Brotherhood of the Fist Part 2: DETECTIVE COMICS #723

In the first part of "Brotherhood of the Fist", the mysterious and deadly Monkey Fist cult, in an effort to restore their honor and pride--launched an all-out assault on the Green Arrow Connor Hawke and every other renowned martial arts master in the DC Universe.  Connor teamed up with Batman to ward off the Emerald Monkeys, but a self-destruct mechanism in may have trapped them beneath a mountain.

Detective Comics #723: "Brotherhood of the Fist Part 2: Fight Back to Gotham" was written by Chuck Dixon, drawn by Alex Maleev, inked by Bill Reinhold, and colored by Gloria Vasquez.  I first read this issue back in 1998 when it came out, but I completely forgot that Alex Maleev worked on a couple issues of 'Tec in the '90s.  Also, I made such a big deal of Maleev drawing Black Canary in last November's issue of Batman: The Dark Knight that I forgot he had already drawn her in this issue sitting in my old longbox.

The issue opens with Batman and Connor Hawke crawling their way out of the smoldering wreckage of the Kobra headquarters and finding themselves isolated on the snow-capped mountain.  Isolated, but not alone.  More assassins crawl out of the snow and attack.

Meanwhile, Nightwing has returned to Gotham City, which is still recovering from the cataclysmic earthquake that nearly destroyed the entire city.  He teams up with the new Robin, Tim Drake, and the two head out on patrol together.

While Nightwing and Robin fight Monkeys in the city, Batman and Connor fight them in the country.

I love how Batman speaks of Oliver Queen to Connor in these issues.  You can't help but read the subtextual respect and mourning even when it sounds like Batman is criticizing the former Green Arrow.

Before long, the snow Monkeys give up the fight and run from Batman and Connor, choosing to let the mountain itself kill them.

Back in Gotham, Nightwing and Robin are pinned down by spear-tossing Monkeys when Eddie Fyers shows up and guns them all down (the assassins, not the heroes).  Fyers knows Tim Drake from a previous encounter, which is all that keeps Nightwing from attacking the man he calls a "murderer".

Instead, Fyers tells them about the Silver Monkey, the Monkey cult, and the fact that anybody with martial arts mastery (including Judomaster, Katana, and the Question) has been targeted.

After Nightwing convinces Fyers to bug out of town before Batman gets back, he and Robin go to Oracle to confirm the ex-CIA spook's intel.

This issue came out between Birds of Prey: Manhunt and the ongoing series.  Black Canary is still working as Barbara Gordon's field agent.  She was on a simple recon mission working a case when the Monkeys attack her.

Elsewhere, at the Brotherhood of the Monkey Fist's lair, the Sensei tells his followers that Connor Hawke and Batman are dead and that the time is right for the Monkey cult to take its place as combat champions of the world.  Of course, the original Silver Monkey, who is sitting in a prison cell, doesn't believe Connor is dead.  And he's right.

Like the first part of the story, chapter two of "Brotherhood of the Fist" is a fun, action-packed story.  The infusion of Nightwing and Robin into the story brings a youthful energy and levity that could be lost in Batman's brooding and Connor's stoic determination.  Fighting crime isn't a war for the Robins the way it is for Batman; it's a job.  A job they enjoy the hell out of, but a job nonetheless.  Batman can't turn it off, but Tim and Dick can, which gives them a swagger and attitude while they patrol that resonates like Spider-Man or Daredevil.

The other terrific part of the story are the cameos and guest appearances.  Black Canary and Bronze Tiger are two of my favorite characters, and to see them together, actually working together now, is a treat.  Can't wait to see what happens to them tomorrow when I review Part 3!

BIRDS OF PREY #16 (New 52)

Previously...

Katana moved on to greener pastures after fighting a personal but incomprehensible battle against the Dagger Clan in her homeland.  The others returned to Gotham City where Black Canary decided they needed to recruit a new teammate, because if the series only had three leading characters, the writer would have to spend time revealing things about them, and we can't have that.  (This book sucks.)

Birds of Prey #16: "Lights Out" is written by Duane Swierczynski with pencils by Romano Molenaar, inks by Vicente Cifuentes, and colors by Chris Sotomayor.  Molenaar and Sotomayor provided the cover, which dramatically depicts the Talon Strix fighting Batgirl, which is just about the only match-up that isn't included in this stupid book.

