Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #4

I have my doubts that television would support Dinah's weight.

That caption wasn't a comment about how fat Dinah has gotten. Sure, she probably put on a few pounds while on the road with Black Canary but she's still looking fit. The caption was a comment about flat screen televisions and their structural integrity. Maybe she could have sat on the screen of a television before flat screens. Those things were massive and sturdy. When I finally purchased my first HDTV a number of years ago, I walked home from the store with it tucked under my arm. When I moved the old television from its stand to storage about fifteen feet away, I nearly threw out my back. Lighter televisions are my favorite thing about the future. After pornography at your fingertips, of course!

Oh, and, um, social change! Social change is the best! Go society! I would be out marching to support all of the women but I don't want to make it all about me. I can make things all about me without having to go out in the cold and the crowds by staying in and vomiting my opinions all over my comic book blog.

This issue begins with Helena Bertinelli giving a lecture on the origins of the Mafia. She isn't doing this out of the goodness of her heart because she knows we're all complete ignoramuses when it comes to the Mafia and she wants us to not be that. She's doing it because it's also the secret origin of her family. The Bertinellis were the original gangsters of Sicily, along with the Cassamento family. Instead of just linking to the Mafia Wikipedia page because comic books don't have the capability of clicking through (although if you're reading this digitally, I suppose they could. What's stopping DC Comics from incorporating that technology?), she fills the first page with ten Narration Boxes full of words that basically say, "The Mafia are like grapes. They were good at first but then they fermented and everybody became drunk with power. The end."

It's these snarky additions to the Location Blurbs that are forcing me to drop this comic book. No more. Please!

The Huntress has decided to set out on her own because Batgirl is all, "We don't kill! Blah blah blah." But the only thing The Huntress wants to do is kill Santo Cassamento. So she ditches the Birds of Prey pointing out that joining them is a mistake and she doesn't make mistakes.

That is, she rarely makes mistakes.

The Huntress comes to the same conclusion about how she, maybe, occasionally makes mistakes. She also gets sexually harassed by a snake-man she's trying to kill.

Which came first? The sexual harassment or the attempted murder? That sounds like a line from an XTC song.

Batgirl and Black Canary arrive to save the day with an antique mirror and Tiffany lamp. Somehow the bulb in the lamp is bright enough to nearly blind the half-snake woman. I guess her eyes are so sensitive to light that sh can only function in the dark. That explains why they took so long to attack the safe house.

The Birds of Prey drive the snake monsters away. Every time I read an issue of this new Birds of Prey where they battle the snake-people, I can't not think of the part in Crowther's Adventure where you drive the snake away with the little bird. This is probably four Batgirl and the Birds of Prey commentaries in a row where I've mentioned it.

Batgirl reveals she knows who The Huntress is and The Huntress is all, "How did you find out?!" Batgirl wipes Dick Grayson's semen from her chin and says, "A girl has her secrets!" Helena decides since they all know each other's secret identities now, it would be stupid not to form a team. I wanted to add "and a theme" to knowing their identities but "Birds of Prey" isn't really a theme when you have a canary, a bat, and a huntress. I suppose if you're ignorant and you believe bats are birds because they're terrifying, I can see you sort of shrugging and buying into it. But a canary certainly isn't a bird of prey. It's a bird that is prey to other birds and snakes and spiders and miners. But what the fuck is a huntress? I guess the theme is that they're all birds which is a slang term for women for some reason. Do women eat worms?

Now that Batgirl and Black Canary know The Huntress's real name, they get to hear every single private detail about The Huntress from her own mouth. The Huntress must be a demon and now Batgirl has gained total control over her by voicing her secret name.

I would keep reading this comic book if it were called "Constantine's Birds of Pray". Constantine would only appear as a speaker telling them their missions but you'd know it was him because he'd swear a lot and smoke would drift out of the speaker. He'd send the Birds to destroy demons and angels who have infiltrated the mortal realm in sunny locations so that the Birds could wear bikinis a lot. Chaz could be the Bosley character of this totally original idea I just made up so you probably don't know who Bosley is.

How are Babs and Dinah following this narrative? Without the pictures, Helena just sounds like she's got dementia.

Of course some gangsters broke in and shot Helena's father in the head so she could have some character development. Daddy Issues rule in the DCU! Her brother was also killed which is disappointing because nobody could make her laugh like he did by showing her a meatball on a fork. The Huntress says, "I will never know why they dragged mama out of the room to kill her." Because they didn't kill her, dum-dum! That's going to be part of a shocking twist later on! Sheesh. Don't you read comic books?

Batgirl gets a new lead on Oracle and The Huntress is all, "Let's go, family!" Batgirl weeps uncontrollably and Black Canary says, "Aren't you going a little fast? You have to buy me dinner before we can do hugs." Then they race off as a new team who totally trusts each other and loves each other! No more wasted story on will she join or won't she join!

The Birds have to fight through some robot versions of Batman's foes to get to Oracle's possible location. For some reason (I know the reason! To set up the joke!), The Penguin robot has been programmed to quack like a duck. Why can't he be on the Birds of Prey? He fits the theme better than two-thirds of the current team. Maybe he can't join because those Bat-grapples have a weight limit. He'd never be able to get around the city. Although judging by his height, Penguin can't way more than Batman in all of his Bat-gear. It's also possible Penguin's belly is mostly just Kevlar padding.

When the Birds arrive at the office of Oracle, they do not find Oracle. But they do find a collection of past Batgirl uniforms. Maybe they'll catch Oracle next issue. And then maybe Batgirl will stop fighting people stealing her identity. That's basically all she's done over the last year and a half.

What Did We Learn?
We learned that we can't believe a single thing coming from any White House press conferences over the next four years. I didn't learn that from this comic book but I figured it was the most important thing I learned yesterday.

The Ranking!
No change.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #3

I wish DC Comics had a Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Battling in Their Underwear Variant Cover.

My biggest laugh of the month so far was reading this headline from the sidebar of Facebook: "Undiscovered moons may lurk around Uranus." Holy shit. I'm still giggling about that. This anecdote brought to you by the number 69 and the letters "How fucking mature am I, right?"

Holy shit! I just remembered that I thought Supergirl was going to lose its charm by going to CW where they seem to think lying is the greatest sin anybody can commit except that everybody in their shows lie all of the time and only care about lying when they've caught another person lying to them and they can judge the other person because of it! But after that 3rd episode, I'm just as in love with the show as I was last season! Wonder Woman is president?! Come on! I mean, she's actually an alien so that was a misstep. Couldn't they have just kept hinting at the fact that she was Wonder Woman like they did with her "you should see my other jet" line?! And Mon-el?! And Maggie Sawyer?! I mean, I guessed who each of them were immediately but that's what's so cool about the show. Technically what it's doing is a low-rent virtual reality version of jerking off comic book nerds as they watch the show. I know I came in my pants upon the revelation of M'gann! It's so good that I'm hoping the writers of Arrow will take notice and think, "Maybe our show should be more like their show and we should give up this theme of 'Everybody Lies and It's Not All Right At All To Ever Lie' that Guggenheim came up with because of that terrible experience he had at the Junior High School Sadie Hawkins Dance where the girl who asked him out never showed because she asked a better looking guy out and went with him without telling Marc. I mean, probably because of that.

Anyway, I should probably get to the Birds of Prey before I begin whining about the changes in the timeline in Flash and Arrow and how Legends of Tomorrow has gone the nonsensical Voyagers! route of "saving history". Sure, I still like the show! I liked Voyagers! too! But I was less sophisticated about time travel when I was eleven so I didn't judge the show for how stupid the premise was. Now I sit and watch Legends of Tomorrow between fits of joy at seeing the Justice Society and fits of anger at how time must constantly be fixed! I can't wait until the Legends wind up in a moment in time that's so crucial to about twenty different timelines that they run into versions of themselves from nineteen other timelines who all insist that the changes they want to make are the correct changes!

The issue begins in the past when Tiny Dinah decided to run away from her Foster Parents because all Foster Parents are terrible people. Not that I've ever met any of them but I've seen all of the movies and television shows. Foster Parents are the worst! Like Mr. Drummond! What a fucking dick that guy was. And the football player who took in Emmanuel Lewis! Ugh! So awful! And the white guy on that The Brady Bunch back door pilot who took in the black kid and the Mexican kid and the Asian kid! What was up with the seventies and early eighties airing shows about white families taking care of minorities? What kind of imperialist propaganda was that shit?! Was the message that minorities needed white people to set them on the right path?! Although they also seemed to think white kids needed some kind of multicultural experience too which is why a lot of families had black maids.

The Birds are researching Fenice in the Clock Tower and they're looking quite realistic. No male gaze allowed here! They're drawn so realistically that I can smell the sweaty superhero funk that must be wafting out of their dank leather costumes. So gross. My male gaze never thought it wouldn't be interested in a Birds of Prey comic book!

The Birds of Prey find some information that leads them to a Mexican Restaurant where they believe Fenice's next hit will be dining. They should have read the final page of their last issue! Then they'd know where Fenice's snake gang really are.

