Birds of Prey #7

Why even have the written copy? It adds nothing and is trite and meaningless.

Last issue ended with Black Canary declaring that Choke just showed himself even though he hadn't. This issue begins with Choke nowhere in sight. The Birds are fighting an office full of boring, mind-controlled office workers.

If Rule Number One is don't kill people, perhaps Rule Number Two should be don't choose psychopathic killers for your team.

Black Canary and Poison Ivy continue to fight when Brendon Hill suddenly gets reactivated! Gasp! But how?! Oh, look! The Birds know!

They must have suspected all along and come up with this plan to smoke Choke out.

OMG! It was the guy who knew all about brains and drugs for brains! It's only a huge surprise because the character was so boring and the story so awful that I never attempted to make a guess as to who Choke was! So I guess that makes it a successful twist. Kind of.

Choke mind control's Ev and forces her to shoot Batgirl in the face. No, no! It doesn't happen. Because Ev can't shoot, remember? Plus, Batgirl can handle herself. Although Ev does shoot Batgirl in the shoulder which, I believe, makes Batgirl the first person Ev has actually shot! Congratulations, Batgirl!

Black Canary stops the entire fight by shrieking just like on the cover! And Batgirl kicks Ev into a wall and knocks her out. So Batgirl wins a fight against Ev! I can add Batgirl to the Super Hero Pecking Order List! Batgirl takes off after Choke.

See? Black Canary suspected Trevor! The whole thing was a set up! And it worked perfectly! Who isn't surprised?

Black Canary and Batgirl catch Trevor. They take him back an abandoned something or other to question him. Except for Batgirl. Black Canary says something that pisses her off and she leaves. She has her own book to play around in anyway!

While questioning Trevor, he continues to spout rhymes and make the Birds do stupid shit. He makes Poison Ivy believe that The Red and The Green can't co-exist inside her and tells her she'll be The Rot within an hour. Well, I said it that way. He just says a stupid pun and tells her she's dying. He also tells Ev to shoot Katana in the stomach.

Oh, Trevor. We all know Ev can't hit anything but walls! And the occasional Batgirl.

Choke just has too much control over the Birds. Black Canary is desperate to know what he was up to but he won't answer any of her questions. He just simply turns one of them on the others. And so Katana decides to take care of it once and for all. Good for her!

It looks like Katana didn't get the note about Rule #1.

Now Choke's soul is in Katana's katana so Katana tells Black Canary that her husband will figure out what Choke did to them and they'll fix their heads and be okay. But Black Canary wonders if Katana might indeed be delusional and Katana walks off. And Poison Ivy says she's quitting the team and takes off. And Ev doesn't remember a fucking thing and takes off. Black Canary decides to investigate Choke's apartment to look for some answers.

Dinah doesn't really find anything but then she really just seems to be there to break things. Batgirl arrives and they hug and make out up. And then Tatsu calls.

So, um, nothing has been resolved then?

Let me try to get this straight. The series begins with a reporter following the Birds around. This reporter is following them because of a tip from a source. I'll assume the source was Choke. This reporter's head blows up at the airport from a planted suggestion. So Choke and his Stealth Cleaners were planting bombs in people's heads and setting them off with nursery rhymes. Black Canary ends up with a bomb in her head as well. But then they learn that the bomb thing is just a side job and people are actually being mind controlled to be human microphones so that someone can learn everything they hear and say. But then they discover this guy Choke is using this mind control power to make people into sleeper agents to do tasks for him. And once they learn this, Choke uses his powers to make them forget a whole bunch of stuff and the Birds end up with missing time that they don't think about afterward. I guess cause the memories are gone and you can't think about missing memories.

Following? Black Canary suspects the guy, Trevor, that knows about the drugs as being behind it. They set him up by rescuing some of his sleeper agents. They catch him in the act of activating sleeper agents. He's able to control Ev and Poison Ivy so Katana kills him. But then Trevor, the man Katana killed, isn't actually Choke.

Anybody want to bet that Duane Swierczynski has no idea what he's doing? I'm willing to bet next issue has nothing to do with Choke. And then issue #9 will be a Night of the Owl comic. And then Duane will never revisit Choke again because this comic will be cancelled before he gets the chance.

Birds of Prey Issue #7 Rating: -1 Rank. This comic is meandering garbage. It's a tale told by an idiot whose parents were also idiots.

I just took a moment to look up Duane Swierczynski on Google because I feel you can't call a man an idiot without finding a little bit about him. I found his blog and he wrote this about Birds of Prey #6: "Birds of Prey #6, the penultimate issue of my first full arc, will be available at finer comic shops (and e-readers) everywhere tomorrow! Usually, the sixth installment of a seven-part story isn't the place to jump on board, but I think you'd do fine in this case. Of course, why skip the joyful mayhem of issues one through five?"

Yeah, you know why you'd be fine if you jumped on board? Because the story doesn't make any sense anyway. Nothing follows anything else and everything in the plot just keeps changing. The characters are flat and boring and the art fucking sucks. This comic is a train wreck and I'm actually very, very sad and sorry to say that. I want a Birds of Prey comic book with some strong female characters and some serious complex relationships with members of a team with such a wide range of ethical and moral outlooks.