The issue opens with the Birds meeting on a rooftop instead of, like, any more natural place for people to meet.  Batgirl has just brought along her candidate to replace Katana as a member of the team.  To everyone's surprise, she brought a Talon, one of the deadly undead assassins from the Court of Owls that tried to murder every prominent person in Gotham City a couple months earlier.

One of the Talons tried to kill the Birds for as-yet unexplained reasons, so it stands to reason that Dinah and Starling would be appropriately shocked, even mad about this unannounced decision.  After all, this is a comic book, and this is a textbook situation for how you get two good guys fighting before they reconcile their mistaken first impressions and team-up.  That's what you would expect, and the thing is, as cliche as that would be, Dinah and Starling would be perfectly justified in doing that!  Why would Batgirl bring a Talon to a rooftop meeting and not give them any warning of what she's doing?

Of course, Dinah keeps a level head and trusts Batgirl to explain herself.  After all, the Talon makes no aggressive move toward them that would suggest she's there to attack.

Then f***ing Condor shows up out of nowhere and attacks her!

Starling tackles Condor off the edge of the building, while Batgirl tries to calm down the brain-damaged super-assassin who came for a friendly meeting and got attacked by a stranger.  Naturally, the Talon, whose name is Strix (Latin for Owl), feels ambushed and lashes out, punching Black Canary, exactly as you'd expect given how volatile all of these characters are.  I thought Batgirl was supposed to be smart...

Remember a couple issues ago when Condor pushed Starling off a roof and nobody did anything about it.  Well, she remembers, and gets some payback in this scene.

I still say she should have gotten payback on Dinah for not doing anything to help her, but what do I know, I'm just the idiot who paid for this piece of crap story.

Anyway, everyone calms down and just accepts that Strix and Condor are now part of the team.

Hey, Dinah's first two draft selections were homicidal Batman villain and a gangster's bodyguard who looks and talks like a trailer park whore.

Dinah's upset that Batgirl didn't ask permission to recruit a Talon?  Hmm... That sounds like there are serious problems with respect and leadership in this team.  Maybe Dinah should address that.

...

So, three weeks later, the team arrives at a... a place, like a factory or a shantytown... on the "fringes of Gotham City" to take down a Basilisk weapons deal.  We've heard Basilisk mentioned a couple times, but never explained what it is.  I guess because it's named after a mythological serpent that Swierczynski wants us to assume they're a terrorist organization like Hydra.

The team splits up.  Starling and Strix go off together: the mute and the motormouth.  Starling keeps talking, trying to be funny, but not succeeding.  Meanwhile, Dinah and Condor flirt and--

And... Omigod!

Condor is... is... revealing information about himself to the reader...

Holy crap, that's characterization!  Swierczynski did it, he actually did it!  He gave us information about one of the characters he was writing!  True, it's the laziest, dumbest kind of characterization and the writing is pathetically juvenile, but hey!  

Moving on.  The Birds beat the crap out of some nobodies and then they have to bust into a warehouse or something.  Dinah is going to use her Canary Cry when she feels that old familiar sensation washing over her... er, rushing through her... er, she turns from Black Canary to Black Lightning.

I guess she couldn't control her sonic scream, which is odd, because you shouldn't have to make vocal sounds, but whatever.  She screams and it destroys f***ing everything around her, causing a blackout in Gotham and maybe, based on the last page, maybe kills Starling.

The Characters

Black Canary keeps calling Condor an idiot in that way that says she wants to take him to bed and do things to him they only have words for in German.  She's also a horrible leader and a bad judge of character.

Batgirl comes off as naive and dangerously shortsighted, not for trusting Strix, but for not giving the women who would have reason to attack Strix fair warning that she's invited her to join the team.

Strix doesn't talk, so she's like the perfect character for this kind of series.

Condor used to be part of a team, but they broke up, and that made him sad, so he didn't want to be part of a team anymore, because he didn't want to risk breaking up and being sad again, but he met this team of sexy ladies and thought it might be worth eventually being sad if he could bang one or two of them.

Impressions/Questions

The opening fight scene tells me that Swierczynski read a lot of old Marvel Team-Up books (and nothing else), because it feels like the kind of ironic, mistaken intentions fight between heroes that eventually leads to laughs and camaraderie.

