Sunday, August 15, 2010

Birds of Prey #4

Birds of Prey #4: Writer: Gail Simone. Pencils: Ed Benes & Adriana Melo.

Review: This story is told from three different areas, so to keep things somewhat straight, I'll go story by story. First up is Oracle. Oracle was captured by Creote and Savant and brought to a high bridge in Gotham City, where Savant reveals that he had been captured by the Calculator's goons a while back, and tortured. With Savant's mental disability(he has difficulty processing time), the torture(which occurred two years ago)seems as if it took place yesterday and every other day that Savant lives. As such, Savant has been reliving his torture every minute of every day, and since he feels Oracle is responsible, he wants her to suffer as he did. It's then that Savant reveals that he didn't bring Oracle to the bridge to kill her, but to kill himself, knowing Oracle would forever feel guilty for her failure with him. With that, Savant hops off the bridge, but is saved at the last second by Oracle, who manages to lunge out of her chair in time to grab Savant's arm. Unfortunately for Oracle, she has no leverage to pull Savant back up, so she begs Creote to help her, but Creote doesn't want to since he had promised Savant he would let him go through with his suicidal wishes. Savant begins to slip, and Oracle continues to beg Creote for help, and at the last possible second, Creote reaches down and pulls Savant back up, saving him from the abyss. Savant is upset that Creote disobeyed his wishes and demands to know why, so Oracle tells Savant what everybody else could see, that Creote was in love with Savant. Next up we head to Huntress, Dove, Lady Blackhawk, the injured Hawk, and the injured Penguin. While trying to ferret Penguin to safety, he suddenly turns on them and stabs Lady Blackhawk through the chest with his umbrella, revealing that he was in cahoots with White Canary and Savant from the beginning. When asked why, Penguin explains that he was to separate the Birds so White Canary could get Black Canary alone, and Savant could capture Oracle. In payment for his help, Penguin was promised Savant's files, which had massive amounts of information on several heroes and villains, and for somebody like Penguin, that information is worth more then almost anything else. Penguin keeps his blade to Lady Blackhawk's neck, so none of the other Birds would make a move on him, but Huntress begins to distract Penguin by telling him that his partners were going to betray him, which shakes Penguin's resolve just long enough for Dove to blindside him and knock him out cold. And finally the main event, Black Canary vs White Canary. The two women fight and after a while Black Canary reveals that she had figured out the identity of White Canary, the sister of the Twelve Brothers in Silk. Who? The Twelve Brothers in Silk were a bunch of master martial artists who were humiliated by BC back in the original Birds of Prey series. White Canary killed all of her brothers to save her father from the shame of their loss to BC. And with that, the two women fight for the better part of this comic, with White Canary eventually gaining the upper hand on BC. With BC down and nearly out, White Canary takes that opportunity to taunt BC, telling her that next she was going to systematically hunt down and kill everybody that BC was close to, from Roy Harper, to Ollie Queen, to her daughter, Sin. With that, BC gets up and in one final flurry knocks White Canary out of a window, crashing on top of her into the street and finally taking the fight out of White Canary. BC cuffs White Canary and demands to know if she was behind the murder of the man BC was accused of killing in Reykjavik. This issue ends with White Canary telling BC that it was Lady Shiva(!)who killed the man, and that if she let her out of the cuffs, they could both go after Shiva to kill her.

What I Thought: Damn was that a long review! I'm going to have to shortchange my Red Robin review now... Anyway, this issue was pretty good, although I'd say it wasn't as spectacular as the first 3 issues of this series. I liked seeing Penguin punched in the face, so the Penguin parts were good, but parts with Oracle left me with mixed emotions... Don't get me wrong, I like Creote and Savant. A lot actually. But I did find it kind of hard to feel overly sympathetic for Savant in this issue. Not all that long ago, he really tortured BC in the old Birds series, so the fact that he was tortured by Calculator's goons seems almost like poetic justice. So I did have some difficulty finding sympathy for Savant. I did feel bad for Creote, who had promised Savant that he wouldn't stop him from killing himself, even though he was obviously in love with Savant, and of course I felt bad for Oracle, who only wanted to reform Savant, and never expected things to go so wrong. I have to say, the White Canary reveal was a pretty big disappointment. I can hardly even remember the Silk Brothers storyline(I know Wildcat was involved), so the fact that White Canary was connected to that was a bit of a letdown. For the past three issues, me(and my fellow awesome Birds fans)have been speculating on the identity of White Canary, and I'd have to say that almost anything would have been better then the reveal that we got here. With that all said, I DID enjoy this comic, I just can't help but think it could have been better.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.And with that one act, Dove moved up several spots on my favorite characters list.

24 comments:

  1. Lmao that punch was so epic. I loved all three storylines climaxing at once. What do you think will happen with big Hawk? Fake out and nothing happens at all?