Batgirl ignores the door of the poor, innocent, family restaurant. What the hell? Does she get a cut of every Wayne Window and Wall Repair job she creates?

Oracle texts Batgirl another Riddler Would Be So Fucking Embarrassed Clue as to where the Birds should really be focusing their attention. Oracle must be annoyed that the Birds are so terrible at figuring stuff out. Although shouldn't the bad guy be happy that the good guy got the wrong location?! I'm not sure I'll ever understand the self-destructive nature of bad guys in comic books. It's always, "My success wouldn't mean anything if the good guy didn't have a fair chance of stopping me!" Although they never have success because they constantly insist on playing fair so maybe they should rethink their methods?

Oracle really must want the Snake Gang to fail because Oracle had them wait for hours before attacking Gordon and Santo. So after Oracle texts Batgirl to make sure she knows where to go, Oracle sends the Snake People up from the cellar to kill Gordon and Santo.

When has a mudroom ever been an indicator of wealth?!

The Birds of Prey arrive just in time to save all of the lives. Not that Gordon was in any danger but Gordon did have a few Red Shirt cops hanging about who are lucky to still be alive. Now that the fighting has commenced, so can the Battle Non Sequiturs! After Asp calls in a bunch of snakes to attack, Batgirl says, "Too bad your backup doesn't have legs." That doesn't make any sense because they have fangs and poison! Although Batgirl is kicking Asp (hee hee) at the time, so I guess that's where the wit comes in. Then Lady Viper is all, "I like a woman not afraid to hit a lady." I don't know what that's supposed to mean although it does give Huntress the chance to say, "You're no lady." Well, she's half-lady! The other half is snake. The bottom half is snake. I bet if I dated a snake lady and we hit it off and went back to her place and began to get busy, I would completely embarrass myself by not being able to find her cloaca.

Dinah, not wanting to be left out on the horrible battle one-liners, says to Copperhead, "Not so fast. Guys usually buy me dinner before the hugging part." Black Canary is such a hug prostitute!

During the fight, Lady Viper, Asp, and Copperhead escape with Santo. But Huntress kills Cottonmouth to save Jim Gordon's life. Batgirl is all, "Why did you do that?!" And Commissioner Gordon is all, "Thanks a lot, Batgirl! I love you too!" And then Jim Gordon slaps handcuffs on Huntress and arrests her for murder. Just kidding! That added bit of stupid comic book drama actually doesn't happen this issue! What a relief!

Oh, that Little Dinah growing up on the mean streets of Gotham story has been going on in the background but I've been ignoring it. It turns out that she became an expert at some kind of martial arts by the time she was sixteen and, when she finally let the pain of abandonment go, she developed her Sonic Scream. So I guess she didn't get it from Team 7? Maybe they just enhanced it by making her fuck Kurt Lance who had Super Power Enhancing Semen.

The Huntress leaves because it's always better to spend way too many issues on building trust between teammates than to have them trust each other too quickly. That would be too unbelievable! It makes more sense to spend five or six issues having the characters hate each other before they hug at the end. Or in Dinah's case, before she gets dinner bought for her and she hugs at the end.

The issue ends with Santo finding out that Fenice is an old lover of his. Not old as in elderly! Just old as in from the past! I guess that's a good enough shocker to end the issue on although it's mostly a big yawn for nearly everybody who isn't Santo.

The Ranking!
0! That means it's average! Not great. Not terrible. Just a comic book that people will like if they want to like it. Nothing spectacular going on here!

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #1

I didn't realize Batgirl was only twelve.

The Review!
Who else thought the scene where Black Canary screamed at The Asp and drove him off was a reference to Crowther and Woods text adventure game, "Colossal Cave Adventure"? It totally probably wasn't, right? Although it'll be super exciting if Batgirl finds a black rod soon, if you get my meaning! If you don't get my meaning, you're probably too young to understand or too polite to acknowledge it. And I only mean you're too young to understand in that you don't even know what a text adventure game is let alone that the black rod was an item in the game much like a magic wand. If you're too young to get my double meaning, you probably only thought, "So you're hoping she gets some dick from a black guy?" Boy, times sure have changed! And speaking of change, Batgirl and the Birds of Prey has hardly changed at all! Batgirl is still battling female villains or villains that have stolen her identity! And she's still hanging out with Black Canary and pining for dick! I mean Dick! But now she's not being drawn as cutesy as she was when she lived on Burnside. Now she's drawn all punk rock and roll! Or something. I don't know how to get into the conversation about the art without sounding totally sexist so I'm just going to say: I love it! Whew! That totally proves I don't rely completely on my male gaze to inform all of my opinions!

The Commentary!
I was listening to Les Miserables (the musical, not the audio book nor my pet turtle, Les Miserables) last night while working which means I was also crying uncontrollably most of the time while working. But I decided (that means I thought something and just automatically assumed it's the truth because who has time to be wishy-washy in their own belief system?) that the academic upper middle class people love the song "Master of the House" so much because it's one of the few times they get to titter at lewdness. The lyrics in that song would normally be the kind of thing they'd refer to as lowbrow and turn up their noses at while stuffing caviar in their stupid judgmental faces. I'm currently shoving Sour Patch Kids in my stupid judgmental face! I wish fewer people weren't so afraid to be seen as stupid for liking lowbrow humor. Although I think the fact that somebody is afraid of looking stupid for laughing at lowbrow humor marks them as somebody who is stupid due to fearing to look stupid. When you're super smart like me, you look stupid all the time because you don't give a shit who thinks you're the genius you actually are!

This issue begins with Black Canary telling a story about her past where she stole lines from movies to seem cool.

I guess this is what the kids today call "referencing" and it's the height of wit. That was sarcastic unless your first reaction to it was "Don't you do shit like this all the time, Tess?"

Black Canary is remembering this old mission so Oracle can get some on-panel time and all of the Oracle fans can fangasm in their underwear which they'll subsequently have to sneak into the trash to avoid any embarrassing questions. I wish Suicide Squad #1 would have begun with Amanda Waller remembering back to the time Oracle helped the Suicide Squad with their missions! I only wrote that to show that I remember when Oracle was first created and that it wasn't with the Birds of Prey like too many people think. Also I'm stuffing caviar in my mouth right now and scoffing at everybody's ignorance.

But Batgirl's spine is better now so she can physically hunt down the bad guy with Black Canary now which is totally more exciting. Unless you're somebody who liked Oracle for representation reasons and would rather have Babs back in the wheelchair for your own issues and preferences. Seems kind of selfish to me! Us walkies have it so much better! Aside from the having to walk everywhere. What a hassle! And always being invited to join the neighborhood kickball team with all the way too excited people who think they're living the dream by playing a kid's game once every two weeks (while getting super drunk, of course!). And when I take the bus, it doesn't lower way down to the ground and drop a ramp for me! Stupid bus. People in wheelchairs have all the luck.

Batgirl and Black Canary are currently hunting for somebody who has stolen the Oracle identity because Batgirl can't stop battling people pretending to be her. But their one lead is currently being assassinated by Helena Bertinelli, aka The Huntress! So now they're engaged in an exciting motorcycle chase through the streets of Gotham which will probably wind up with their lead, Terroni, not assassinated and The Huntress joining their Birds of Prey project. Because you can't have a comic book called Batgirl and the Birds of Prey when you only have one Bird of Prey!

When they catch up to Terroni, he's dead from bites to the face. Nobody can tell by glancing in the car window what bit him to death so they just shrug their shoulders and leave his corpse in the crashed car to go find another lead. Maybe they're going to hack into the police morgue files later to get the autopsy results to find out if Ratcatcher had anything to do with this. Or Kobra. Or Squirrel Girl. Or maybe the lead just doesn't matter anymore because, you know, dead! But Helena leaves before they can tell her she's hot and she should join their hot girl club. Except their hot girl club isn't as hot as usual because Claire Roe is making a point to draw the characters in a totally punk rock way that makes them more real or something. I think Helena is actually too hot to hang out with these Birds.

Again!

Later that night, Babs and Dinah notice Bab's realtor breaking into Birds of Prey headquarters. But the realtor and the guy she's going to fuck in the clocktower she sold are frightened away by Bab's phone ringing from the bushes nearby. Dinah then shames Babs for using the default ringtone which isn't even a funny thing to tease a friend about. Am I just too old or clever to think that it's hilarious to rib your friends about not changing the ringtone? Especially since maybe it was a telemarketer calling and who changes their default ringtone to acknowledge calls you don't want to answer? Don't you want your phone to sound like every other phone when somebody you don't want to speak to calls so that you might not even notice it's your phone ringing and simply fail to answer it?

Babs didn't get a phone call anyway; she got a text. So what the fuck was Dinah going on about the ring tone for? Am I supposed to believe that people refer to the text alert sound as a ring tone as well? I have no idea! The only phone I carry with me is my work phone which is a twenty dollar burner that I someday hope to ditch when I never have to talk to clients again! I would never carry a cell phone on me, not because I'm old and hate technology. I love technology and, um, I'm not old! I just never want to be in immediate contact with anybody ever.

I should probably stop rambling about cell phones since I know nothing about them. I mean, I know how to catch Pokémon on them and how to feed Nekocats. But that's about it!

