BIRDS OF PREY #21 (New 52) & TALON #9 (a little)

Previously...

The ladies went to a Court of Owls laboratory to rescue their friend Starling from the cold clutches of Mister Freeze, only to discover that Starling had been in league with Freeze all along.  Words were said, punches were thrown, and it was all very messy.  Mister Freeze escaped, and probably Starling did, too.  Batgirl took Strix to the rooftop where they were confronted by another Talon.

Birds of Prey #21: "Talon vs. Talon" was written by Christy Marx with art by Romano Molenaar and Jonathan Glapion.  Molenaar also draws the cover with Vicente Cifuentes inking.  This issue was hyped by DC in the solicitations as the first part of a crossover with Talon #9.

The issue opens with Calvin Rose, a rogue Talon who has turned against the Court of Owls just like Strix has, attacking Batgirl so he can kill Strix.  I haven't been reading Talon other than the zero issue, because the premise didn't appeal to me (like Strix doesn't appeal to me), so I don't know why he is working for the Court again, but it's kind of explained later.

Anyway, Rose attacks Batgirl, but she senses that he's not bringing his full force to the conflict; it's clear that he's targeting Strix and doesn't want to seriously injure Batgirl.

Rose manages to separate Batgirl by tossing her down the stairs and jamming the roof door shut.  He offers to make Strix's death as merciful as he can.

She responds by tackling him off a roof, because it's been like, three issues since someone fell off a roof in this comic.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the Owls' laboratory, Condor makes himself useful by boosting their computer hard drives to gather valuable intel.  Black Canary is less useful as she continues to fume over Starling's betrayal last issue.

Condor reveals a little more about his mysterious past, rehashing the lines he dropped back in Japan when he told them he used to be part of a team and things didn't work out well.  He tells Dinah he knows how it feels to be betrayed by someone he trusted.

Before they can start making out, Batgirl tells them they have a Talon trying to kill their Talon and they should meet up on the roof.

Meanwhile, on the street down below, Strix and Rose both survived the fall on account of their regenerative abilities.

When Strix sneaks back into the building, Rose understands that she wasn't trying to kill him; she was protecting her friends in the same way that Rose is trying to protect two people I've never heard of.

Dinah, Batgirl and Condor get to the roof to find neither Talon around.  Condor does some aerial reconnaissance to confirm they haven't taken the fight to another building.  Batgirl knows they're still in the building so they split up.  She goes back downstairs to find her friend, giving her alone time to think about the mess of her life currently playing out in the issues of Batgirl.

As soon as Dinah and Condor are alone again, they stop caring about Strix or anything other than their raging hormones.

Oh god... Seriously?  You're surprised that he knows your name, Dinah!  You've been working together for three months.  Why wouldn't he know your name?  Why would you keep it from him?  What kind of trust does that build?  What kind of leader are you?  This is why everyone you recruit betrays you!!!

You didn't know his name?!!!  Why are you recruiting teammates you don't know?!!!  The problem isn't everyone you trust lies to you--the problem is you're stupid and you put your trust in villains!!!

The only reason they don't get pregnant in this scene is the interrupting sound of the fight taking place upstairs where Strix is about to be executed.

Calvin Rose chooses not to kill Strix, even at the risk of his own life and the two hostages the Court has taken from him.  Strix shows some sympathy for him, given that she knows a thing or two about being used as a soulless killing machine by the Court of Owls.  She comes up with a plan to help him and the two Talons rush off together.

And the last page says "To Be Concluded in Talon #9" which I will discuss after my thoughts on this chapter.

The Characters

We learn more about Condor in this issue.  His first name is Ben, for one thing, and he knows a lot about Dinah--her name for one thing--including the connection her husband, Kurt Lance, had to her powers.  He suggests that he can be a focus/control the same way that Kurt was.  Is this just a line so he can see her naked, or is there really something about Condor that can help her focus her Canary Cry?

Impressions/Questions

I give Christy Marx credit in this issue for not only delivering an action-oriented script that also moves Dinah and Condor closer together, but also doing her homework about other series.  This issue features two different narrators, Batgirl and Calvin Rose, and each feels relatively authentic and natural.  Clearly, Marx read enough of Gail Simone's Batgirl and James Tynion IV's Talon to get a feel for these characters and present this tale from their differing perspectives.  That's more than I can say for Tynion's script for Talon #9, which I'll come back to.