The thing is, Condor attacked the Talon thinking he was protecting the other ladies.  A) Strix never made any kind of hostile or aggressive moves that would suggest she came to fight, so Condor is an idiot.  B) If Condor just assumed she was a danger because she's a Talon, how does he know?  He wasn't involved in the Night of the Owls event.  How would he know they're dangerous?  C) Maybe Condor isn't an idiot; maybe he tried to be overly macho and chivalrous thinking the ladies would be so grateful they'd sleep with him.  That's what I'm thinking.

This issue had all the same stupid things I've come to despise about this book, but it also had real attempts at characterization and substantive dialogue.  It figures that Swierczynski is finally making forward progress with this series in his penultimate issue on the book.

Grade: C-

BIRDS OF PREY #15 (New 52)

Previously...

Katana was kidnapped and taken to Yokohama, Japan to be punished for some alleged crimes against the mysterious Dagger Clan.  The Birds followed her, rescued her, and then let her get captured again when the Daggers assaulted the hideout of Dinah's new crush, Condor.  Also, somewhere in the city there might be some kind of bomb about to go off.

Birds of Prey #15: "Sayonara, Katana" was written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by fill-in artist Juan Jose Ryp, with inks by Vicente Cifuentes.  Chris Sotomayor provided the colors for the issue and Trevor McCarthy did the cover, which, to me, looks just way to busy and "flat" to truly pop or look interesting.

The issue opens up with our new friend Condor interrogating an informant.  Condor scares the guy by jumping off a roof in Yokohama and flying over the streets, insinuating that he'll drop the man if he doesn't talk.  The thing is, we don't know who this informant is or what information Condor was trying to scare out of him.  The guy reveals that if they don't get out of the city, they and everyone will be destroyed... but this information comes as a complete surprise to Condor.

So now Condor knows about the bomb, but that's not the information he was originally seeking.  And we don't get to find out what he was looking for or what this scene is about, because Swierczysnki's writing style is f*** your questions; I need to bang out 18 more pages so I can get back to playing video games!

Meanwhile, back at the Sushi bar hideout...

Note that Dinah's dialogue acknowledges that she did not communicate a plan during their escape last issue.  She just ran away from the fight with the Dagger Clan, leaving her friends and teammates to save themselves.  And, of course, Katana didn't make it out.  She's being held in some factory or whatever where the Dagger leader is smelting her husband-sword.  

Tatsu asks the Dagger Clan the questions the readers are asking: Why is this happening?  And Garasuki, the leader, gives the answer that the writer always gives: No comment.

There is no explanation given for why the villains want to punish Katana and her late husband.   There is no reason given for why the villains want to blow up an entire city and let the survivors believe for ages to come that it's all the fault of Katana and her late husband.  They even consider themselves a Suicide Cult.  That takes an extreme amount of hatred and faith, and we don't get to understand any of it.  

Anyway, fifteen minutes before the bomb is set to go off, Black Canary, Batgirl, and Starling storm the enemy compound with as much foresight and planning as you'd expect from this sad, sad series.  Dinah and her friends don't know about the bomb, so they don't know that they're rushing a clock.  Dinah and Starling have military and intelligence backgrounds, and Batgirl is of the "Bat-family" so there is zero #@$%ing excuse for any of them to have just rushed into an enemy enclave without proper reconnaissance or knowledge of the Daggers' numbers or tactics.

But whatever.  The assault gives Katana enough time to free herself.

And then something weird is going on with Dinah.

Something is up with her powers.  This has been teased a bit for the last couple issues and we'll get to it again later.  In the meantime, Condor shows up, digging the bomb out of the sewer.

Who would imagine dying covered in raw sewage?  Why would anyone ever imagine that?

Katana destroys the bomb.  Then something inexplicable happens, because the script has a quota of bizarre, nonsensical things that need to occur every issue.  Katana gets the Dagger leader to surrender his forces by holding her blade to his throat.

Wait, I thought this was a suicide cult...?  I thought they were all planning to die for their mission.  I thought they wanted to punish Katana at the expense of millions of lives.  Why would they give up when they have the numerical advantage?  Why would they care about saving their leader?  They're a suicide cult?!!

Whatever.

