Birds of Prey #10

The only way Starling is going to save them is if they're being attacked by the broadside of a barn since she can't shoot shit. Also, her boobs are much bigger here. Must be the Toxins.

Poison Ivy was nearly killed last issue when she climbed into a Gotham Train's Freezer Car with a Talon. That took care of the Talon but now Poison Ivy needs to be unfrozen herself. Apparently Poison Ivy gave Black Canary instruction on just how to revive her in case of an emergency like this: fly her to the Amazon!

I bet Poison Ivy wants to visit the Parliament of Trees. Too bad they're now just saplings in the swamps of Louisiana. Also too bad, the helicopter they're in is destroyed by a rocket. On the bright side, they were currently hovering over the area they wanted to be. On the dark side, they were hundreds of feet up. On the better side, the lush vegetation must make it impossible for someone to fall to their deaths in DC's Amazon.

Except maybe the pilot who was a man and thus not a bird and thus not important and had just touched Starling on the shoulder against her will so he deserved to die.

Most of Travel Foreman's art looks as if it's been filmed with a fish eye lens. I don't know how much of that is on purpose and how much of that makes me want to vomit. Just glancing at these panels gives me motion sickness! Everything is stretched and distorted and did I take some Valium earlier? With Sake? With this kind of artistic power, Foreman really should still be drawing Animal Man. That comic was supposed to make you feel queasy and uneasy. This comic is supposed to be sexy! And throwing up isn't sexy to most people. Some people. But if that's Birds of Prey's target audience, they aren't going to be selling a whole lot of comics. Although they might sell more to vomit fetishists than to people who like well-written comic books. Oh snap!

Katana and Starling can see a smoke trail where the majority of the helicopter went down a few hundred yards away, so they head through the jungle to see if the pilot survived. Batgirl and Black Canary decide to pry Poison Ivy out of her ice casket because she's supposed to be their guide. Right about then, Black Canary has a helpful flashback to a couple of days ago in Gotham City just after the Night of the Talons.

Batman comes by to pick up the Talon when he notices Poison Ivy and realizes Black Canary is working with her so he offers Dinah some advice.

An obvious piece of advice, rationally given. Thanks, Batman!

Holy fucksticks, take it down a notch! No wonder you blew your husband's brains out with your sonic scream. "Hey, honey, could you maybe turn the television down a bit, I'm trying to get some Team Seven work done here." "FUCK YOU YOU MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO YOU MAN!"

Also, that flashback wasn't quite as helpful as I thought it was going to be. Actually, that flashback didn't tell me anything I didn't already assume! Except maybe that Black Canary is menstruating.

Yeah, I went there! And just think how irritable the whole team is going to be when Harem Syndrome kicks in! I'm willing to bet Gotham is going to end up absolutely crime free one week every fucking moon cycle.

Starling and Katana find the pilot alive and well. They also find that the one hundred gallons of liquid cocaine hidden in the helicopter is doing just fine too. I don't know why they have liquid cocaine aboard this helicopter. Are they delivering cocaine back to South America? And why have it diluted? I just read up on diluting cocaine for smuggling reasons to make it harder to detect but they don't seem to have any reason for traveling with Cocaine Kool-Aid.

And then everyone is attacked by vegetable men!

I guess Duane's just going to settle on the fact that Starling does know about Katana's husband's soul. Even though Starling has remembered and forgotten and remembered a whole bunch of different things up until now. I don't know if her memory lapses are because Duane is a shitty writer or because her mind has been fucked by Choke too many times.

Every one of the Birds makes a really bad vegetable joke except maybe Katana. "Brussels sprouts from hell." "Creepy weed people." "Give anything for a weed-whacker right about now." "Just a bad dream brought on by too much broccoli." "One of crazy salad lady's exes." It's all just so much fun having your life threatened!

As they meet up and run for safety, they see a shelter across a chasm. The rope bridge is out and, once again, Batgirl's Batrope is broken. What the fuck, Batgirl? Did you buy a second-rate crate of Batrope? Are you buying your Batrope from Q-core now? Well, it doesn't matter because Black Canary finally has time to "understand the significance of those frenzied seconds" from earlier in the day.

Black Canary screamed and blew up the missile earlier and kept the blast from enveloping the helicopter. Apparently that meant that now she could use her scream to fly across the chasm with the rope bridge and secure it tightly for everyone to cross. Yep, totally what I would have figured. So everyone crosses to safety. But first Starling puts a pack of C-4 on the other side so that she can blow up the vegetable creatures.

With a little help from one of those heat-seeking rockets and a stupid line. "GO GREEN, MOTHERFUCKER!"

And then Poison Ivy finally wakes up to tell everyone that she'll tell everyone about everything next issue.

Birds of Prey #10 Rating: No change. The comic continues to be bad but no worse than it's been up until now. I'm going to give it a break before it drops down past Grifter or Captain Atom. Merry Christmas, Birds.