Most of this issue is about Calvin Rose, which is unfortunate because I don't care about him and I found his part of the comic and the fights with Strix to be a little boring.  I hate that Dinah's incompetence as a leader is reinforced yet again, but at least she's getting some action and some use of out of her lips that don't involve shattering walls.

My biggest complaint with this issue is that DC continues to lock this book into the Batman community of comics without utilizing Batman himself to boost its popularity.  Batgirl, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Mister Freeze, the Court of Owls, Talon... lots of second or third tier Batman characters, but never a substantive connection to Batman or a chance to branch out and form its own identity.

We're almost two years into this series and I still don't know why the Birds of Prey formed or what they're supposed to do.

Grade: C+

But wait, there's more!

Talon #9: "Uneasy" is written by James Tynion IV, with art by Graham Nolan and Miguel Sepulveda, the latter of which provided the cover.  This issue was billed as the second part of the crossover with Birds of Prey.

...

That's a big fucking lie!  The Birds do not "guest-star" in this comic.

Black Canary appears on the cover only.  Batgirl appears in a recap panel on page 1.  That's all the first page is, a recap of BoP #21.  Strix appears in the next three pages and that's it.  She doesn't say a word (because she doesn't say a word) and she doesn't do anything (because she doesn't need to).  She's less than a background characters; she's set-dressing.  The rest of the story is just another chapter in Calvin Rose's normal adventures.

I feel like Christy Marx at least took the time to figure out who Rose is and what his situation was in the current series because she mentions it and even writes from his POV.  Tynion, on the other hand, clearly doesn't give a fuck about the Birds, and if he bothered to put any research into their series, he certainly didn't transfer it into his script.

This issue was a cheap and blatant example of false advertising.  I paid $2.99 for this comic based on the claim that the Birds of Prey guest-starred in it.  They didn't.  DC lied to me and stole my money.

BIRDS OF PREY #20 (New 52)

Previously...

Mister Freeze attacked the Birds, capturing Starling and offering to return her in exchange for Strix, former Talon of the Court of Owls.  The Birds agree to meet Freeze at the Court's laboratory where Strix was revived, but once there, they realize it was all a setup.  Freeze wants to possess the Court's secret of reviving the dead, and Starling is working with him.

Birds of Prey #20: "The Cruelest Cut" is written by Christy Marx with art by Romano Molenaar, and Jonathan Glapion taking over for Vicente Cifuentes on inks.  Molenaar and Cifuentes provided the cover, which was already drawn before Christy Marx took over writing the series, so her hands were kind of tied in terms of story direction.

When Black Canary met Starling roughly a year ago, the latter was working for a criminal.  Despite her secrets and mysterious background, Dinah chose to trust Starling and partner with her.  Just like she chose to trust Poison Ivy, like she chose to trust Condor and Strix without knowing them.  She trusts killers, thieves and mercenaries, and she has the nerve to act surprised when they betray her.  That's how issue #20 begins, with Dinah pissed off that yet another one of her hand-picked teammates turned traitor.

Starling tries to defend her actions, claiming that she owes Mister Freeze for some reason, and that the Court of Owls is a mutual enemy so why not work together to everyone's benefit.  While Dinah and Starling debate whether betraying your friends is a big deal or not, Batgirl tries to free Strix from the ice.  Freeze gets tired of talking, though.

As the fighting resumes, the two Court scientists make a run for it.  Starling tries to shoot them, but Condor uses his telekinesis to deflect her bullets.  Then Black Canary and Condor rush Freeze.

Meanwhile, Batgirl gets to live out so many fanboy fantasies... by beating up the always annoying, ever poorly written Mary Sue, Starling.

Black Canary and Condor are trapped behind an ice wall.  Condor encourages her to use her sonic scream to free them, but she is justifiably worried about losing control of her power and killing everyone.  Good thinking there.