Threat averted, the ladies go to the airport where Tatsu tells the others she is leaving this joke of a team so she can have a solo series and a role in a Geoff Johns-written Justice League knockoff.

This is the closest we usually get to characterization, so naturally it feels cheap and forced and just horribly written.  Look at what Starling says before the hug.  Dinah offers to keep the team in Japan so they can help and Tatsu politely declines; then Starling says, "Stop fighting."  That's not what fighting is, you stupid Mary-Sue flake!

After dropping a hint that Black Canary totally wants to #@$% Condor, Starling questions her about the freakiness of her power fluctuations.  Dinah's explanation is a little vague, but almost suggests that her sonic scream used to be affected by her dead husband Kurt Lance, like he amplified her latent powers, and now it's happening again even though he's supposed to be dead.

In the end, we have a disappointing scene where the ladies discuss replacing Katana.  I hate Batgirl's reasoning that there needs to be a fourth member.  We don't get enough characterization for two characters per issue, let alone four.  And of course, since this team needs more wildcards than it can responsibly handle, Batgirl's recommendation is a Talon assassin from the Court of Owls!

The Characters

A new clue is teased about Dinah's past.  We don't know what her sonic scream exactly is or where it comes from, but this makes it sound like Kurt Lance was pivotal to either its origin or her control over it.

I'll miss Katana because of all the characters, she annoyed me the least.  But I don't think Swierczynski ever knew what to do with her, including during this story arc where she was supposed to be the star.  Her departure was abrupt and felt like a last-minute editorial decision.

Batgirl does nothing of interest in this issue.  Neither does Starling, but nor does she say something stupid enough that I want to punch a wall.

I don't know that Condor needed to be in this issue.  He didn't have to fetch the bomb; that could have been done by someone else or in some other way.

The Talon named Strix makes her first Birds of Prey appearance here.  It's just a last page tease, so I'll have more to say next week... but is it too late to bring Poison Ivy back?

Impressions/Questions

This series has beaten my standards down so low that I finished re-reading this issue and thought, Wow, easily one of the best issues so far.  It's only after I think about it, when I analyze it, that I recognize all of the unanswered questions and unexplained decisions.

The art by Juan Jose Ryp was pretty good.  Nothing about his style or composition really grabs me, but regular artist Romano Molenaar has had some problems in the past, so... I don't know.  The art was fine.

Grade: C+

BIRDS OF PREY #14 (New 52)

Previously...

With the ladies heading to Japan to find Katana's stolen sword, this series seems to have come around.  I mean, the writing still sucks.  Really, really sucks.  Swierczynski is awful!  But the story, at least, is more interesting than anything we had in the first year of publication.

Birds of Prey #14: "Three Hours of the Condor" was written by Duane Swierczynski, penciled by Romano Molenaar, inked by Vicente Cifuentes, colored by Chris Sotomayor.  Trevor McCarthy did the cover.

Last issue, the mysterious Dagger Clan stole Katana's sword, the Soultaker, and transported it back to Japan in an effort to bring her back, as well.  Along the way, the sword was captured again by the equally mysterious Condor, a man with a flying suit.

Issue #14 opens with Condor attacking another group of Dagger Clan ninjas carrying a package, only this time, the transport is a lure to catch Condor, and the ninjas are really the series' leading ladies.    On the roof of a Yokohama high rise, Black Canary's team demand the sword from Condor.  He responds by fighting and showing off an unexplained unexpected unexpected and unexplained telekinetic superpower.  

Condor forces Canary to kick Katana in the face, shattering her mask.  Then he forces the ground under Batgirl's feet to collapse, knocking her off the roof of the building.  Then he deflects the bullets Starling unloads on him, before hitting her, knocking her off the roof of the building.

You read that right, and I want to make sure you got it because it's important for what comes next.  Condor knocked two of Dinah's teammates--who cannot fly--of the edge of the building.

Then Black Canary manages to land a kick that--you guessed it--knocks Condor off the side of the building.  (Seriously, how small is this roof?)  What does Dinah do then?

Yeah, she leaps off the building to save the enemy who is wearing a flying suit with wings.  She didn't leap off the roof to save either of her friends, and we never see what happens when they fall, so for the moment we're left assuming they died while Team Captain Canary risks her own life to save the man who likely killed them.

