

Dinah, meanwhile, gets to kick ass and show her compassion for a victim of abuse.  The best parts of her story, though, are the artistic flourishes that Guice adds, such as the portrait of Larry Lance in the bedroom and the Toth's Gym shirt.  I am so glad Butch Guice becomes the regular artist for the next couple months.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #16.

Birds of Prey #14 (Feb 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #14: "Apokolips Express Part 2" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land and Patrick Zircher, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Black Canary and Catwoman are trapped on Apokolips with the mutated miniature Parademon who brought them there.  The Parademon, Pharzoof, starts recounting his origin and motives for kidnapping the ladies and a U.S. Marshal transport train full of G-list super-villains.  Dinah, however, really doesn't care about Pharzoof's origin and motives.  She hates him and she wants him to boom-tube them back to Earth.

Elsewhere on the planet, Marshal Dina--not to be confused with Dinah--leads her outnumbered and outgunned squadron in a desperate defense against thousands of Parademon warriors.  To balance the scales, she unleashes the train's five prisoners, which includes a clone of Guy Gardner and some other assholes.

The marshals we don't know and the villains we don't care about spend five or six pages fighting Parademons because Chuck Dixon and Greg Land still haven't gotten the hang of depicting character moments in this series.  Meanwhile, Black Canary and Catwoman sneak through the slave-operated diamond mine to find a motherbox.

Leaving Catwoman to her selfish devices, Black Canary and Pharzoof sneak into the armory of Granny Goodness' Female Furies.  It doesn't take long for the little monster to uncover a working motherbox, but before Black Canary can escape, one of the Female Furies attacks.

Back on Earth, Oracle sent Power Girl to the site of the marshals' train disappearance.  Power Girl hears from the agent-in-charge that the radiation readings around the train tracks suggest the train and its occupants were boom-tubed to Apokolips.

As the hordes of Parademons threaten to overwhelm the marshals, Dina leads her men in one final counter-surge with a rousing speech comparing them to other valiant defenders who all died horribly.

Black Canary fights Lashina for a little while.  Then Catwoman returns and jumps the Fury.  She tells Dinah to get away with Pharzoof and the motherbox.

Black Canary miraculously returns to the scene of the marshals' last stand and creates a boom-tube.  Black Canary, Catwoman, the surviving marshals, and the super-villains all escape, leaving Pharzoof back on Apokolips to be dealt with by Parademons and Female Furies.

On Earth, the villains are taken back into custody.  Black Canary reunites with Oracle via audio communication, and Catwoman slips away to burgle another day.

Thus concludes the most underwhelming story involving the Apokolips and the New Gods... until every story involving Apokolips and the New Gods published between the mid-2000s to present day. Once again, Chuck Dixon fails to capture real human character moments or progress the characters in any meaningful way, because Oracle is nothing more than a cameo in this two-parter, and Black Canary takes a backseat to Catwoman, a bunch of federal agents dressed like stormtroopers, and some lame-ass villains that aren't even worthy of the likes of Invisible Destroyer and Signalman.

This is the last issue to feature Greg Land and Drew Geraci for quite a while.  That's good.  It pleases me, and that's all I'll say.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #15.

Birds of Prey #13 (Jan 2000)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #13: "Apokolips Express" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land and Patrick Zircher, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Black Canary boarded a military train full of U.S. Marshals transporting a group of super-villains--and Catwoman who snuck aboard to spring the villains.  But then a mysterious evil-doer who has been manipulating Oracle for some time triggered a Boom Tube sending the train and its occupants across time and space to a distant world.

Dinah and Dina, the head of the marshals, climb out of the wrecked train trying to figure out what happened and where they landed.  Black Canary realizes pretty quickly where they ended up.

Marshal Dina shoots down some of the aircraft coming to investigate the train's sudden arrival and derailment.  The rest of the marshals secure the location and the prisoners on board, all except for Catwoman of course.

The mystery villain in the hat and trench coat makes his presence known and Marshal Dina opens fire and blasts him.  Black Canary freaks out, knowing that whoever that strange-o is he transported them to Apokolips and he can send them back to Earth.  So Black Canary and Catwoman head out looking for the mystery guy.

Back on Earth, Oracle has enlisted the aid of Power Girl to help her find Dinah and the mystery train.

Black Canary and Catwoman watch a flight of parademons soaring overhead toward the marshals' location.  Then the women find the damaged exo-suit of their mystery villain, which means whoever is behind this is actually really small and trying to hide his appearance.

The parademons attack the train, but the marshals are able to fall back and reposition.  Marshal Dina realizes she needs heavier weapons to defend the train and its cargo of villains.

Meanwhile, Catwoman wonders why Canary can't call Oracle for help.

As Black Canary and Catwoman skulk around Apokolips, they find a mining pit operated by slaves.  Catwoman is more interested in what the mine is producing than who is working it; she likes the shiny blood diamonds.

At the train, Dina fires a big honking bazooka weapon that blows away most of the parademons.  For the moment, the marshals have held them off but a prolonged defense will require a lot more power on their side.