Dinah remembers how her late husband, Kurt, helped her control her sonic scream before she killed him (which, if you read yesterday's review of Team 7 #8, you know he only helped her focus her scream one or two times, and she didn't kill him with the scream).  This is becoming a trend; whenever Dinah thinks of Condor, she remembers her husband.

While Dinah uses a thermite grenade to burn through the ice wall, Mister Freeze catches up to the Owl scientists.  He tortures and kills them to get the information he needs, which ends any need to continue fighting the Birds of Prey.

Starling makes a run for it as Dinah and Condor free themselves.  Dinah's anger gets the better of her and she lets loose with a "Canary Cry" at Starling.

Does Starling die?  It's unclear, but no she doesn't.

Then, because Dinah is tired and spent, she's able to use her sonic powers on a low enough setting that she can free Strix from the ice without harming her too much.

Dinah and Condor go looking for Mister Freeze while Batgirl takes Strix to the roof to warm up.  Once they get there, they find the other Talon, Calvin Rose, waiting for them.

The Characters

This issue is almost entirely action, so there isn't much in the way of characterization.  Black Canary is still worried about losing control of her super powers, but not so much that she doesn't use the power twice in this issue: one time, she overdoes it, one time she's fine.

Condor is inserting himself closer and closer into the role of love interest.  There's an obvious mutual attraction and I'd be surprised if they're not sleeping with each other a year from now.  I'd also be surprised if he doesn't turn out to be a traitor, too, since that's how this series does things.

Batgirl doesn't do much but fight Starling, and Strix is encased in ice for the majority of the issue.  Starling does a lot of talking to defend her treachery, and this would be a great opportunity to give her some humanity or some depth of character.  But since her reasons for working with Freeze are "secret", her defense is just whining that the others don't understand her.  It's really weak and unsatisfying.  Like everything about Starling.

Impressions/Questions

I guess this issue was one of the best of the series, because there was so much action that the characters didn't have time to be dumb or make me sad.  That said, the action wasn't very creative or interesting.

Grade: B-

BIRDS OF PREY #19 (New 52)

Previously...

Mister Freeze attacked the Birds in order to capture the silent assassin Strix so he can crack the secret of the Court of Owls' regenerative process.  The Birds defended their new teammate, but Mister Freeze captured Starling and escaped.  He demands a trade--one bird for another.

Birds of Prey #19: "A Cold Day in Hell" is written by Christy Marx with art by Romano Molenaar and inks by Vicente Cifuentes and Julio Ferreira.  Ardian Syaf provided the foldout cover in the same fashion as all of DC's "WTF" comics from April, 2013.  In this case, like many of the covers from that month, the foldout spoils the big cliffhanger moment of the issue, making reading the twenty pages in between kind of pointless.

Mister Freeze has given Black Canary's crew one hour to hand over Strix in exchange for Starling.  The tradeoff is to be at the Court of Owls lab where Strix was revived.  Condor acts overly defensive, insisting that he's not a traitor when neither Dinah nor Batgirl accused him of anything.  However, this is as good a segue as any to reveal what the ladies know about Condor for his benefit as well as that of the readers.

Condor might be Native American?  So, I guess this is the New 52 Black Condor... Okay, I'm cool with that, but I still don't like his costume any better.

Also, this characterization is clearly for the readers who never learned a damn useful thing about Condor back when "the other guy" was writing this comic, because all of this intelligence should have been shared by Dinah and Batgirl back when Condor first joined the team weeks ago.

While the ladies provide a Who's Who entry for Condor, Strix runs away in fear of returning to the mad scientist lab that spawned her.  Condor and Batgirl track her down, while Dinah "puts some gear together" and reflects on the first time she met her late former missing husband, Kurt Lance.

Two things.  First, she says she first met Kurt after she and Amanda Waller joined Team 7.  Well, that don't square with Team 7 #0, in which she and Kurt were already a couple when Lynch recruited them for the team, and Dinah and Kurt recruited Waller together.

Second, if she hated her codename "Canary" she probably didn't come up with it herself.  That means she was assigned that codename.  Um... Canary's are known for being sacrificial animals that go into dangerous situations to die.  I would have some concerns if that was my assigned codename.