Maybe this was an art mistake, not showing us what happened to Starling and Batgirl, but I'm leaning more toward Swierczynski's shitty, shitty writing being the culprit.  He's clearly more interested in sophomoric deaf jokes than maintaining continuity with his cast.

We briefly cut away to a scene with the Dagger Clan leader addressing an underling who questions his judgement.  They refer to Katana as the disgraced one, and remind us that somewhere in the city is a "device" that is going to go off in a matter of hours.  We don't know what it is or what it's capable of because shut up, that's why.

Six hours until the mystery event, Condor brings the ladies to a factory in an industrial part of down.  Note that Starling and Batgirl and present and not dead, though we're never told how that happened.  Condor gives Katana her husband/sword back, then we get more deaf jokes.

Also note how Swierczynski uses a period between every word to stress the slow, deliberate, patronizingly annoying way Dinah speaks to Condor.  That gets the point across, and it could almost be funny.  Almost.  If Swierczynski was a better writer.

Say her line out loud, or even just in your head.

"Do.  You.  Really.  Want.  Us.  To.  Kick.  Your.  Ass.  Again?"

Did that seem like it took... an awfully long time to get the point across?  That's because it's too wordy.  That type of joke only works if the sentence is half as long as it is here, but again, shitty writing.

Anyway, Katana says she wants to destroy the Dagger Clan.  Condor says that's crazy because they're too big and too powerful.  Then the Dagger Clan says hi, we're here now, let's fight.

Dinah and Condor have a kind of strategic mind meld, because they're so in-tune with each other after she saved him at the expense of her friends.  She uses her sonic scream and he uses his telekinesis to level half the enemy, while everyone else scrambles.

Then something as equally inexplicable as Canary letting her friends fall of the roof while she jumps after Condor happens.  Dinah grabs Condor, tells him to open his wings, and then she screams so the force blows them through a window and out of the factory.

Suss that out.  Dinah leaves the battle with Condor.  Not with Batgirl, or Starling, or Katana.  She doesn't exfiltrate with her team--that she is supposedly the leader of--she grabs the new guy--new guy--and bugs out leaving everyone else to exit on their own.  There is no coordinated escape; it's just chaos.  Batgirl crashes through a window on her own.  Starling calls Amanda Waller for some reason, and Katana seems to be captured.  Who the $#%@ are these characters and why don't they work together?  Why isn't the writer and/or editor of this book pouring concrete into potholes instead of working in professional comics?

The issue ends with Dinah and Condor getting to safety.  Dinah is more concerned about some strange new feeling inside than with the safety of her so-called friends.

Then Condor knocks her unconscious with a TK blast, despite thinking she's pretty, and walks away.

The Characters

I think if you took Batgirl out of every issue of this series, the stories would not be affected in the least.  The only noteworthy thing she does in this issue is say a line that Swierczynski must have thought was funny while he stole it from Die Hard.

Katana does nothing in this issue except whine about her sword and get captured again.  I thought this story arc was going to be about her, but this issue was more about Dinah connecting with Condor in a way that only a nine-year-old girl would understand.

Condor was piquing my interest, but the telekinesis power seems a little too much.

As for Black Canary, either Swierczynski hates her and wants her fans to be ashamed of her, or he doesn't understand how people interact with each other.

Impressions/Questions

Everything that might have been enjoyable about this issue is ruined because the characters are abominable.

In the past I have thought that maybe Swierczynski's real talent has been eclipsed by wretched editing, but I can't stand by that excuse forever.  The writing is atrocious and I will never buy another book written by this author.

Grade:  F

BIRDS OF PREY #13 (New 52)

Previously…

The first year of Birds of Prey in the New 52 era was mostly horrible.  The characters and situation never developed beyond the basic team-of-female-heroes premise.  Why was this team formed?  What is their mission?  What is their home base?  Why should any of them trust each other given their sordid backgrounds?  What binds them together?  What do they do when they're not being manipulated, poisoned, and turned into walking bio-chemical weapons of mass destruction?  None of these questions were answered.  In issue #0, which came out after issue #12, we finally saw the first meeting of Black Canary, Batgirl, and Starling, but their encounter was antagonistic and hostile, and ultimately not very memorable.

Will the Birds' sophomore year turn things around?  Let's see!

