Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Birds of Prey #4 and #5 - DC

Ok . . I was completely wrong about this one. I thought maybe this White Canary was associated, or even was, Sin or Cassandra. Somehow! But this actually goes back a few years to another one of Gail Simone's storylines. In issue #81, of the first series, these fighters appeared . . Twelve Brothers in Silk. There was a legendary fighter, Huang, who realized that he would eventually die . . or be killed. So he birthed 12 perfect sons and began training them with his mastery. We find out this issue that during the course of the creation of this tribe, one of the children was born a girl. Huang wanted 12 perfect sons, for the 12 signs of the Zodiac, so any that didn't fit his strict criteria, or were born female, were killed. However, on the way to the lake with this child, the mid-wife was struck down by lightning. Seeing this as a sign that someone, or something, very angry wanted her alive, Huang chose one of his sons to begin training her. Thus was born . . Sister in Silk. Anyways, Dinah and some of her friends had beaten the Brothers in Silk . . actually, more like they fought them to a stand-still. But this was outside of the Sister in Silks code of honor. So . . she hunted them down . . her brothers . . and, one by one she killed them. Now that she's the only one left . . her honor dictates that she take down Siu Jerk Jai . . Dinah. Which is why she's called her out. While this is going on, Babs is also dealing with Savant and Creote. They're the ones that are threatening to expose the 'super-hero' club with all of the information that they gathered while working for Barbara. Anyways, what happened is . . 2 years ago Savant was taken captive by the Calculator's henchmen and tortured for 2 days while trying to get information about Oracle. The problem is . . besides getting tortured . . Savant is so brilliant that the concept of time escapes him. What happened to him only lasted for 2 days . . 2 years ago. But because, in his mind, he relives it every day . . he thinks that he was tortured for 2 years. Anyways, Babs ends up talking him down . . he really wanted to kill her, and Creote finally admits that he loves Savant. Babs vows to try to get him the help he needs to get past this. And, Zindy and Helena are fighting with the Penguin. It seems that he was in on this whole thing with the Sister in Silk. He was promised the information for his involvment. So he's very eager to take down these members of the 'Birds'. With Zindy hurt, Dove is the one that ends up getting pissed off enough to punch him in the nose. Anyways, issue #5 is spent basically cleaning up the mess. Huntress wants to kill Penguin, but . . Oracle talks her down. Babs, Savant and Creote have tried to begin the next chapter of their lives. And it appears that Dinah has also beaten this Sibling in Silk. That or . . she may have just let her win. Dinah finds out from her that it was Shiva who set her up back in Finland. And she agrees to go to Bangkok with Sister in Silk to take care of her. The problem is . . in order to do so . . Dinah has to leave the 'Birds', and leave Gotham. Because of what she's agreeing to do . . she realizes that she'll probably never return. So she says goodbye to Babs and Helena. But Helena and Zindy decide that they aren't just going to let Dinah quit, so . . they head off to Bangkok after her. However once reaching there, they're told in no uncertain terms that they're not wanted in this city. And the enforcer kicking them out is . . Dinah, dressed in the White Canary outfit. We also get a little glimpse of the stuff that Hawk and Dove are dealing with. There should be a storyline revolving around them coming up pretty soon. Gail Simone, I think, does a fantastic job with this series . . and these characters. I love the group that she's got together right now. And it looks like they aren't going to go down . . or split up, without a fight. Ed Benes and Adriana Melo do the art for issue #4. With Adriana probably doing most of it. But . . it still looked good. However, Alvin Ledd takes on a more active role in #5. The pages that I see were Adriana's looked pretty good. However Alvin's stuff seemed a little to cartoonish for me. It's a shame Ed Benes can't stick on a book for more than a few issues. Art wise . . this book started out really great. But now . . I'm still holding out hope. Alvin will be around for the next issue. But after that . . Adrian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes will be taking on the next chapter. Plus . . there may be a shake-up in this book with Batman returning. We'll have to wait and see what happens with that. Anyways . . I love this book. I love these characters. And I can't wait to see more.

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