The text message Babs receives is from Oracle and it's the most terrible clue a super villain has ever sent to a super hero.

The Riddler should be personally offended by this message.

At least Dinah and Babs forgo the conversation where they point out it's probably a trap and then walk into the trap anyway. It's refreshing to see super heroes just go, "Fucker gave us a clue. Let's go kick his ass."

I don't know what to call them but you know those narration bits which declare the time or the location? In this issue, they've got a sidekick: the trying to be witty caption!

You did not say anything about tacky! You did mention there would be a petting zoo which made me envious so now I think you're calling me tacky?

Batgirl has chosen the role of vigilante and yet she still feels the need to voice her reasons for probable cause of entering the property unwelcomed! Batman would be so disappointed in her. You put on the mask for justice at all costs, not just justice by the rule and law of the land! You might as well leave the mask at home if you're concerned with jaywalking, speeding, breaking and entering, assault, and treason! Don't half-ass being a vigilante, Batgirl! It just gives a bad name to Vigilante!

I've noticed a lot of comic books love to have people add "so-called" to the front of words to turn them into insults even when it doesn't really make a lot of sense. But I think it's okay if I add it to "petting zoo" when I say this mob boss's "so-called" petting zoo has lions and tigers in it. I suppose that can still be regarded as a petting zoo but you probably won't be able to pet anything on your next visit to a petting zoo. Unless you allow "rubbing something with the stump of your wrist" as a legitimate definition of petting. I'm not ableist so I say sure! Why not?

Batgirl and the Bird of Prey discover that the Huntress has arrived at the zoo well before them and is already busy drowning the mob boss in the peeing boy fountain. Of course they have to stop her for her own good. It's okay to have an off-the-rails violent crazy person on the Birds of Prey but only if they keep her from committing murder directly before their eyes.

During the good guy scuffle, it's revealed that Helena knows Dick Grayson which causes Batgirl to go right off of her game because it's tougher to kick with swollen labia. I think. I don't know! I know I have a hard time kicking with a boner! I think. I'm not sure I ever tried it!

Black Canary must sleep on a George Foreman grill

A new player enters the fight who goes by the name The Asp. He travels around with a bunch of serpents and seems to be killing the same mob guys Helena wants to kill. Between Batman, the Bat-Competition, other crime families, and super villains, it's got to be tough being a mobster in Gotham.

The Asp is screamed away which is totally the way I handle encounters with snakes too! So I guess I've been doing it right. Everybody then finds out that some guy named Fenice is causing trouble in the Gotham crime scene and he's a client of Oracles. So The Huntress asks if Batgirl and Black Canary want to work alongside her murdering ass. I bet they say, "Sure! But no more murdering! We can forgive attempted murder which probably means you've murdered in the past. But since we didn't see actual murder, you're probably a good enough good guy for us! Besides, we need a second bird for our Birds of Prey. Can you maybe change your name to Swallow? *snicker*"

Batgirl and The Huntress discuss their terms for working together.

Batgirl: "You're a doody faced doody eater!"
Huntress: "At least I've had Dick in me!"
Batgirl: "So what if I'm a vir...wait a second! Was that dick capitalized?!"
Huntress: "Fifty Shades of Grayson!"
Batgirl: "Why did you...that doesn't even make sense?!"
Huntress: "But it's a reference! The kids love references!"
Batgirl: "Well if I'm going to work with you, you can't look hotter than me or Grump Canary!"
Black Canary: "Hey!"
Huntress: "Even on my worst days, I can't help looking better than you!"
Batgirl: "Well, if I say 'dibs' on a guy, you can't try to take him from me!"
Huntress: "Fine! Like I'd be so desperate that I'd take the one guy you dibsed!"
Black Canary: "Actually, she dibs every guy she sees. No, wait. She 'batdibs' every guy she sees."
Huntress: "Whatever. Fine! I promise not to fuck any guys you've ever laid eyes on (since that's all the laying you'll get anyway), and you promise to not lay eyes on the people I kill!"
Batgirl: "Um, deal!"

Oh hey! Here's the advertisement for the new Cyborg comic book. In my commentary for Suicide Squad Rebirth #1, I said, "Speaking of heroes, there's an advertisement for a twice monthly Cyborg book starting in September. DC Comics is still trying to make Cyborg interesting?! Hasn't Cyborg been given enough chances?! Unless this new book is about how he's sleeping with tons of women due to his new wrist attachment, I'm not interested!" I don't remember if this was the same picture in that first advertisement but if it was, how did I not notice that he does indeed have the new wrist attachment?!

Cyborg? More like Cyborgasm, amirite?!

Black Canary's argument for Huntress joining the team is that she's an extra set of fists. Ooh la la! My male gaze just came in its pants!

Black Canary tells Huntress that she has to tell them her name to join the team but Huntress refuses and Black Canary decides to just call her The Cuntress. I'm sure Babs can just call Dick and find out. Then she can call Huntress "Helena" in the middle of a fight and Helena will become flabbergasted and get punched in the face by Oracle and everybody will laugh. Except Huntress! And the people still angry that I called her The Cuntress!

The Asp goes running back to Fenice who is a woman in a dress that looks like feathers. That's probably because Fenice means Phoenix or something in some language I'm not interested in. That's not an insult to whatever language it is! I'm just not interested in any language! I wouldn't even bother with English if I had my druthers! Although English has some great words like "druthers" and "cunt". So the Birds of Prey are already getting thematic enemies as well as enemies acting like Batgirl and all of them being female to boot! It's just like all the Batgirl stories since The New 52 began! That wasn't a positive or negative criticism. It was just a fact!

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Rebirth #1

My male gaze is so hard right now.

The Commentary!
The New 52 Birds of Prey was a really terrible book. Apparently Gail Simone called it "The Birds That Craps." That seems a little too witty for something Gail Simone would come up so I tend to believe Gail Simone when she says she never called them that. Although I think Gail Simone should apologize anyway instead of "Fact Policing" people. How dare she tell somebody that they believe stupid things that couldn't possibly be factual since who would know better than Gail Simone if she said it? That's a bit presumptuous! I did call the New 52 Birds of Prey "The Turds of Prey" though because I'm as hilarious as a twelve year old farting during music class.

I kind of hope this comic book is terrible too so that I can call it Batgirl and the Turds of Prey! Ha ha! Still funny!

Batgirl begins this issue by pissing me off. She's all, "I'm back from training overseas! Read it about it in my solo comic book which comes out tomorrow! I don't know why DC didn't schedule that book to be published before this book! I guess because DC is full of dum-dums!" Okay, maybe part of that quote was from the Editor, Chris Suckerfuck. I made up the last name because Chris was too stupid to put his or her last name in the Asterisk Information Box.

Batgirl shows off her new overseas training by explaining to herself (who else would she be Narration Boxing to? Not the reader, certainly! That would mean schizophrenic!) why she's using the different moves she's using. She explains why she kicks a guy in the jaw: because she stepped in dog shit earlier and she finds it funny. She explains why she punches a guy in the tits: because most men are self-conscious if they have flabby pectorals and she finds humiliating them funny. She explains why she sweeps the leg of another thug: because Sensei Kreese said to.

After beating up the thugs, Barb snoops around on one of their phones because she doesn't have to worry about search and seizure laws. It's the best part about being a vigilante! I mean, after all the sweet poontang. Not that Barbara Gordon is taking advantage of that perk. She thinks she's too smart to have a penis inside of her. And she probably is because who wants to fuck somebody dumber than themselves? I can barely talk to people dumber than me although that doesn't stop me from talking with the Non-Certified Spouse's sister. Oh! Burn, Lindsey! You loser! But seriously! Who wants some troglodyte poking around in their lady caves? Barbara Gordon is so smart she'll never find anybody to have sex with. Especially since she kind of ruined her relationship with Lucas Fox who might have been at least close enough to her intelligence to bang. So I guess she's going to have to stick to her Bat-Back-Massager and her Bat-Bathtub-Tap.

Great! More Batgirl imposters! Can't she battle anybody at all who isn't trying to be her? Like she's so fucking special!

Batgirl seems surprised that, yet again, somebody is pretending to be her. Or at least a version of herself that she used to be. She says, "I guess in my case, the past is apparently prologue." Isn't that the case in everybody's case? I mean, my past came before now and I think now is the main story, so the past must be the prologue. Unless this second is just the prologue to my sudden fame and fortune! And then my past is apparently pro-prologue!

Because this is Rebirth, Barbara Gordon needs to straighten out her history for all of the continuity nerds dying to learn which stories they've read have now been relegated to the dustbin and thus were a huge waste of time. Too bad for a lot of people, one of those stories wasn't The Killing Joke. Since that's the one that got the wheelchair rolling on the whole Oracle thing, I suppose it has to be the first major story declared canon in Batgirl's Rebirth.

The Joker shot Barbara Gordon in the spine to make Gordon and Batman feel bad. I suppose he wanted Barbara to feel bad too but he didn't really know her that well, so he just shot her in the spine and left her for dead (after taking naked pictures of her) before taking her father to the amusement park to sodomize him while little people in fetish leather danced around singing. I don't really remember The Killing Joke that well but I think I got the gist of it. Barbara wound up in a wheelchair and since, according to Babs, Gotham wasn't made for the disabled (only the mentally ill apparently!), she decided to help fight crime with her brains! And a computer too! Mostly the computer.