Birds of Prey #13: "Swear by My Eyes" was written by Duane Swierczynski, with art by the new team of Romano Molenaar and Vicente Cifuentes.  Trevor McCarthy provided the cover.

The issue begins with some tattooed guy carrying a package down a flight of stairs to a heavy-looking door in the ground.  Captions tell us we're in Yokohama, Japan, 1,000 feet below sea level.  The man drops the package through the door into a black pit.  Then we're told: 24 hours until detonation.  This clock will countdown throughout the issue.

Cut to Gotham City where Katana is going on a "food run" while the rest of the team recovers from the toxin that Poison Ivy infected them with during the previous story arc.  I know that Ivy used the rest of the Birds to do some horrible things, and some of them are wanted anyway, but I can't figure out why Katana would need to be in full costume, running across rooftops to get food.  Is she going to walk into a convenience store or the drive-thru at Taco Bell dressed in her samurai armor and mask?

We'll never know, because she is ambushed by members of The Hand The Foot Clan Red Ninjas some bad guy ninjas that we'll eventually learn are called The Dagger Clan.  Still reeling from Ivy's poison, Katana is in no condition to fight them off.  The Dagger Clan assassins stop short of killing her and take possession of her sword, the Soultaker, the vessel of Tatsu's dead husband.  Taking the sword, they boast, will hurt her worse than death.

Katana returns to the Birds' hideout where everyone else is still taking the antidote that Batman created for them.  The location of this place is unknown, but there are a lot of plants around and what might be the glass windows of a greenhouse in the corner of Panel 2.  Was this the same base they used while working with Poison Ivy?  We hardly ever saw them during "down time" so it's unclear.  But if so, why would they return to a base known to one of their enemies.  Even if Ivy was put back in Arkham Asylum, they would have to consider every safehouse that Ivy knew about to no longer be safe for them.  Surely, people with Dinah and Starling's paramilitary backgrounds would know that.  Or, were we supposed to think Poison Ivy was dead at the end of issue #12?

Tatsu tells the others that her husband-sword was stolen by her enemies and asks their help in getting it back.  Dinah says, sure, when we get around to it.  Starling and Batgirl back up her contention that they're not healthy enough to chase some ninja assassins to Japan, even though it's like, super important to one of their friends.  Katana decides to go alone.

In Yokohama, the Dagger Clan members transporting the Soultaker are observed and then ambushed by a mysterious man called Condor who wears a flying suit.

Condor defeats the ninjas and takes the sword.

Tatsu arrives at the airport in Japan where she meets with representatives of the Dagger Clan.  She has come alone because her friends totally suck.  The Daggers capture her and tie her up in their hideout, all while the countdown from the beginning ticks away the hours.

Wait.

When Katana comes back to the Birds' hideout after her attack, the countdown says 22 hours until detonation.  When she arrives at Haneda Airport, the countdown says 16 hours until detonation.  Only six hours have passed, even though a flight from the East Coast of the United States to Yokohama takes more than 13 hours!  Hell, she probably couldn't even book a flight that left for six hours.  In all likelihood, by the time she landed in Japan, whatever this thing that is supposed to detonate would have gone off under her feet.  1,000 feet below her feet, but whatever.

If this was a one-time mistake, I could forgive it, but these sorts of gaffs are littered throughout this series, and they convince me that either Swierczynski is an idiot or his editor is, or they both are.

Anyway, Tatsu wakes up in captivity, where the menacing leader of the Dagger Clan makes some cryptic remarks that suggest a personal or professional connection between the Clan and Katana.

He also claims the Clan stole the sword to lure her to Japan because kidnapping her and trafficking her illegally across boarders is really inconvenient.  Are you $#@%ing me?!!  People are kidnapped and smuggled from country to country all the time!  You're a gang of knife-throwing ninjas and you can't transport a woman to Japan, even though you got all your knives and costumes through a metal detector?  What the hell is wrong with you guys?

As the ninjas move in for the kill, the leader mentions that in less than fourteen hours, her homeland will be poisoned forever.  Was the package containing a biochemical weapon?  We haven't had many of those in this series?  Just nine, I think, hardly any at all…

Then the cavalry arrives.

