Birds of Prey #22

Every month, I'm disappointed when the cover copy doesn't say, "THE DEATH OF CONDOR!"

This morning, I was posting my witticisms on Facebook and I realized, "Why the fuck am I wasting my talents on these assholes?" Yes, I often refer to my friends and family as assholes. But don't worry! They don't read this blog! I can talk about them with impunity here! My family is too shallow to realize what this blog means to me. Here are the defining characteristics, to them, that make this a waste of time: "comic books," "internet," and "free." I think my atheism and my ability to mock patriotism don't help either! I bet they think I'm the asshole! The nerve!

Oh! I forgot to caption the cover! Be right back!

That's probably too much transparency of my process, isn't it?

I know the cover says these guys are Strike Force: Basilisk but they just seem like The New 52 version of the Masters of Disaster. Except nobody's on fire. But the girl with the pink headache in the back could pass as New 52 Windfall.

Last issue was a dream sequence because if Black Canary really kissed The Cunt Condor, I'm going to punch myself in the face, call the police, and tell them that Christy Marx assaulted me. And they'll probably be all, "The creator of Jem? That is truly, truly outrageous."

That joke was fairly obvious but it still made me chuckle when it popped into my head. Okay. That's enough preamble. Time to...I wonder if that's how the Founding Father's wrote the constitution?

Gouverneur Morris: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to party as hard as the day is long..."
James Madison: "No, no! That doesn't sound right. Change that bit up. How about...'establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence?"
Gouverneur Morris: "Yes! Yes! But let's make sure 'defense' is spelled with an "s". We're fucking Americans now!"
James Madison: "Oh, right! Right!"
Gouverneur Morris: "Is that enough Preamble?"
Rufus King: "Naw! We need a little more. Pad that shit up! We want this shit memorialized in a cartoon song for the bicentennial! We want this to be so good, everybody will remember our names until the end of time!"
Everybody Many Generations Later: "Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wrote a fucking kickass Preamble!"

Jesus. This just went from Preamble to Preramble! Oh!

I also just spent the last hour instant messaging with my friend Doom Bunny about Gouverneur Morris. I assure you, I'm weeping from laughing right now. After making fun of his name for awhile, we finally looked up his biography on Wikipedia. Greatest Founding Father ever. Let me just highlight his best moments: shattered his leg fleeing from a jealous husband whose wife he was fucking and received a wooden pegleg; kept a sex diary; died after shoving a whale bone into his urinary tract. Anybody with children, when they need to write a report on a Founding Father, steer them toward Gouverneur Morris! Guaranteed A+! Or maybe just a note saying, "See me after class."

Lastly before I get to the book, whale bone? That guy was fucking hung!

Currently, Condor and Canary are taking the escalator to the mezzanine to get some Cinnabon bon, Cinnabon bon!

At least Condor and Canary use the stairs like reasonable people. Batgirl continues to swing through the hallways on her Batgrapple. That's just lazy. I don't think she's truly gotten her mind out of the wheelchair yet and she doesn't trust her legs. That's probably why she continues with her psychotherapy. Although it would probably be easier to walk down a hallway in a building than to swing down it on a fucking rope. Maybe she's actually dropping down from a hole in the ceiling above. Never mind.

The Birds and Cock of Prey eventually find Strix back down in the lab where they realized Starling was a cold-hearted alcoholic.

This editor's note is an insult. It's probably longer than Strix's appearance in Talon #9. Birds of Prey fans should not have been coerced into buying Talon #9 when the Birds of Prey only made the cover and Strix was in maybe three pages.

The Birds of Prey move into their new headquarters: Condor's Workshop. Dinah wants to avoid anywhere that Starling would know about and since nobody knows anything about Condor (nor does anybody, especially the readers, want to know anything about him! Why isn't he dead yet?!), the Birds feel safe here. Does that sentence makes sense? They know nothing about Condor, so they feel safe with him? Yeah! That sounds about right!

As they set up their new nest, Batgirl gets a phone call that sends her flying out the door. Booty call from Nightwing? Probably.

Meanwhile in the Andes, Regulus (who isn't dead, remember! He died but then he didn't die! Just like Deadshot who killed himself to kill Regulus so that they both could live!) is beginning OPERATION KAIZEN! Some people call it OPERATION SLINGBLADE but he calls it OPERATION KAIZEN! Phase One is to send out Tsiklon and her team to do whatever they're supposed to do in Phase One. Yes, here name is Tsiklon! Lord Google tells me it means Cyclone in Russian! That must be why she has a hurricane tattooed on her face.