Elsewhere, Batgirl finds Strix on a rooftop crying like the tortured little girl that she is.  Strix is afraid of going back to the lab.  Batgirl plays big sister and assures her that she will be protected.  And Stryx is all like, okay, let's go, but in a totally silent way!

Condor carries Black Canary, who can't help but enjoy the feel of being in a man's arms.

To their surprise, they don't find Mister Freeze waiting for them in the lab, just a couple of cosplayers from San Diego ComicCon wearing Owls masks.  The lab is still being used for the Court's crazy experiments.

Yeah, Dinah, thank God it's not your friend, just some random dead girl.

Batgirl realizes they weren't meeting Mister Freeze here, they were leading him.  That's when he attacks.  He freezes Strix and Condor with his cold gun, but when Dinah gets the edge in their fight...

...she is ambushed by...

Yep.  Starling is a traitor working with Mister Freeze.  Total shocker, right?  Unless, of course, you looked at the cover.

The Characters

We get more characterization for Black Canary, but once again it's a little forced, a little cliched, and not that compelling.  She "met" her husband by fighting in a training session.  Okay, been done, but not awful.  They had a competitive relationship, I guess, but we've never seen anything like that because despite his eight or nine appearances in Team 7, we still never really knew anything about Kurt Lance or cared about him.

Strix shows some emotional depth, some fear, some courage, some rage.  That's about it.

We know more about Condor.  He's probably the best character in the book by default just because he doesn't act like a fool, just sort of a cavalier macho cowboy type of superhero.

Starling's betrayal is surprising only in that she claims to be working with Mister Freeze.  But we already knew she was a traitor...except she was working with Amanda Waller.  I'm glad her duplicity has been exposed because I don't like her and I want her to leave the book, so...whatever.

Impressions/Questions

So far, the two Marx-written issues have been vastly superior to those written by "the other guy".  I get the sense that Marx really wants to flesh out Dinah and the others and make them deep, interesting characters.  That's great, but it shines a harsh light on how horribly mishandled the comic has been since the start.  That's not all on the previous writer; a lot of that is on the editor(s).

The threats seem forced or lacking or boring, and the characters still feel off.  Mostly, this book has yet to find its identity.  Why does this comic exist?  Why are these people a team?  What are they fighting for?  Why are they together?  Why should I care about them?  Because I don't!

Grade: B for boring.

BIRDS OF PREY #18 (New 52)

Previously...

It took way, way too long for DC to put someone other than Duane Swierczynski on Birds of Prey, and initially they announced Jim Zubkavich as the book's replacement writer.  Of course, for reasons that have nothing to do with creating good comics, that never came to be.  Instead, DC signed Christy Marx to write the continuing saga of Black Canary and Company based on covers that were already drawn.

Birds of Prey #18: "Burning Cold" marks the debut of new series writer Christy Marx, with art by Romano Molenaar and Vicente Cifuentes.  Chris Sotomayor colored the issue and Emanuela Lupacchino provided the cover, which features yet another Batman villain infringing on this series.  "Mister Freeze Demands Vengeance" the cover proclaims.  Oh yeah, has he been reading this book for the last eighteen months, too?

The issue begins with a Talon held captive in ice, being tortured and questioned.  The opening image isn't dramatic enough to warrant a full-page splash, but given Marx only had fifteen minutes to write this issue, I'll let it go.  Mister Freeze has captured the Talon and demands to know some vital bit of intelligence that the Talon isn't coughing up.  Considering who Mister Freeze is and what his driving motivation has been for the past two decades, we can probably assume that he's after the Talons' regenerative secrets so that Freeze can save his beloved Nora.

Knowing that he won't get the answers from this Talon, Freeze lets his unseen partner execute their captive with a shotgun while they proceed to target another Talon.  And if I had to hazard a guess, I would think they're talking about Strix, the latest Bird to join Black Canary's team.

We then transition to the Birds of Prey's hideout, which is identified as Black Canary's dojo.  Hey, I think that's the first time we've ever been given a specific location for where these people meet other than rooftops.  (Because, you know, the previous writer sucked!)  Strix is combat training with Condor, the other new member, while Batgirl asks Dinah to let the formerly murderous Talon who very recently tried to kill Dinah live with her at the dojo.  Starling, for her part, just stands around looking grumpy.