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  2. When you were reading this comic, I bet you KNEW I'd be putting that pic somewhere on my blog! :D

    Yeah, I'd say total fake out. The girls get him to the hospital, and by next issue he's fine. I'd laugh my ass off if he died or something, 'cause that would make NO sense, and possibly make my head explode! He comes back and survives like 4 issues of BoP, and then dies again! That would do it for me! :D

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  3. Oh, what did you think about the White Canary reveal? Personally I thought it was weak, but I'm curious as to your opinion. JT.

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  4. Lmao @ the way you put it... "Welcome back, Welcome to the Birds of Prey, here's your mission, goodbye Hawk."

    The reveal left me confused because I'd never heard of that story, when she said who's the old woman now I thought she was the old woman who trained Sin and was training Canary when she swapped with Shiva so yeah, but seeing those two and Shiva in the next issue will be awesome.

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  5. Your, "goodbye Hawk" line had me rolling for some reason... Sometimes it's the simple things that make me laugh the hardest.

    You do remember the Silk Brothers storyline now though, right JT? The only reason it even sticks out a little in my head is because the second part of that story was the first single issue of BoP that I ever brought.

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  6. Lol well glad I could help buddy. Honestly, I see Hawk hooking up with Lady Blackhawk, she usually plays second fiddle to the other birds and considering Hawk is her type (big rough tough dude) I can see her main thing in the comic being in some weird love triangle with Hawk and Dove.

    I literally remember nothing from it dude, even in your review it seemed familiar but I can't place it at all.

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  7. Same here! I was thinking that exact same thing. You just KNOW Hawk and Lady Blackhawk and gonna hook up at some point in this series. Of that I have NO doubt. I will say that I can see them just having a fling as opposed to a real relationship. Neither character really seems like the relationship type to me.

    I reviewed that comic? Really!?! My god, the review was probably HORRIBLE! I might just have to check that out just to see how bad those early reviews of mine were!

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  8. Yeah I could see the same, just a fling between Zinda and the Big Guy.

    Lol did you? I meant what you mentioned about it in THIS review :P

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  9. Nah, I didn't reveiw that comic. I've put up SO many reviews that I have NO idea which books I reviewed around here early on. All I know is that they were almost universally bad. Even worse then my current work! :P

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  10. Lol your reviews are much better than you give them credit for, they aren't touching MINE though :P Lol kidding.

    So explain the storyline for me X, who the hell is White Canary?

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  11. Well, I'm always going to be down on my work. That's just the way I am. It's the perfectionist in me. I always finds fault in everything I do. But you're more then welcome to continue to compliment me and my work. I won't stop you. :P

    JT, dude, didn't you JUST read the entire Birds series?! I should be asking YOU to explain the White Canary storyline to ME! :D

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  12. Haha I know you won't :P I think we're all the same way, I was talking to Marc about how I didn't like my reviews compared to how well he does his, ya know? But yeah, I think all of us are pretty hard on our selves.

    Lmao yes, but I don't remember her at ALL, at least tell me what issues the chick was in! Lol

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  13. I actually don't remember if White Canary appeared in those issues of Birds, but I DO remember her brothers. After a quick search, I can tell you that the Silk Brothers story ran from Birds #81(the first single issue of Birds I ever brought)-#85.

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  14. AHA! The second I saw the cover I remembered everything about it. I guess I read so much Birds I just forgot about it. Now I feel slow haha.

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  15. Pfft, no biggie, I'm the same way with the Robin series. After reading like 150-200 issues of a series in a row, it all starts to blend together after a while!

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  16. Right? Man, how many more issues do you have of that series anyway?

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  17. Oh, I'm finished with the Robin series. I finished that off like 3 weeks ago. I just never got around to doing a post on it...

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  18. Wait, you're DONE?! Lol That's insane, so how was the series in a whole? High and Low points?

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  19. I've had a half finished Robin post in my files for like 3 weeks now! One of these days I'll finish it and post it... Basically it was solid throughout. If I EVER finish that post off, I'll prob go more indepth then that, but as a whole, I really enjoyed it(although nothing REALLY stands out).

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  20. Is it true Robin once went undercover as a female or something? Because I saw a picture but I GOTTA know the story behind that...

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  21. Yes... But that wasn't in the Robin series. It was in... I want to say an issue of Detective. My sister would probably know for sure(hell, she probably has the issue!). I remember her mentioning it. I think Tim went undercover as a nurse or something. I'll have to check with her tomorrow and get back to ya.

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  22. Awesome, thanks dude. I just saw the pic and someone said it was Tim and I remembered thinking what the hell?! If Bruce ever dressed up like a man I'd stop reading Batman comics...

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  23. Yeah, my sister does have that comic(being the rabid Jinx fan in the family), so maybe I'll get a chance to check out Ms. Timmy Drake soon.

    "If Bruce ever dressed up like a man I'd stop reading Batman comics..." You know, I could have let this line slide since I knew what you were getting at, but I kind of wanted to be a dick tonight! >:D

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  24. I completely forgot we called Tim the Jinx, well played. Only the Jinx could sit back and get tormented by the corpses of his family, then watch while the guy that killed his dad comes back to life.

    Lmao you're an ass :P I honestly didn't even notice that... and yeah, If he dresses up like Matches Malone I'm done! :P

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