Oh, so we're going to pretend that she didn't work for the Suicide Squad first? Are we just erasing Ostrander's creation of Oracle from DC History? Way to go, jerkbros!

Don't worry, John Ostrander! I still remember that you created Oracle no matter what everybody else is being told to believe!

Anyway, the Birds of Prey were formed (probably the Preboot Birds and not the New 52 Turds. Might as well use the well written history and not the confusing mess by Swierczynski) until Barbara regained the ability to walk through experimental brain surgery. Then Dinah flounced off annoyed, went on tour, ruined the careers of several musicians and even more venue owners, and then quit music forever to go fuck Oliver Queen in Seattle. I guess she only does that on the weekends though because she needs to spend the weekdays with the new Birds of Prey in Gotham.

Bo Maeve and the old Black Canary band are back in town to play Burnside so that Burnside Tofu doesn't go out of xerox. That's my clever way of saying "out of print" for a fanzine! Totally genius commentary on the punk lifestyle of the zinesters! Because of Bo's word balloon during the concert, I don't know if Black Canary kept the name Black Canary or changed it to Black Tuna. Oh fuck how I hope they changed it!

Barb finds Dinah at the concert and brings her back to her place. Ohhhhh, my male gaze is getting excited!

I hope nobody notices the clock never moves past 8:29 and realizes there must be no gears behind it which could only mean it's the lair of a superhero!

Black Canary decides to help under the name of the Birds of Prey but just for one night! She doesn't want a repeat of the last time where they were called Turds of Prey by that hilariously snarky but super intelligent and perceptive critic. Their first step is to track down the person passing around the information from Oracle to the mob bosses. Their second step should be killing Batgirl so nobody else can steal her memories and cause all this fucking trouble.

Meanwhile, The Huntress (the new Helena Bertinelli version and not the old version. Although this is Rebirth so just forget about all of the versions except for this one) is killing mobsters and the next one on her list is the one the Birds of Prey are going after. I bet this is how they meet! I hope Helena gets her chocolate in Dinah's peanut butthole.

"That's it! Everybody get naked!" No?

Helena makes sure Black Canary and Batgirl know that Helena knows their names. That should make them trust her! They won't think she's Oracle at all now!

Meanwhile, Oracle sits in front of a bunch of computer screens just like every other villain in Rebirth has done so far. I guess he's just another Doctor Ozymanhattandias.

The Review!
I don't know what to think about this comic book yet. This is obviously just the part of the story where the members of the future Birds of Prey are simply being gathered in one place so that they can say, "Hey! We should all be members of the Turds of Prey again! Nobody tell Katana! We don't want her murdering hundreds of people when she blows up another hotel like last time!" The main reason I'm not sure about it is that nothing really happens. Comic books tend to spend way too much time on prologue. They should just get right to the part where these three come together hunting the same person and start from there! That should be Page One! But instead I have to read all this bullshit about how they formed. I don't like the getting to know each other bullshit! I like the bullshit where they're already good friends who don't mind walking around the apartment in front of the others in their panties!

Futures End: Birds of Prey #1

Five years ago, the world as we know it ceased to be. Luckily, the world as we know it from The Road Warrior came into being. Many people were prepared for this turn of events. Too bad those people were geeks and nerds without any real survival skills. Tragically, they were all rape-murdered by corporate CEOs who, it turned out, were the biggest sociopaths on the planet. Some nerds and geeks survived longer than others due to their proficiency at oral sex. But even these desperate, shameless nerds could not last for long. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea gave and gave and gave but eventually, as he knew deep down would happen, he used a little too much teeth. He was thrown into Lightning Dome, a more terrifying version of Thunder Dome, where twenty combatants entered and nineteen left. Mostly because the nineteen were working together to fightfuck the lone other. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lasted thirteen minutes, a good showing but not good enough to be remembered for more than the long weekend.

As it turned out, some of the most depraved and richest CEOs were the biggest fans of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. When the updates stopped (for, you see, DC Comics continued to publish during these post-apocalyptic times although their market share was now worse than Dynamite. In their defense, Gail Simone was being forced to write all of the titles deep within Dynamite headquarters, and all of the titles featured naked lesbians as every character), the CEOs grew desperate for the only written entertainment they could stomach. A new Tess was needed. And who better to take over the job than the monster that delivered the death thrust to Tess, Goggles McDeathhurt.

And now, five years later, Goggles McDeathhurt and Xanadux Rat Wine (Mit Jellied Pinkies) Present: HOLY FUCK! Don't Put That There Chai Tea!

Welcome back, Scanners! Memember back in da Formertimes alla dem actiony bang-bang flicks everduster spent big koku on? How dey was filt up mit splosions und gunfires? How dem action star almays seemed ta outsrun hunnered 'pon hunnerd a bullets shootered at him by dozens 'pon dozens of badbads? Und how dis here action protagonist ne'er seemt ta git not one fuckity bullet frough not one fuckity internal organ? Knows it now, we alla us does, how dumb dumb silly alla dat was. Sure, sure, we'd knowed it back den too, all upins our hearts an all. But now we's got proof a how dumb dumb dat shit were ever fucking minute, ja? Youse hear bunchas a gunfire, youse know someduster bleedin' all over hisself. Mayhap, on occasion, da vickim ain't git hit. But sure as shit some poor fucker gonna catch a bullet! Nows, not everduster shot frough gonna die, sees it? But ya know dey gonna fuckin' git shot! Dey ain't runnin' round walls und hoppin' ahind overturned tables and dodgin up y dodgin down and crashin' frough windows und feelin' jess fines enuff ta turn round, fires off one well-aimed shot, und kill fifeen men mit a crazy ricochet. Now ya hear gunfires und ya run straight away mitout lookin' back prayin' ya brain don't suddenly go soft on ya. And splosions? Fucking merde. You realize how hard it is ta make a fucking car go boom mitout explosives? Course, once somefin do splode, it ain't da shrapnel nor da shockwaves gonna do nuffin ta noduster. It dat fire gonna git outta control acause who fuckin' gonna be a hero an tryin' ta put it out, feels me?

Nuvver fing dat we thunked 'bout in da Formertimes was how da world gonna ends, ja? Nukular war. Pandanomics. Zombies. Bioterrorshow. Not a nightscare we couldna dream up finkin' bout how dis here world gonna corpse it. Und den what da fuck goes und happens? Big surprise ta alla us, yeah? Dat fing we nows refer ta as da General Breakdown. Simple as all dat. Enuff peeps acided dey damn tired a followin' dem laws put forth by dem egotistical sons bitches runnin' fings und dey said, "Nope." Jess 'nuff peeps had to say "Nope" und it jess fuckin' fell apart. Sum poets once fink how da world gonna end, sees it? Fires? Ices? Ha, little he knowed it, right? World gonna end in "nope."

Course nows wes gotsta lissen ta all dem fuckin' whiny dusters what almays sayin' how da revolverlution gonna suck big fuckin' cocks cause noduster got a plan affer it all come crumblin' down. Well, la-dee-fuckity-dee, dey was rights, ja? Jess look how happy does fuckers are now, sees it? "I knew it would be worse!" as dey push der fuckity accountant glasses up dere piggity fuckin' noses. "Snort snort snort. I was right. Snort snort snort." Fuck dem fuckers. Glad dey git a shiv in da kidney evertime dey speaks up.

Fucks you, ya lying narration boxy!

Dis here bullshit. Time ain't fucking mutable, no ways. Da onny fuckin' time what matters am da present. Forget da past acause it ain't got nuttin' in it fer ya. It be like a bottomless ocean what ya keep fucking droppin' ya shit inta dat ya cain't never gonna git back. And da future ain't no fuckin' infinite branches. Speckalation on da future gots infinite branches, sees it? I cans sits here und fink, "Goddess, I amma gonna git me a BMW tomorrows, ya bets it! No, no! Mayhaps I'm gonna git me two Lotusers, sees it? Pay some lower voices ta crash 'em up head ons whilst Goggs watches und sips somma dat fuckin' midori sours she finded in dis here limo, sees it? No waits! Mayhaps Old Goggs jess gonna find some cute little fucker mit a big fat cock and ride dat fing til she sore. Oh yeah! Dat da future gonna happens!" Sees it? Looks like Goggs got lottalotta choices, ja? But guess whats? Come dis time amorrow, onny one dem fings gonna haff happened. Und it pobably be somefing altogetter diff'rent, evens. Cause da future ain't some future where ever single fing possible be happenin'. Da future jess more fucking ocean what we haven't seens yet but we gonna see it soon and we gonna lose more shit in it. Ever single day, lose more shit, right updown til da day ya jess sink yoself right down ta da fucking bottom where noduster never gonna pay ya anudder fought ever 'gain. Fucking infinite branches, my cunt. Grow da fuck up.

Gute un. Now ya jess invented somefing ya enemies gonna use 'gainst ya, dumb dumb.