Yes, Starling says, "Konichiwa, bitches!"  It's the only funny or memorable thing she ever says.  Too bad Swierczynski stole it from a Dave Chappelle skit.  Screw you, Duane, for thinking we wouldn't catch that!

Starling and Batgirl fight the ninjas while Black Canary rescues Katana.  She explains that Starling planted a tracer on her and they followed that.  Wait, why didn't they just go with her in the first place? Why did they have to lie about coming with her?  She was in Japan for just two hours before they arrived--when did they decide to come after her?  Again, how long does Swierczynski think a plane ride from the U.S. to Japan takes?

…

Black Canary uses her sonic scream to take out the head Dagger… except it doesn't take him out.  Then she has an odd thought, that her "Canary Cry" has awakened something in her blood she didn't think possible.  I don't know what the hell she's talking about yet.

Outnumbered and out-knived, they take one Dagger ninja captive and exfiltrate to a random safehouse in Japan where Dinah allows Starling to torture information out of their hostage.

The ninja eventually gives up what we knew ten pages ago.

The issue ends with Starling telling the others that Condor stole the Soultaker, and a creepy image of the ninja smiling, like this all worked out according to a plan of some kind.  Not sure what that's about. Twelve hours have elapsed--somehow--in the countdown for whatever is going to detonate.

The Characters

Dear Lord, it is nice to not have Poison Ivy tagging along anymore!  Don't get me wrong, I like her as a Batman villain, but it was getting impossible to justify her membership on this "team" every month knowing who she was and what she would do the minute she got the chance.  I wouldn't go so far as to say this team has chemistry yet, but they look and sound infinitely more natural without Ivy.

I really like that Katana is getting a story built around her past.  I don't think Swierczynski understands what characterization is or how it works, but giving the lead to Katana at least makes her more compelling and shows off some of her other traits.

Black Canary and Starling's decision-making is incomprehensible in this story, and Batgirl is here for window-dressing only.

But…

Behold!  There are new characters worth noting!  There are villains I more-or-less understand!  Success!

Condor is a mystery, but from this little glimpse, at least, he seems to be a mystery worth solving.  Is he the New 52 version of someone we know, maybe Black Condor from the Freedom Fighters?  We'll have to see.  I don't really like his costume… but what else is New (52)?

And the Dagger Clan!  Thank God, a villain I can point to and clearly identify as the bad guy!  The first six or seven issues of Birds of Prey were spent dealing with a villain that couldn't be seen or understood and didn't even end in any coherent fashion.  It was painful, and even now I don't even remember most of the details.  But I get evil ninjas!  Simple.  Perfect.

Impressions/Questions

I would probably enjoy this series more if I didn't have to review it.  When I finished re-reading this issue, I thought, hey, not bad, probably the best issue of the series so far.  But the more I delved into it, the more flaws I found and I just get frustrated.

Well, it still is probably the best issue since the first one.  There are dumb mistakes and dumb characters, but enough new stuff that didn't piss me off to make me forgive the other, dumber things.  And, while Molenaar and Cifuentes aren't the greatest art team, they're the best fit for this series that we've had so far.

Grade: B

BIRDS OF PREY #12 (New 52)

Previously…

Poison Ivy betrayed the Birds, infecting Black Canary, Batgirl, Katana, and Starling with a toxin that will release plague viruses if they don't help her environmental crusade.  Couldn't you just die?

Like the first eleven issues of this wretched series, Birds of Prey #12: "Heartbreak and Vine" was written by Duane Swierczynski.  Cliff Richards comes aboard this issue for art duties, with colors again provided by Gabe Eltaeb, and a cover by Stanley Lau.

Sadly, most of us knew this team/book was finished long before Starling poisoned a murderous corporate fat cat because Poison Ivy made her.  I've had misgivings since the first ish.

Despite not having any apparent leverage, the Birds managed to convince Poison Ivy to not kill anyone in her quest to rid the world of polluters.  Ivy has the CEO poisoned, just like her "teammates" claiming he'll die horribly if he doesn't change the awful drilling practices of his company.

"We're not friends," Dinah thinks, in what might be the understatement of the first year of the New 52.  It's true, friends don't try to kill each other.  At the height of the original Birds of Prey, the ladies were really, truly friends.  They cared loved each other.  They spent time with each other.  Dinah, Babs, and Helena didn't just look out for each other during field ops, they took care of each other's personal lives, too.  Do the new Birds even have personal lives to protect?