Christy Marx does something interesting in the beginning of this scene.  She has Dinah think about the other characters and form conclusions about them as well as herself.  This is what people who get paid to tell stories call characterization, and it's something this series never really had before now.  (God, the previous writer sucked!)

Anyway, Strix gets a little carried away during their sparring session and throws Condor into a full-length wall mirror.  This upsets Dinah because, hey, that shit's expensive, which leads Strix to lash out and fight Dinah.  Then Batgirl has to come in and put Strix down.  Everyone is fighting because that's the kind of relationship these characters have.

Oh, okay.  I've thrown people into glass because I needed to get some buffalo wings in my face, too.  No hard feelings.  And seriously, there are none, because the next thing you know, Condor is taking Strix into the kitchen to make omelets.  Batgirl leaves because she has a life and friends and goals and consequences and stuff, all in her own self-titled series that probably doesn't suck.

Then we get a moment between Dinah and Starling that reminds us how much the previous writer sucked.

Right, right.  When we left our main character, she was a liar and a coward.  She refuses to take responsibility for the damage and bloodshed she has caused because she cannot control her super powers.  And the one person who is able to confront her about it--her friend, supposedly--Dinah refuses to acknowledge.  This is painful to read, but at least it's consistent so I can't fault the new writer.  Also, Starling walking out on Dinah is probably her best moment in the series.

Then we get another first in the series.  We see Dinah going to get a coffee.  She's not punching somebody in an invisibility suit.  She's not putting her trust in Poison Ivy.  She's not admonishing Katana for using lethal force.  Nope, she's sitting in a diner and reflecting on her life.  We're actually getting introspection and evaluation that we never got in the previous issues.

Dinah is approached by an elderly black woman, who, if you've ever seen TV or movies, you know is always a source of cosmic wisdom.

It's not terribly original, but for this series it's enough.

Yeah, she's evaluating her life choices while looking in a broken mirror.  Original? No, but it's as deep as this book has ever gotten.

Then the whole team returns to the dojo, claiming that Dinah sent out an emergency distress call.  I think this kind of trap was used back in the first story arc when they were all brainwashed, but whatever.  As they realize they've been duped, Mister Freeze comes a-callin'.

There's a bit where Starling shouts, "Freeze?!" and he replies, "That's Mister Freeze to you."  It's stolen from Batman: The Animated Series.  Just pointing that out.

Freeze's cold gun proves too much for the combined fighting prowess of Black Canary, Batgirl and Strix, as well as the Canary Cry and Condor's telekinesis.  But when Freeze realizes he cannot capture  Strix, he escapes with Starling instead.

The Characters

Black Canary is still a liar, a coward, a killer, and a dumbass, just like before.  Only now, she seems to recognize the problem, which is the first step to solving it.  Will she redeem herself?  We'll see.  Or we won't.

Condor has the potential to liven this book up with humor and a dash of machismo, but he doesn't do much this time.

Strix seems more like a plot device than a character, which is always tricky with someone who cannot communicate or even emote.

Batgirl continues to serve no purpose in this series other than wearing the bat symbol on her chest and supposedly bringing in more readers.

Impressions/Questions

This issue reads better now than it did months ago when I first read it.  It's still not great, but it takes steps in the right direction.

The book still feels like it's clinging to Batman's coattails instead of trying to walk on its own.  Not only do we have another Batman villain in Mister Freeze, but the story is rooted in the Court of Owls/Night of the Owls saga.  That crossover already created one sort-of heroic Talon in his own solo series.  Why did we need Strix thrown into this book?  Her existence makes the other guy less special, and vice versa.

The action piece that takes up half the issue isn't that exciting or well-crafted.

What hurts this book the most, though, is that it doesn't depart enough from the dreck that came before.  It still feels like a Swierczynski story, or maybe the editor's story, with Marx's dialogue written over it.  Which it is, really; that much she admitted.  The stink of past failures lingers on this new issue, which tries very hard to seem fresh.

Grade: B-

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+