Birds of Prey #56-59

 Birds of Prey #56-59

Originally released in 2003

Written by Gail Simone

Art by Ed Benes

I chose these issues because they're the first arc of Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey.  I've heard good things about her writing, but aside from a few episodes of Justice League Unlimited, I haven't read or seen her other work, so I figured this would be a good place to start.

From early on, the banter between Black Canary and Oracle (with Huntress thrown into the mix later) is a highlight.  At this point, Barbara Gordon is in a wheelchair as a result of the Killing Joke, resulting in her becoming the chief source of information for DC's heroes.  Her intelligence gets practical displays here - I know that, in some cases, scenes of Batman outsmarting the villains or figuring out their plans can get a little contrived (take, for example, a scene from the 60's Batman movie), Oracle's deductions don't feel like they're stretching things. (one of them relies on an earlier scene where Savant asks her three questions, with one being in French, one in Greek, and one in Chinese, and while I'd have to take the story's word for it about the accuracy of the latter two, I did notice that Savant's French seemed to have a grammatical error in it)

The art, by Ed Benes, is good, with clear/consistent facial expressions and plenty of detail, but there are times where it takes on a voyeuristic quality, leering at Huntress and Black Canary at times.  While I'm sure there are more gratuitous examples out there in comics, it can be tough to take this completely seriously as a result.

What starts as an attempt at stopping a white collar criminal reveals a large-scale blackmailing plot by Savant.  Savant is intelligent, but has a questionable grasp on time, resulting in scenes like the one above where he thinks that Batman has shown up, mixing up the present with a previous ill-advised attempt at stopping crime.  While not as incompetent as the version of him in the 2021 film The Suicide Squad, he's quickly shown to be well out of his league, with Barbara quickly outsmarting him despite his much-vaunted intelligence, and he's only a threat to Dinah because she's caught off-guard when chasing after the white collar criminal and suffers an injury to her throat (leaving her unable to use her Canary Cry) and legs (which makes walking much more difficult).

As a result of Canary's capture, Oracle is forced to turn to Huntress.  She admitted to Canary earlier in the story that Huntress is probably her least favourite of the Bat-Family (likely due to her willingness to kill), though once they start working together, there's no hint of that. (or no cases where Huntress kills, for that matter)  Maybe that will change when they meet face-to-face in later issues.  The plot of this is fairly straightforward, and Savant is forgettable, but the whole thing is elevated by Simone's dialogue.