Black Canary done put togevver dis here "Red League" (named affer moonstration, positive) for ta bring down some bigbig badbad named Paul Howe III. She spent minutes tryin' find dis one so dis Red League cans "cut off the head of the snake." Da problem mit dat is dat it be a faulty analogy. Big crime orgnazations do not crumble y disintegrate jess acause one man taken down, believes. She wanna break dis crime family, she gonna haff ta take away ever reason dey exist. Burn da money, destructem da drugs, steal da weapons...whateverem. Or she can chop up dat entire snake, fer sure. But jess da head ain't gonna do it. Evil orgnazations more like dat hydra monster what grow back head affer head affer head. Memember da onny way ta deal mit dat fing? Burn da fucker.

Affer Canary und her girls drive dere prey ta suicide, dey runs off ta da nex' city ta clean it, feels it? Dey gonna fix everplace up ones at a times, ja? Horsedick. Ya gotta cleanse 'em all, synchronized, sees? Takes 'em alls out at da same time. Steal dere workers. Burn dere homes. Make dere cities unlivable. Ya gotsta burn it all down und start over somewheres else. Somewhere dat dey ain't eyeballin' fer riches und power and control. Acause ya cain't be a part a dere system or ya jess bolsterin' dem bastards up und givin' em what dey wants. Ya gotsta starts over, sees it? Everting gotsta start agains from scratches. Dey got dere hooks in ya ovverwise. Dey wants ya ta value dere koku und dere culture und dere places ta live. Fuck alla dat. Fuck it right in da eye sockets. Old Goggs gots a better way. But ya gonna haff ta give up lots and lots ta haff a chance at it. Keep lissenin, lower voices cross all da boundaries. Old Goggs knows hunnerts y hunnerts of dust free places, jess like paradise. Ya want 'em? Come und get 'em, sees?

Goddess keeps ya, for nows.

Birds of Prey #34

Now King Shark doesn't look like a hammerhead. Does DC Comics not have one single fucking reference picture for this character?!

Gail Simone mentioned that she thought it was a shame that Birds of Prey was cancelled. She's completely wrong. The comic was horrible for a good portion of its New 52 run. It was a confusing mess that never went anywhere and never made any sense while Swierczynski was writing it. The characters acted like fucking idiots with no memory of any of their own past actions, and that was even when Choke wasn't stealing their memories. Birds of Prey should have been canceled before Christy Marx took over. She spent way too much time trying to remold the clay. And then she found out it wasn't clay she was working with but shit. It's been decent to fun for a few issues now that Marx has finally got the shitship entirely under her control. But it's too late to save it. And, at this point, who fucking cares?

What DC should have done is cancelled it before giving it to Christy and then rebooting it under Christy Marx a few months later in the same way they did for the Teen Titans and the Suicide Squad. I don't think DC has enough writers willing to waste their time washing and cleaning and fixing characters the way Jeff Lemire did for Green Arrow. At this point in The New 52, just jettison shitty books and bring them back with new creative teams a few months later. That way you don't have to hurt Ann Nocenti's feelings every time you remove her from a book so that a better writer can take over. DC can just tell her, "Oh, sorry. The book wasn't doing very good and we had to cancel it." Then bring it back in a few months! Ann Nocenti won't even notice because she's too busy researching topics on Wikipedia and taking notes on the lingo! Now if only she would learn how the lingo is used instead of just dropping it into the comic book helter skeletor!

Before I begin reading this issues, let me just say a little prayer. Please hold hands with any stranger near you and lower your head. But not so much that you can't read the prayer since I won't be reading out loud for you. You're going to have to do that yourself.

"Dearest God who art in wherever thou art, Owl be thine name. Please don't let Ann Nocenti irrevocably fuck up Klarion the Witch Boy. You saw how maltreated Katana was at her hands, did you not? Of course you did! You see everything! I know I never ask you for anything, mostly because I don't believe you exist, but if you do this one thing for me, I promise to never masturbate again. I bet you get that deal all the time, don't you, God? It must be disgusting! Having to imagine the hands clasped in prayer are covered in jizz and vaginal secretions? Gross! Anyway, here is the thing I would like for you to do, and if you can't do it, I hope Christy Marx does: please kill Condor. Make him dead in the way that comic book characters die where they don't ever come back. I don't know how you do that but please do it. Maybe have him explode on an island but show his head wash up on shore and his body being devoured by Killer Krill. Or sharks! Yeah, do the shark thing! Sharks are better. Sorry, sorry! I probably shouldn't tell you how to do your job. Should I be capitalizing your pronouns? Anyway, you do that and I'll be forever grateful and crap! Thanks a ton, God! Your friend, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!"

Hmm, maybe you shouldn't have read that prayer since I signed it from myself. Oh well, it can't hurt, right?

Oh! One more thing, God! Please let Amanda and Kurt have a baby named Havana! That will make me look really impressive to my readers. Thanks!

Amanda's big secret is that Kurt only married Dinah to make her happy. Wait. Why is that a secret? Am I missing something? Maybe Amanda took too many blows to the head before revealing her secret. She's probably just confused and will mention Havana in the next scene between Black Canary and herself. Until then, it's time for more battling between the Squad and the Prey.

Boomerang battles Batgirl and I think she wins when she's offended by Digger calling her weapons "boomerangs" and she says, "They're batarangs!" That's showing him, Babs! Strix battles Harley until Deadshot comes along and puts a five or six bullets into her.

I don't think people "dodge" bullets as much as flinch, shit, and scamper in random directions.

The battle is derailed when a bunch of terrorist thugs attack. Since Batgirl needs to keep the hostage safe, she figures she can lose Condor in the upcoming battle and sends him off with Mambety (the hostage!). And then she asks Deadshot to help her defend Mambety from the thugs attacking them with weapons. She even calls him "gun guy" so she knows exactly what she's doing. She's basically hiring Deadshot to kill these people! I suppose it's not too different from hiring a Talon to work on your team.

With his daughter Havana? Dancing on Condor's grave?

I haven't scanned any pictures of King Shark yet but, trust me, he gets bigger in every fucking panel he appears in. Where is that reference pic for King Shark, DC?!

Canary and Waller end the battle and their teams go their separate ways. As they leave, Digger says he could go for a couple of Foster's. I knew he was only pretending to be Australian!

Later, Kurt chooses Amanda over Dinah and Dinah tries to cry on Barbara's shoulder. But Barbara's shoulder has gone cold! She's all, "We were once best friends but not anymore because this book is cancelled and this is as good a reason as any to break up the Birds of Prey! I hate you!" Then she kills Condor and everybody lives happily ever after.

Oh! I forgot about Strix! Mother Eve offers to give Strix a Stephen Hawking voice so that she can communicate with the Batgirl. I bet the first thing she says is, "You have a Bat-Everything and you couldn't even come up with a Bat-Tablet for me to write messages on?!"

Birds of Prey #34 Rating: No change. I'm tempted to rate it as the worst comic book that was ever written because Condor lived no matter how many times I wrote he died and then deleted the sentence because I was hoping he'd die later. Finally, he didn't die so I just left in that he died because I hate him and I wish he'd died. If DC ever comes out with a New 52 Who's Who, I'm skipping the "C" issue. All in all, this run of Birds of Prey has been shitty at its worst and not as shitty at its best.

Birds of Prey #33

A perfectly good pun ruined by Black Canary kicking Amanda instead of punching her.

I seem to remember last issue ended with the Birds of Prey in a sparse African landscape being confronted by the Suicide Squad. Obviously, Canary and Amanda will be moving the action to a city later. Hopefully this fight takes place at Condor's funeral after King Shark bites off his head which was crushed by Harley's hammer and riddled full of Deadshot's bullets. I won't even mention where the boomerang wound up.

His pee pee hole! I couldn't resist mentioning!

I'm one of those people that can't help spilling beans all over the place. If somebody tells me something in confidence that I'm not supposed to mention to anybody else ever, I can do that. No problem. That secret is safe with me! Especially if it's a really boring secret since I have more important things to remember that involve me. But if somebody begins telling me something and then adds, "You can't tell X or Y I told you!" or "Q can't know that you know!" then forget it. All bets are off! I don't keep a fucking spreadsheet in my mind so I can keep track of who can know what information and who can't know what I know. Because if I have some information that is okay to tell any number of people, that information will be used for a really good fucking joke at some point! And that joke might be made in front of the people that aren't supposed to know the information or know that I know it or whatever.

The good thing is that I'm really honest about how unreliable I am with secrets! Most of my friends know that if I know something that shouldn't be known by somebody else, I shouldn't be allowed near the person that shouldn't know! So at least they can kind of keep me in check since I can't be bothered to remember all of that shit. And if somebody begins a statement with conditions on who can know the information, I'm very upfront about saying, "I don't want to know. If you value whatever thing you're afraid to lose if this person finds out, do not fucking tell me!" If they insist on telling me, then I insist on apologizing immediately for when I will invariably let the information slip.