See? She's even being coerced like Windfall was! I smell a new member of the Birds of Prey and, mmm boy, does she smell good!

Regulus's right pupil returns to his face as he tells Strike Force: Basilisk! that it's time to return Condor to their fold since he was apparently a member at some point. So it's the oldest rivalry in the book: Serpents versus Birds! But Regulus wants Black Canary as well! Because he wants to break her!

Back at the Birds' Nest, Black Canary wonders what to do next as she sees her team falling apart. It seems to me that if you don't have anything to do, why do you need a team? Perhaps there's a reason why a civilian identity is important. Nobody should be their job or else they turn into Batman. Or, worse yet, Alfred Pennyworth. That guy needs to take some time off from butlering and just cut loose in Tokyo. Why isn't that a mini-series, DC? "Alfred Pennyworth Does Tokyo!" Do I have to write it for you?

While Dinah is having her Birds of Prey crisis, Condor takes advantage of her and makes me sick.

This needs to stop happening already! You know how this can stop happening? If Condor were to be killed!

Remember how you did that phone thing, DC, where you had your fans call in to vote if Robin should live or die? Well, I think you should do that with Condor. But if you do, you don't actually have to do it because I can tell you right now that everybody will vote for Condor to die. So just kill him already!

Condor rushes off to the bank where he encounters the old wise woman from Birds of Prey #whatevernumberthatwas. If you want a character that just screams, "I am super wise!", you get Yoda. But if you can't afford the fees associated with using Yoda in your comic book, you get an elderly black woman. Bonus points if she's blind. This woman seems to be testing Condor to make sure he's a good guy. I don't know if the woman is simply looking out for Dinah or if she plans on using Condor for herself, since she's conspiring with a taxi driver that refers to her as "mother". Sounds like a cult to me!

Batgirl returns from her stint killing her brother and now she looks to Black Canary for solace because Canary has experience in killing people she loves. Little do they both know, neither one of them actually has experience killing anybody! Because James Gordon, Jr, and Kurt Lance are both still alive! Although both of them may have been resurrected by the Samsara Project. Which means they could explode at any moment unless they ingest some of Resurrection Man's semen. Don't scoff! That's a thing! I read about it in a Disqus Comment I wrote!

Meanwhile on his way back from the bank...

Mmm! Tastes like Canary!

The rest of Strike Force: Basilisk (when did I time travel to the 90s?) are breaking down the bay door of the Birds' Nest. Whipcrack begins the festivities with a line so bad that the rest of the fight dialogue will be uphill: "Ever felt a taser? How about a dozen at once?" That's almost as good as Storm's line in X-men: "Know what happens when lightning strikes a toad? Same thing as everyone else." I'm paraphrasing because why would I waste brainspace remembering one of the worst lines I've ever heard? Although some people think it's a good line. Those people are stupid and wrong and can unfollow me forever if they disagree! Oh! Here's another bad line, this one from Blade: "It's like ice skating uphill!" Unless that line was different too. I suck at quotes! The only reason I could remember the Preamble to our Constitution was by singing it! Thanks, Schoolhouse Rock!

The bad guys' lines are so bad, Batgirl begins suggesting her own.

Not surprisingly, I first read this as "I'm a big dumb thug that doesn't know how to suck dick."

Black Canary decides to end the fight by screaming but to do so, she has to tell all of her friends to get out of the way. This telegraphs the fact that she's going to use her secret weapon which gives Strike Force: Basilisk time to shove Uplink into the forefront and use her power to connect herself to the minds of the Birds of Prey. Interestingly enough, when she accesses the minds of the Birds to shut them down for capture, her power manifests as birds attacking their heads. Which means she's a perfect fit to become a Birds of Prey! Yay!

Oh yeah, the issue ends with all of the Birds captured and Whipcrack getting ready to kill Batgirl and Strix.

Birds of Prey #22 Rating: +2 Ranking. I enjoyed this issue much more than just about every other issue put out so far. DC may have done a lot of stumbling in the first year or so of The New 52, but they do keep managing to up the average quality of the entire line. Sure, there are still some incredibly bad mistakes happening *cough* Scott Lobdell *cough* *cough* and canceling Demon Knights and Dial H *cough*, but they do seem to be getting a better grasp of their vision. Obviously they've put a knife in the back of a lot of loyal fans but why should I care about that?! I was one of the disloyal ones they wanted back! I'm the person they really care about! Just like all those artists and writers at Marvel in the sixties and seventies. The ones that went to DC and returned to Marvel made more money and were treated better than the loyal ones that remained year after year!