Thank you, Mister Swierczynski, for once more reminding us that this series is nothing more than a handful of mediocre action sequences strung together by the thinnest of cliched plots.  And then this happens:

To recap: If the Birds don't do what Poison Ivy says, they'll die in six months, releasing a cataclysmic airborne virus on the planet.  If they die before then, the same result will occur.  So Black Canary starts to fight Ivy while they're in a Gulfstream jet!

Dinah, Batgirl and Katana all attack Poison Ivy because she violates their "no killing" policy, even though, as Ivy points out, Katana has a sword that she routinely uses to kill people, and Black Canary confessed to murdering her husband.  Starling, who is piloting the jet, spins it around upside down a couple times to break up the fighting, and then tells them to get ready for their next target.  Said target is an offshore oil drilling platform.

The Birds parachute out of the jet, while Starling ensures that it crashes into the platform.

Okay, I gotta call bullshit on this right away.

1. They crashed their plane?  How are they planning to escape?  They mention that the explosion is meant to scare away the crew so presumably the lifeboats and escape craft will be taken by the time the ladies conclude their mission.  So what's their exit strategy?
2. Why did they parachute so far from the rig?  It might take them an hour to swim towards their target while emergency response vehicles--as well as news helicopters--will fall on the drilling platform like something in an analogy.  What if not all of them are strong swimmers?  Any of them could drown and release their plague virus?
3. Starling crashed the plane into the drilling platform?  The platform that drills for oil?  First of all, causing a major explosion on a big rig like that would endanger every life on the facility.  In fact, it would be miraculous if every crew member wasn't blown to hell, so the Birds' ban on killing is a sham.

Whoever came up with this strategy is a goddamn moron, and I'm not talking about Poison Ivy or one of the other characters.  I'm referring to the so-called talent who thought up this sequence.  Whoever it was did absolutely zero research into this kind of attack.  And the reason I know he/she did absolutely zero research is that any research, any at all--the bare minimum--would have show how impossible this strategy would be.

While sabotaging the drill, they find unexpected survivors trapped onboard, probably because the fiery debris of a jet airplane just dropped onto their break room.  Starling refuses to go ahead with their plans while innocent lives are at risk.  Poison Ivy knocks her out and blows up the rig.

Somehow, everyone gets out alive.  Ivy even carries Starling outside.  I guess she wanted her alive instead of releasing the virus that would make the world exactly the way she would like it.

After that, they return to Gotham so Poison Ivy can recuperate in a weird chemical bath being operated by someone who looks vaguely doctor-ish.  The "doctor" doesn't give a name, because who cares what his name is and Swierczynski couldn't think of anything.

I don't know if the image of Batgirl tugging on her glove like she's about to perform a rectal exam on someone is the creepiest panel of this series or the best, but it's one or both of those.  Then she flashes her gang sign which is the cue that they're not going to take being used by Ivy any longer.

Wait.  Batgirl is… going for help?  What is she six years old?  She's a superhero!  She wears the bat symbol.  She is the help people seek!  I get that she's presumably running to Batman so he can work on a cure for the toxin in their system, but this could have been handled in a less spastic, juvenile manner.

The others fight Poison Ivy again.  Starling gets her wrists possibly broken or hurt.  Doesn't matter.  Katana slices up Poison Ivy's back severely enough to take her out of the fight and maybe even kill her.

Black Canary questions Katana's methods, which once again calls everything about this team and its nature into question.

The Characters

Black Canary acknowledges that she was a fool to ever trust Poison Ivy.  Admitting it is the first step, I guess…

It sure seems like this is the last time we'll see Poison Ivy in this series.

Impressions/Questions

This issue begins and ends with Black Canary addressing questions that point out the faults in this series.  "This is not why I formed this team," Dinah says at the end.  Probably true, but the fact is, we don't know why she formed the team.  We still don't know the team's agenda or their purpose.

Maybe those questions will be answered in issue #0 that comes next, but I doubt it.

Grade: F

Next week I'll start pulling double duty on my coverage of Black Canary in the New 52.  I'll continue to recap this series every New Fifty-Tuesday, but before that, come by over the weekend when I review Team 7 #0.