Customer Reviews

Birds of Prey: Old Friends, New Enemies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Collects the first six issues of the Birds of Prey comic book, when only Oracle and Black Canary formed the team. If you're a fan of the Black Canary or Barbara Gordon, then this is the book to check out. See how the Birds of Prey comic book(as of 2006, it's still going strong) began!
These early BOP adventures were written by Chuck Dixon.

NOTE:
Also contains two Birds of Prey one-shots(stand alone comic books), called Birds of Prey: Wolves & Birds of Prey: Batgirl.

This book opens with two one shot stories. "Wolves" and "Batgirl" then collects the start of the monthly with Birds of Prey 1-6.

That's a lot of pages beautifully drawn by Greg Land and inked by Dick Giordano, and of course written by Chuck Dixon. Although the first two stories are one shots the whole volume flows together and adventures start and end with overlying plot elements. A lot of cool imaginative stuff here.

In particular I like the strong leading women who don't need men while in the field but have no problem talking boy trouble over a dish of ice cream. Cool hero stuff but no lectures to be endured or bones to be picked.

Great superhero story telling.

I take issue with the reviews describing Oracle as "confined" or "bound" in her wheel chair when clearly from how she gets around and even fights,she is far from confined or bound,I find these words rather in a negative connotation,yes,she is in a wheel chair but by no means is she limited by it.

The Birds of Prey are judo expert Black Canary and wheelchair-bound computer wizard Oracle (the former Batgirl Barbara Gordon). The two have been around for some time, (Black Canary since the 40s, Batgirl/Oracle since the 60s) but it was writer Chuck Dixon how had the idea of teaming them up as a high-tech team in crime and espionage stories. It's a formula that's paid off, over 10 years later the Birds are still going strong.

This book collects some of their earliest adventures together from the mid to late 90s. First was have two one shot stories that tested the water for a series. In them Black Canary takes on her ex-husband and the Russian mob and Batgirl is mysteriously back in action. Then we get the first 6 issues of the ongoing series where the Birds first face an international kidnapping ring and then take on assassins, cultists and dinosaurs for a downed satellite.

The stories by Chuck Dixon are decent crime and espionage stories the art, mainly by Greg Land (before he became a full-time tracer) is pretty good. But really that's about all I can say for them.

The plots are good enough at first glance but don't make much sense if you think about them. For example in the last story arc the cult leader Kobra hires a group of assassins to find a missing satellite saying that his forces cannot operate freely in the US. But later in the book he turns up in Minnesota lake, with a full force and a submarine. How did he get there? How did he get a full sized submarine into an inland lake? The art is good, but a bit on the cheesecake side.

It was a fun read but not really something to seek out or keep.

This is the beginnings of the fine Birds of Prey series. Barbara Gordon
is Oracle, and confined to a wheelchair. She becomes partners with
Black Canary, who provides the legwork for some operations to capture
criminals, disrupt terrorists, retrieve beasties or whatever else the
computer genius Gordon decides needs to be done.