Black Canary and Catwoman find the mystery villain crying behind a rock.  He turns out to be an unusually small parademon who wanted to kidnap the super-villains in order to lead a revolt.

At the train, Dina frees the five captives and tells them they all need to work together in order to survive.

Uh... I'll do more analysis when this arc is over, 'kay?

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #14.

Birds of Prey #12 (Dec 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #12: "Hellbound Train" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Dick Giordano, inks by Jordi Ensign, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Greg Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

We open with Black Canary dropping on top of a military train, guarded by U.S. Marshals in high tech armor, transporting a group of meta-human super-criminals.  As soon as Dinah lands on the roof of the train, the Marshals are hip to her presence and hold her at gunpoint.  Black Canary tries to warn them that the train is under threat of a jailbreak and she's there to defend it, but the guards aren't buying her story.  Oracle pleads with Black Canary through her transceiver to go easy on the marshals; they're not bad guys.

Unfortunately, Catwoman doesn't really care who or what they are, and she dives onto the train and knocks out two of the marshals before Black Canary can stop her.

Neither Canary or Catwoman are aware that their train ride is being observed by the mysterious, inhuman-looking stranger who set up Oracle and Black Canary to free Joe Gardner in the previous issues.  But Oracle already suspects a similar sinister presence behind this snafu.

While Black Canary and Catwoman argue about how they should proceed, more Marshals arrive, and open fire on the ladies.  The women drop down between two train cars.

The sonic bomb disrupts the marshals on the train roof while Catwoman gets herself and Canary inside the train's armory.  Catwoman says she was hired by some strange-o with a scary voice to knock out the train's communications network.  That's enough for Oracle to connect this operation with the Koroscovan op that went so terribly.

Then Black Canary shows Catwoman how little she wants to team-up again.

At that moment, a squad of marshals kicks in the door and demands Black Canary's surrender.  At the same time, more than a little conspicuously, Oracle gets a chat message from her online boyfriend, Bumblebeeb.  He still wants to meet her in person and asks her out on a date.  She reveals that she has tried to uncover his real identity and has failed, which means he could be more than just a really good hacker; he could be extremely dangerous to her.

But Bumblebeeb presses on with his flirtations and reveals something else that--if true--could be very interesting for Oracle.

Back in the train, Black Canary has been captured by the marshals who threaten to lock her up with the other super villains they have caught.  She continues to warn them about the pending breakout, but they don't want to listen.  We learn that the train is transporting five meta-humans: Shrapnel, Mammoth, Sudden Death, Spellbinder, and Joe Gardner, the last two of which the Birds of Prey have had some recent encounters with.  The military is shipping the villains to S.T.A.R. Labs so scientists can operate and see if they can cure them.

Black Canary keeps arguing that the marshals are in danger and someone or something is coming to steal these five super-villains.  Inexplicably, the head of the marshals listens to her.  Maybe because her name is Dina and that's sort of like Dinah?  I don't know.  Anyway, Dinah and Dina rush to the front of the train where the engineer tells them all of the reasons why nobody could penetrate or derail the train.

Then the mysterious stranger shows up standing on the tracks and summons a gigantic teleportation tunnel with a massive BOOM!  (Almost a boom-tube, if you will.)  The train passes through the tunnel and vanishes while also generating enough feedback to fry Oracle's entire system.

Oracle scrambles to get a backup computer online, but when she checks, the train and Black Canary have no signal.  They're gone.  So Oracle calls someone else she thinks might be able to help her.

I've said it before: at this point in his career, Dick Giordano's art was inoffensive, but hardly as stylish and great as it was in the '70s and '80s.  Still, I prefer this to Greg Land's artwork nine times out of ten.  The story, too, is better than what Dixon has given us over the last few months.  The train robbery is a nice, classic setup with some interesting twists.

Throwing Catwoman in the mix didn't really seem to add much to this chapter, but hopefully more will come of her inclusion next time around.  Meanwhile, I'm really excited to see what Power Girl brings to the table.  I'm also further intrigued who Oracle's mystery suitor is and whether or not it aligns with my prediction.

Come back in two weeks for a review of Birds of Prey #13.

Birds of Prey #11 (Nov 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #11: "State of War" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Dick Giordano, inks by Mark Propst, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

For the third straight issue, we open with a splash page of the Iron Brigade of Koroscova followed by a double-page splash of the Iron Brigade getting ignobly knocked off their high horse.  This time, it's by a squad of United States Marines come to enforce peace before Koroscova's troubles spill over its boarders into world war.

The Marines are supported by a CBRNe team in hazmat suits trying to assess the nature of the damage to Koroscova.

Said damage was caused by a reckless clone of Guy Gardner named Joe.  He escaped to the hills with the mad scientist that gave him super powers, and Black Canary who freed him without knowing who or what he was.  At the moment, Joe Gardner is feeling great.

Black Canary tells Joe she wants nothing to do with him.  Joe grabs the doctor and begins to fly away, but Oracle screams into her communicator that Dinah must stay close to Joe so that she, Oracle, can track him and obliterate him with the orbital satellite laser she hijacked from the U.S. military.  Not trying to conceal her displeasure at all, Black Canary calls for Joe to come back.  Of course, he's too arrogant to believe she wants anything other than his smoking hot body.

