Birds Of Prey Review
Gail Simone writes team-ups that I love to read. And her treatment of female characters is excellent, not for the fact that she brings a genuine female sensibility to the writing, but because every woman meets a personalized balance between bitchiness and heroism. Under her pen, the sass required from a character becomes the reason they take on the bad dudes, which goes deeper than the way many writers just do "I'm an empowered female. I kick ass." I knew I'd love Birds of Prey before I popped open the cover, but damn, Simone outdid herself on this first issue. More gushing, after the jump.
With BoP, you've got Huntress, Lady Blackhawk, Oracle, Hawk and Dove, and at the forefront, Black Canary. Instead of a cluttered modeling show with each woman fighting for prominence, each lady (and the single, strapping lad) appears, lends a little of their personal input to a situation, and recedes until the narrative has formed its fledgling team. The action is bookended, opening up the comic with a rescue mission, leading into a lot of foreboding dialogue, and concludes with the threat revealed after much hesitation. But the book never lets on about how stratified it is, it keeps pumping its characters at you until they're literally beaten into submission.
Though Black Canary leads us in and out of the book, it's not crowded by her thoughts; Instead she acts as the narrative string of the team, introducing us seamlessly to her sister's usage within the team, then into Oracle's recruitment drive and her thoughts. As the backbone of the team, Oracle gets enough time to flex her genius as much as the fighters of the group display their own physical assets. Huntress takes out street thugs, yet suffers an emotional breakdown during a meeting with the girls (which is beautifully contrasted with Black Canary's muted concern for showing emotion). Dinah gets to put her superpowers to use before the end of the first scene, right alongside Lady Blackhawk's display of aerial badassery. Here we see Canary as less of a team leader and more of a compliment to nearly every other member of the group. Hawk and Dove are mainly crafted through one another, in the way that Hawk is introduced beating up criminal cheerleaders while making misogynist comments, where Dove's first words are an attempt to restrain her partner's brutality. And after it all, Blackhawk still asks her if Hank's a "fancy" boy, a question as indicative of Hawk's personality as it is of Zinda's.
Through this all, Ed Benes provides gorgeous art with a restrained level of the cheesecake that he's famous for. Sure, there are a few crotch-tastic kicks and shadows that exist only to highlight parts that don't need highlighting, but his pencils also provide detail to the Icelandic glacier that open the story, and crowd the cityscape on the essential rooftop sequences. Hawk is beefy and vicious, and shows that the Brazilian artist has talent beyond the delicate rendering of female anatomy. Still, I'm going to fanboyishly give some credit to Gail Simone for writing a script that doesn't provide him with as many opportunities for sexual saturation. There are plenty of moments that call for emotive silhouettes and pensive face shots that seductive porn lips just can't ruin.
This book is a winner folks, it's one of the few great concepts that Brightest Day opened the door for. Birds of Prey should be a success, not for the obvious equation that Simone writes for the female readership, and Benes draws in the males, but because the overall package sells its emotion and its action cleanly.
Rubber Justice
Posted to Comic of the Week, Review on 14 May 2010
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