WRITER: Duane Swierczynski
PENCILS: Juan Jose Ryp
INKS : Vicente Cifuentes



The Birds of What Now ?
The Birds of Prey are everybody’s (EVERYBODY’S) favourite all-female superhero team, revolving around the partnership of Black Canary (Dinah Lance) and Oracle (Barbara Gordon). During what I would confidently call the Golden Age, when the series was written by Gail Simone, Huntress (the Helena Berti-kick-ass-nelli version) was also part of the line up, but thanks to the double edged sword of the new 52, Huntress has been removed.

So what exactly is the line up?
Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl, Black Canary, Starling and a fourth, sort of guest star character (in this story, Katana).

Alright, Review Time.
Issue #15 marked the end of the ladies’ trip to Japan. It was no doubt one of the worst holidays they’d ever been on, but it was quite entertaining for the rest of us, even more so if you like ninjas. If you like ninjas, you really should try and get your hands on the three issue story, because dear heavens, there have been a lot of ninjas.

You might think three issues of ninjas would be slightly tiresome, and I did, but issue #15 changed my mind. Ryp guested on pencils, and from the first page his cinematic artwork energised the story.  I wasn’t completely sold on his extremely tousled portrayal of Black Canary’s hair (and we are talking ‘80’s tousled) and the airport waiting lounge sequence was a visual anti-climax. But then, to be fair to him, how exactly do you make airports impressive?

My other visual complaint is Trevor McCarthy’s cover. He has haunted the series since issue #13 and every one of his covers have been a disaster. They are messy, gaudy, the characters look stiff, and just... no.

Story-wise, Swierczynski is a man who likes fight scenes. His action-packed sequences are riveting, but on the quieter moments he doesn’t really delve into the relations between the women. Even though I loved the artwork, I think we could have lost one page of ninja-madness and replaced it with more conversation, and more (and boy, did I never think I would say this of the woman who replaced Huntress) Starling.

Starling has had all the best lines so far, and even Barbara Gordon (who has always left me a little cold) has a character that I want to spend more downtime with. However, I’m not convinced yet that Swierczynski is as big a Black Canary fan as I am. She’s still very much a main character, but aside from an amazing moment in issue #14 where she FLEW using her Skree (you know, the sound she makes when she screams) she hasn’t reminded me yet of why I love Black Canary.

Swierczynski was aiming for a very tense, high octane ride with this, but he doesn’t quite manage to pull off the tension over a three month arc (even with the countdown he had going). However, with Ryp’s mouth-watering artwork and the brilliant supporting character of Starling, I’m going to give this a 7.5/10.