That had nothing to do with Birds of Prey! Why don't I have an editor? Shouldn't an editor be sending this back to me with notes on it saying, "What the fuck was that, stupid?" and "Stay focused on the comic book, dickbreath." Then I'd have to fire them for using the term "dickbreath" because using that as an insult is like saying there is something wrong with people who like to put dicks in their mouths. And everybody with a dick knows that those people are fucking heroes.

I don't use the word "hero" lightly in my every day life! You'll never catch me calling your every day average soldier a hero! Seriously, show me that you saved a brown person's kitten or something and maybe I'll call you a hero. But to earn the title hero for just not knowing what to do with your life so you joined the military? Bah! If that's you and you want to be called hero, I need to see a dick in your mouth.

That was probably really disrespectful to military personnel, wasn't it? I blame the editor I don't have who would have stopped me from printing that last paragraph! Damn you, Matilda!

I just know my editor would be named Matilda. "Matilda the Hero" everybody in the office would call her. No, not because dicks and mouths! Because she would bring fresh baked, frosted brownies to work every day!

This issue is called "Pretty Lies and Ugly Truths." I really like that title because it's an ugly truth in and of itself. I once wrote some thing where I challenged Keats's phrase, "Truth is beauty; beauty, truth. That is all you need to know and knowing is half the battle." I think that's pretty close to the exact saying. Anyway, my response was thusly thus:

Beauty isn't really truth. Nor is truth beauty. Beauty is an illusion. A cover-up. It's misdirection and sentimentality and illuminating and inspiring and awesome. But truth is harsh and ugly and blunt and the bottom line. Art is a lie that both conceals and reveals at the same. And why would someone want to believe the lie? Who wants to live forever in eternal bliss when we have the cold, hard truth of the grave awaiting us? Right, Lyle?

Lyle was some guy that asked me a question back when I co-wrote a website called No Apologies! Press. He asked this question: "Why do some people, who seemingly live in the same world that I do, believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or a bunch of other like-type books for that matter?" Surprisingly, I took the side of the people that believe the literal interpretation of The Bible. Probably because Lyle asked his question as if I was automatically going to agree with him. Lyle, you dick! Stop trying to put the answer to the question inside the fucking question! But also thank you for naming my other project, "Lyle's Study Guide for the Literal Interpretation of The Bible for Dumb Dumbs."

"Tess! Start writing about the fucking comic book or no brownies for you, you shit-that's-having-trouble-sliding-out-of-an-old-lady's-sphincter!" Matilda would probably yell. What a taskmaster!

The fact that King Shark is eleven times bigger than he's been in the past is less disturbing than the pouches all over Deadshot's chest.

I've thought about it for awhile and I've come to a realization: I'm really excited about Ann Nocenti's Klarion the Witch Boy! She fucked up Green Arrow, Katana, and Catwoman so badly that I can't wait to see how much worse she can get turning Klarion's witchy powers into a metaphor for technology out of control! Oh she's going to shit all over that assignment, isn't she?!

What do you think Deadshot keeps in his ammo pouches? My guess is lipstick, lifesavers, a butt plug, and some handi-wipes. If they were bigger, I'd suggest he keeps some chum in one of them to partial out to King Shark like Scooby Snacks.

Oh, the fight has started! I should probably comment on that! So Condor uses his telekinetic powers to send Deadshot's bullets back at Deadshot, destroying Deadshot's wrist guns. It must take an awful lot of practice to think-stop bullets! How does that even work? I guess you don't actually have to see the thing you want to telekinetically control? I don't think anyone can actually answer that question because I don't believe anybody has telekinetic powers, no matter how many people I hear say they do on Coast to Coast AM.

What about those people that go on Coast to Coast AM to tell everybody what heaven is like! I can understand that they've either deluded themselves so deeply that they truly believe that any thought that enters their head is fact, so if they think, "Heaven has shooting ranges," then heaven must have shooting ranges. But what about the people that call in and believe these people?! Now they want to believe so badly that they're willing to listen to anybody that can self-publish a shitty little book that falls into George Noory's hands just when he's desperate to fill a slot on a slow night.

Black Canary battles King Shark and she's got some questions of her own, like "Does King Shark have ears?" and "How heroic would I be if it's a shark's penis?"

How cute! King Shark's belt buckle has a picture of his girlfriend, Dolphin!

Luckily for Boomerang who was going toe to toe with Strix, Amanda Waller intercedes and orders the Squad to stop fighting. She and Black Canary go way back. Really way back! Back to a time when Amanda was fucking Dinah's husband! I don't think they've had a chance to clear the air about that. Some words might need to be exchanged.

Four words in particular!

Is this where Amanda confesses about her and Kurt's love child, Havana?!

After Dinah flies off with Amanda, the Birds of Prey versus Suicide Squad grudge match continues. I think the odds have actually evened out with Black Canary gone. Deadshot sans guns versus Condor sans psychic power and charisma and anything likeable at all. Captain Boomerang sans Captain versus Batgirl sans sans. And Strix taking on King Shark and Harley Quinn. As for Dinah versus Amanda? I think that match up is too close to call. Although if it were Preboot Amanda, I'd put my money on her.

Jesus Christ, Christy Marx! In one page, you made the entire convoluted Team 7 and Black Canary history actually make some kind of sense!

I should probably give some of the praise to the Birds of Prey editors as well but fuck them! Are their names on the cover? Nope! The colorist is now more important than they are! Which, you know, is how it should be. Those editors need to stop thinking they're writing the books! Stop trying to come up with story ideas and just come up with where everybody's going for lunch.

Oh! It looks like he kept pistols in his pouches! That, um, makes, um...what?

The issue ends with the Birds getting the better of the Squad and Amanda telling Dinah, "You want the truth?! Well, you're not going to like it very much at all! It's worse than lies, you know?! It's going to be really bad! Your stomach will feel queasy! But I'll tell it to you! By God, I'll tell you the truth all right! I'm about to tell it to you! Here it goes! I'm saying it now:...." And then, Next Month: Things Fall Apart. Whatever! I wanted to hear about Havana!

Birds of Prey #33 Rating: +2 Ranking. This comic book has finally turned around! The only thing I still remember from the Swierczynski days is how to spell his name! Christy Marx has finally been able to make this book her own now that Kurt has been found and the Birds are working with Mother Eve. It just has one little fault. It's such a small fault that I don't think I should even bother to mention it. It's just that it's so annoying that I'd feel remiss if I didn't end my review by pointing out how Christy Marx is doing this book a disservice. The one thing she needs to change is the alive status of Condor. Just that! One niggling little detail! Fix that and this book is aces!

Birds of Prey #32

My dream cover.

I don't think I'll ever truly enjoy reading comic books again. The overuse of Narration Boxes has turned it into something with which I'm just not comfortable. They're a crutch to a comic book writer. They make things easier by simply writing everything you want the reader to get out of a scene. There was a time when the pictures spoke for themselves. Sure, their speech was ambiguous and uncertain at times. But I'd rather open Birds of Prey to a scene where Strix is perched on the top of a tall pole over Mother Eve's barge without the Narration Boxes telling me what she might be thinking. And in this case, they're telling me what Mother Eve thinks Strix might be thinking. I'm just not emotionally invested because I'm suddenly dealing with words that I'm logically picking apart immediately. I find myself gazing at the heroes themselves less and less when I have more and more Narration Boxes telling me exactly what the fuck is going on in the character's mind and why it's going on in their mind and the consequences of why it's going on in their mind and why the hero's family history ties in to what's currently going on.

I'm not saying they don't have their place in modern comics. Used sparingly, they can be an effective tool to help a comic book tell a strong tale. And I'm not suggesting the Narration Boxes of the old days were any better! Hell, they were far worse! They usually contained an omnipotent narrator explaining exactly what the picture was showing. At least the modern ones are a few degrees removed from the art and can sometimes throw a different perspective on the visuals. It's just that they've made things too easy for the writer. Comic book writers relying on Narration Boxes are telling a lazy story. Or perhaps they feel like they're not doing much if many of their words written into the script never actually appear in the comic book because they are art direction to set up scenes that should tell the story in pictures rather than Narration Boxes.

Sometimes I just don't want to be privy to every thought of the main character. Look at Grifter! That's his whole schtick is that his Narration Boxes are never ending and we're subject to every stupid fucking thought in his head. And you know why that is? Because his original writer was not a writer at all but just Jim Lee's friend, Brandon Choi. I destroyed Nathan Edmondson and his writing on that title but I really should apologize since I'd never read WildC.A.T.S. #1 before reading The New 52 Grifter. It seems Edmondson was writing him just as shoddily as Brandon Choi wrote him way back when. So I should have been congratulating Edmondson on his accuracy!

Another thing I hate about comic books, which may or may not be new because I can barely remember anything from before The Long Hiatus which began in 2003, is the way they often begin in fake media res. The first page shows the middle of the action and then on page two, you get a "24 hours earlier" tag and the story simply begins from the beginning. If you're going to write your comic book that way, just fucking skip that first page flash forward bullshit. That's not starting the story in the middle. That's just showing your date that you're going to have an erection later in the night. The cover already plays this part so doing it again on the first page is just wasting a page of story.