Elsewhere, the presidents of the United States and Koroscova play their games of diplomacy and international checkers.  Then Joe Gardner and the others arrive at the Marine encampment.

Black Canary gives Oracle the coordinates and then leaps out of the way as the laser targets directly on Joe Gardner.  It burns through the Earth's surface, but Joe is barely harmed.  Well, his feelings are hurt, I suppose, because he grabs Black Canary and threatens to kill her and the voice in her ear that he can hear.  He bats away Marines and asks if Black Canary has any last words.  She punches him in the face.  It has little effect except to bang up her hand, but it's a nice little moment of defiance before she dies.

Once Oracle realized her super laser couldn't kill Joe, however, she called in her backup plan.

 

Joe Gardner is knocked unconscious and half-buried in the dirt.  Superman makes sure Dinah is okay and then he heads back to Metropolis or wherever he's needed.  Black Canary flirts with the Marine commander and hitches a ride back to the states.  Though the mission is over and world war averted, Oracle isn't happy that somebody played her.

Back at the humanitarian agency that hired Oracle, the woman who lied to Oracle about the mad scientist's identity is greeted by the mysterious stranger who put her up to it.

The stranger teleports them both away.

By now it's pretty clear that Chuck Dixon writes about ten pages worth of material for a twenty-two page comic.  The first three pages of each of the last three issues aren't funny or clever; they're dumb and a bit insulting that I had to pay for it.  Dick Giordano's art is less stylized and ridiculous than Greg Land's but it's also not as strong as it was back in the Bronze Age.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #12.

Birds of Prey #10 (Oct 1999)

Previously in Birds of Prey...

Birds of Prey #10: "The Wrong Guy" is written by Chuck Dixon with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Drew Geraci, and colors by Gloria Vasquez.  The cover was done by Land and Brian Stelfreeze.

Last issue began with a splash page of the Iron Brigade, the high-tech-looking elite guard of the nation of Koroscova, pointing weapons at Black Canary.  This was followed by a double page splash of Black Canary standing there letting weapons be pointed at her, this followed by a fourth page of Black Canary taking out the Iron Brigade with as much effort as it takes to put on her costume.

This time we have the exact same formula, except on page two Black Canary is standing with a naked Guy Gardner, recently released from a genetic testing cell, and the mad scientist who put him there.  Also, the fourth page features Guy Gardner trashing the Iron Brigade while Black Canary tries to figure out how her former Justice League International partner got there.

Oracle tells Canary that the man isn't Guy Gardner, but rather "Joe" an alien clone created from Guy's DNA with Guy's memories.  Joe as much as confirms this to Black Canary and explains why he's in a Koroscovan prison instead of, like, a different prison.

Meanwhile, Koroscova is none too thrilled about a satellite super-laser being used against their property.  Koroscovan's government has a frank conversation with the President of the United States, and before long, the U.S. is putting Marines near Koroscova and the whole world is wide awake.

Back at the gulag, Oracle warns Black Canary that Koroscovan fighter jets are en route to bomb the place and kill "Joe".  At the same time, the more the mad scientist Popolynsklinov speaks, the crazier and nastier he sounds.  On a hunch, Oracle calls the humanitarian organization that hired her to rescue Popolynsklinov, but the woman she speaks to says they have no record of him as a political prisoner.  Afterwards, the woman leaves her office and meets a mysterious stranger, confirming that she did her part to set Oracle up.

Oracle now suspects Popolynsklinov wasn't a political dissident as she was led to believe, mostly when he says he volunteered for the chance to experiment on an alien clone and gave it super powers!  She does a little more research and discovers he is a legit mad scientist wanted for war crimes.  And she freed him, whilst violating international boarders and, y'know, laws.

Joe Gardner continues to wreak havoc with his new powers by throwing jeeps around the gulag and blowing crap up.  When Black Canary tells him they need to leave before the MIGs blow them all to hell, he grabs her and the doctor and flies away.

Joe leaves Canary and Popolynsklinov on a mountaintop for safety, but before he leaves he pulls Dinah in close for a big kiss.  Then he flies off toward the jets.

Dinah is so disgusted that Basically-Guy Gardner kissed her she might not even notice the fact that he's punching jets out of the sky and waging a war against Koroscova.  Koroscova, on the other hand, has no doubt taken notice.  As has the rest of the world.  The issue ends with Oracle watching the news as the United States, Koroscova, and any other interested player get ready for war.

As usual with a Dixon/Land comic, this issue took about ninety seconds to read.  There are some interesting developments--I like that Oracle is being manipulated so we know she's not infallible.  I also like how Dixon didn't spend too much time on the overly complicated history of Guy Gardner up to this point.  It's not important, and I wouldn't want to be more confused than necessary.

Greg Land's art isn't as offensive in this issue as in others, but there are still a ton of big panels and splashes that speed up the story without giving the impression of added value.

Come back next Tuesday for a review of Birds of Prey #11.