Sorry for spending time ranting about that stuff here, Christy Marx! I should be paying attention to your comic book. But to make up for all of that bullshit text, I won't wish for Condor to die anymore during this review. This one sentence here where I say I hope he dies will have to suffice. Plus the cover that I drew on to make it my dream cover. But that's it! Now I'll get serious!

Yes, the technology is called a pencil and any fucking writing surface.

I realize Strix has some trouble with spelling so it might be frustrating for her to write the things she wants to say. But anybody that would make fun of her spelling or act impatient as she writes her message will probably quickly be stabbed in the face, so it shouldn't really bother her much at all.

Meanwhile at a physical rehab center in Gotham, a whole lot of sexual tension is going down! Kurt Lance is trying to relearn how to walk. But mostly he's trying to relearn how to love! Dinah and Junkface are with him cheering him on because one of them loves the other one and the other one loves Kurt and Kurt loves both of them and the other one loves the one that loves the other one. I don't know! It's some kind of fucked up love triangle which probably means somebody is going to get hurt. I'm not saying that they can't all have a loving relationship where they all love each other. But I am saying that Condor (previously referred to as "Junkface") will get hurt and jealous and upset every time Black Canary sticks her tongue in Kurt's asshole.

Now I'm wondering if Black Canary ever uses her scream in an erotic way!

How dare Kurt not react to his recovery the way Dinah thinks he should react to it!

Whoops! I guess the extra guy isn't Condor at all but the physical therapist! I got confused because "therapist" is so close to "the rapist."

Speaking of "therapist" and "the rapist," in the early nineties, years before the Saturday Night Live skit where Sean Connery calls the "therapists" category "the rapists," I'd written a really crappy poem entitled "The Rapist" about a therapist that convinces a child through hypnotherapy that she had been used in Satanic rituals. If I knew where it was, I'd reprint the poem here even though I'm sure it was terrible. The idea hit me while I was watching some show on television where there were some magazines on a table shown upside down to the viewer. The title of one was "therapist" (possibly in big block letters) and my first thought was, "Why is there a magazine called The Rapist?"

Kurt does manage to convince Dinah that he doesn't remember her so she needs to back off. She's just pressuring him to be somebody he doesn't remember being and completely stressing him out. So she finally leaves him to rehabilitate on his own.

Speaking of "therapist" in big block letters! And the rapist in a pervo man-bun, top-knot, ponytail thing!

I'd be kind of nervous if that building opened up in my neighborhood!

THERAPIST

At least they didn't put a huge exclamation point on the end of the sign.

Condor has something for Black Canary but he says he left it back in his loft. Oh no! She's not going to fall for that one, is she? Once they get to the loft, he'll probably whip out his dick and say, "Oh wait! I had it right here all along!" Except what he actually has waiting for her back at his loft which is far less exciting than his penis is a set of wings so that Black Canary can fly. She powers them with her voice but can't the same set of wings be made that can be solar powered? Sell a set to Green Arrow for a few billion dollars! He'd pay anything right now if it would keep him from being carried around by Animal Man.

Before Condor and Black Canary can engage in hovering sky cunnilingus, the Birds of Prey are called together on a mission to rescue one of Mother Eve's friends held captive in a foreign nation.

There are worse things Black Canary could do then lead on a boy or two.

I bet once they get to Africa they'll encounter the Suicide Squad! I'm making that prediction because the Suicide Squad appeared on the cover and they haven't appeared inside the cover yet! That's called using your brains!

Once they arrive and begin battling thugs, Strix kills a guy and Batgirl loses her shit. She's a Talon, Babs! Awful shit was done to her and she's not prepared to play dainty super heroine yet, okay? If you want Strix on the team, you're going to have to realize that she was trained to kill from a very early age. Then she was killed. Then she was brought back to life to kill some more. The killing is kind of all she knows. You're asking her to give up her most favorite hobby just to be your friend. That's selfish!

That last paragraph should probably be turned into a song and sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be made into a commercial.

The Birds rescue Mother Eve's friend just in time for The Suicide Squad to show up and declare that Mother Eve's friend is actually their friend and he's going home with them.

Holy shit! King Shark came back out of the toilet humongous!

Birds of Prey #32 Rating: +3 Ranking. How come whenever a book gets cancelled, it starts immediately getting better? I liked this Birds of Prey! I like where this group is beginning and how they have Mother Eve to give them missions and a purpose. I also think this is my favorite moment of the Suicide Squad so far in The New 52! Even they feel like they're being utilized correctly here! And King Shark looks fucking bad-ass as a gigantic monster! Now I can see Yo-Yo living for a month inside that creature's stomach! It's probably bigger than a New York studio apartment in there. Anyway, whatever, DC! Do your cancelled books instantly get better because the editors lose interest in them? Are the writers suddenly allowed to do whatever they want? What's the reason that shitty books get so much better when they've been cancelled? Of course, this book was on a tremendous upswing. It just kept getting better the further it got away from Swierczynski's plots. Maybe y'all should just leave this book for a few months and then let Marx fire it up again in the fall. Teen Titans and Suicide Squad are getting instant second chances. I think this book is just as worth an immediate second chance as those two titles.

Birds of Prey #31

Batgirl is the magician with the birds up her sleeves. Hopefully she makes Condor disappear.

Issue #31 has got to be the issue where we finally learn the reason that the Birds of Prey exists as a group! It's possible Black Canary brought them together to investigate rumors of that guy that never existed and his invisible henchman although I'm not entirely convinced of that. I feel it's more probable that she brought together all of the people who had suspicions that she killed Kurt Lance so that she could keep an eye on them. If she saw any hint that they were going to sell her out to the police or to Amanda Waller or to some secret government agency that everybody fucking already knows about anyway, she could scream in their faces until their eyes melted and their ears blew out. It's also entirely possible that she was just fucking lonely and the only people that would hang out with her were psychotic killers and Batgirl.

People have been lamenting the end of this comic book, so I guess it's been cancelled. Although I don't know why people are sad because this book has been horrible. It's been better since Christy Marx took over but she committed one glaring error: she never killed off Condor. What DC really should have done was cancel this after Swierczynski's run and then given it to Marx to reboot a few months later. This book just needs some direction and the death of one character and it could be really fun.

This issue is called "Death Jump"?! Do I dare hope that describes the actions of a certain purple headed maroon?!

This Singaporean guy has the ability to teleport like a Blink Dog if you're nerdy enough to know what those are. If you aren't nerdy enough, they're dogs that can teleport like this Singaporean guy! But they're not as mean as he is. This guy is a killer and I think Blink Dogs are friendly unless you take their food or hit them with a souvenir baseball bat.

Jesus Christ, how many more problems is Gordon going to have to deal with? He should fucking retire already.

This takes place before Gordon winds up in Blackgate, so at least Gordon doesn't realize he has a lot of shit to deal with yet. Although he might be dealing with Ricky's lawsuit and now he's going to have to try not to die while not losing hundreds of thousands of dollars as well. Maybe getting killed by Axton is the simple way out. Oh! I know! They can disguise Condor as Jim Gordon and let Condor get killed! That'll solve everybody's problems, especially mine!

Over on Mother Eve's Immortality Cruises, Kurt Lance is pretending he doesn't know Black Canary because he fell in love with somebody else when he woke up from his coma. I forgive him for falling in love with Condor at first sight though. Kurt hasn't had a chance to realize how fucking idiotic the bastard really is.

Or maybe Kurt really does have brain damage. I bet he'd remember Amanda Waller though!

The Birds of Prey become involved in the whole Axton trying to kill Gordon affair (that'll be the name of my first spy thriller: That Whole Axton Trying To Kill Gordon Affair) because Batgirl seems attached to Gordon for some reason. I know he's her dad but is that supposed to mean they have some kind of emotional connection or something? If I had to judge all child/father relationships by my own relationship with my father, I'd say that Batgirl thinks of him as some guy that was never around and now wants to be really close friends for some reason. Stop trying so hard, Dad! Just make sure I'm in the will and we'll be square! Especially if you have some teleporting assassin after you.

Who am I kidding? My father's will can probably fit on a cocktail napkin! He could have been a millionaire and retired on his Intel stocks if he hadn't been a raging alcoholic that decided to sell all of his employee stocks as soon as he got them to fuel his next blackout! Now I have to be responsible for my own person instead of living large on a hefty inheritance? Thanks a lot, jerko!

The Birds of Prey make a plan to capture Axton. Hopefully they remember to pick up Strix since she's their heavy hitter. While they're making plans to stop Axton, Axton is foiling their plans and currently kidnapping Gordon.

Don't worry, Babs! This story takes place before Batman Eternal! So he'll be fine! For now.

Luckily for the Birds of Prey, Axton doesn't kill Gordon immediately. That's also lucky for Gordon! Axton wants to hunt him like a virgin in a labyrinth. Perhaps if this is a Minotaur's Labyrinth analogy, Condor gets to be Icarus!

I think I spend too much time hoping for Condor's death. But I had a really shitty day today, so I'm really fucking hoping for something that would make me extremely happy and put me forever in Christy Marx's debt.

By working together (mostly by Strix just getting stabbed eighteen thousand times), the Birds of Prey manage to subdue Axton without anybody getting hurt! Boo! Hiss! Couldn't just one person have gotten hurt? Seriously hurt? Mortally hurt!

Why don't you just let it drop, Gordon! Your son was a dick!

And then the issue ends with Batgirl worrying about her dad for some reason. He's a grown man. He can take care of himself. Unless your boyfriend sues him for every last cent. That might take the wind out of his sails a bit and send him spiraling into a depression from which he'll never recover.

Birds of Prey #31 Rating: No change. I was so hoping Condor would die. If Christy Marx kills Condor, Birds of Prey will rocket to the top spot on my New 52 Chart! It will deservedly knock Batman and Robin from the top spot. And if it's the final issue, it will retire with a #1 Ranking! That will probably send people out to buy Swierczynski's trades. After which, they'll probably curse me and wonder what the fuck is wrong with my ability to review comic books.

Batgirl Annual #2

Hopefully those skulls belong to Condor and Starling.

Some people might wonder why, in the caption above, I've placed Starling on the same level as Condor. Well, that's easily explained. The only Starling stories I've ever read have been in The New 52. Even with all the shit characters Lobdell has written, Swierczynski still has the record for writing two of my most hated characters in The New 52: Starling and Condor. If she was ever entertaining or not annoying or able to actually hit a target that she was aiming at, I wouldn't know. Condor continues to suck under the guidance of Christy Marx but I think that's because she's remaining true to the character Swierczynski created. Starling ran off with Mr. Freeze rather quickly after Marx took over and hasn't been seen since. So I really do hope one of those is her skull.

You know which other characters Swierczynski wrote badly? Poison Ivy. Batgirl. Black Canary. Katana. Did I miss anybody? I do miss referring to his Birds of Prey as the Turds of Prey though. That was super mature of me!

This issue begins by showing how Batman's bad habits have rubbed off on every other hero in Gotham.

Are skylights paned in candy glass in Gotham?

Has there ever been a story where the glass from the skylight has fallen and cut the bad guys into ribbons? I suppose on those nights, Batman just slinks off back into the shadows and lets the Gotham Police happen upon an unfortunate accident. Unless the building is owned by Wayne Enterprises and then he has to call in Alfred to clean up the mess and throw the bodies in the bay.

This Birds of Prey story takes place well before Condor was an idea that should have been passed on. So Starling, Katana, and Poison Ivy are still on the team. I still don't know why this team was formed! I think Black Canary was either lonely or she was being paid to babysit Starling, Katana, and Poison Ivy.

The team is currently battling Mr. Rain for some reason. Black Canary won't say why and Batgirl trusts that her reasons are sound because Batgirl has yet to live through that whole Turds of Prey debacle. The others don't need a reason to beat the shit out of and, just possibly, kill some bad guys. Starling just came along to shoot the wall as often as possible.

Well then. Blades and guns probably weren't the most appropriate weapons to bring to the throw down.

This story is called "When Pamela Gets Blue" which is probably a clue as to what it's about. I guess Pamela is going to get blue. She does get a message from Mr. Rain and then tries to kill everybody in a story (not told here) that I think involved a plane or a rain forest and probably a whole bunch of people getting amnesia. And by "people," I mean the readers of the story.

And that's the end of season one. I mean, after Alysia screws Barbara by making her help with a lousy community garden project. That's set up so the next season can begin with Alysia showing off her tomatoes.

My guess is that eating pancakes in your sleep might be scaring off the potential suitors.

Barbara points out how people might wind up stealing the fruits and veggies which causes Alysia to take off her panties and bunch them up really tight. She tells Babs that the garden is for anybody who wants or needs anything from it, so why doesn't Babs take her fascist talk of ownership and shove it up her father's asshole. Maybe she says it with a little more tact. But she does have a point. Ownership is theft! But Babs has a point too! Because the people who believe in ownership are going to steal every vegetable in the garden to sell to the people that Alysia wants to give it to for free! If I had to pick which one of these two were currently being unreasonable, I'd pick Barbara because I like Alysia better.

After Alysia self-righteously walks out on her roommate, Barbara pees on the crops. Then later, she goes out as Batgirl to run into Poison Ivy! They're both searching for Mr. Rain but I have a feeling they're seeking him for very different reasons.

Yes. Well sure. Why don't we call "asking around and gathering evidence" "intuition"?

Poison Ivy accidentally finds Batgirl's weakness when Pamela tells her that she's pregnant. Batgirl immediately falls on her face and would have been dead if Poison Ivy wanted to kill her. She'll have to remember that bit when she does want to kill Batgirl at a later date.

I'd say you're not arresting her because you don't have the authority to arrest her. You might have the ability to tie her up against her will and leave her for the police. But let's not start pretending that's the usual legal process.

Poison Ivy hasn't turned blue yet! Although she does point out that she didn't mean she was literally pregnant. She meant she was some other kind of pregnant! Metaphorically! Or analogically! Or similillically! Which is a good thing because I was afraid she might have been impregnated by Clayface when he raped her over in Detective Comics #15.

What Poison Ivy meant was that she's just become more powerful. Now instead of just kissing people and making them do her will, she can now stab them through the face with a vine as quickly as she can think it. Sure, okay. So she's more powerful but at the cost of being way less sexy. Unless you're into being stabbed in the face. I don't want to marginalize the "stab me in the face while you fuck me hard" crowd. For them, Poison Ivy is probably a dream woman now!

Poison Ivy and Batgirl discover a warehouse full of scarred corpses and Poison Ivy points out how she's going to check the "Fern" box when the next census comes out and asks for her race. And that's the end of summer!

The best season begins and everybody gets cupcakes because it's my birthday season! Yay! Also the temperature is the most mild and the kites are screaming to be flown (the best kites ask to fly in autumn because summer is full of kite flying poseurs) and there are probably kittens everywhere! Also Batgirl and Poison Ivy are still hunting for Mr. Rain. Again, probably for very different reasons!

Yeah! It's not always lethal! Sometimes she just uses it to get better grades on her final exams.

I'm also not sure how "crashing through skylights" and "kicking in doors" constitutes a fetish for stealth!

Oh shut up, you actualliers! I know they're stealthy right up until the moment of surprise when they crash through very expensive construction materials to catch the bad guys off-guard! I'm not a full-blown moron!

Batgirl and Poison Ivy find out what Mr. Rain is doing with his subjects. He's implanting them with something that grows inside them and gives them a few more months to live. But then that something is taken out and given to somebody rich enough to pay for it. I don't know what that something does. Makes them stronger? Healthier? Allows them to live longer? Just as long as they keep paying for it.

Batgirl gets angry at Poison Ivy for not crying over some stranger that's dying due to Mr. Rain's experiments. No wait. The guy was dying anyway. The guy was able to live for a little while longer. Anyway, he's dying and it makes Batgirl sad because she's way too emotional. Poison Ivy doesn't give a fuck about this guy and I'm totally with her on that! I think Batgirl is the one acting a bit crazy. Isn't Poison Ivy's apathetic reaction to the death of a stranger that chose to be a criminal to live a little longer the more normal reaction? It's definitely the one I have!

How dare you, Barbara Gordon!

Batgirl isn't judging Poison Ivy on her inability to feel for some stranger that chose his fate. She can't be because that would be ridiculous! She must still be hurting because Poison Ivy turned on her. But even in the face of the revelation that Poison Ivy suffers from SAD (and, seriously, can there be a more apt person to suffer from it? Genius idea!), Batgirl judges Pamela's emotional reaction to the man's death as insufficient. Duh! You just fucking realized her emotional capabilities are intertwined with the changing of the seasons! So in reality, Batgirl must still be pissed at how Ivy treated their blossoming friendship. Although she treated it that way because of her Seasonal Affective Disorder, you dumb Batjerk!

I think Babs will come around to understanding all this by the time winter comes along. She has to work through her emotions (maybe with the help of some cookies from Alysia) before she can begin to come to terms with Poison Ivy's problems.

Also, Poison Ivy does care about the stranger but only because the stranger cared about his daughter and it reminded Ivy that her father never cared for her (as seen in Poison Ivy #1, on sale nowhere anymore! I mean, probably digitally! But you won't get the extra special migraine from trying to masturbate to the cover). So Ivy puts the guy out of his misery by kissing him right on the mouth!

This is what happens when you allow Gail Simone to push the boundaries on what is acceptable in a comic book! Now plants and people are having sex! Oh wait. That's already happened more than once over in Swamp Thing. Never mind.

Kissing isn't actually sex! If you think it is then you've probably had sex with your mother and your father and your aunts and your uncles and many, many babies. You pervert.

And finally Winter is here and Mr. Rain had better watch out because the end of the comic book is near! The first thing to happen is Alysia's community garden has been destroyed. The worst part is that they wrote "go home hippies" on the wall of the shed using their own shit. Gotham City is full of maniacs.

Batgirl finds Ivy and she's finally blue! She's nearly frozen and just barely keeping it together in the dead of winter. But she's found Mr. Rain. She needed Batgirl's help because she knows Batgirl will take her to Arkham where she can be safe through the winter. Mr. Rain tries to get Poison Ivy on his side by telling her he can cure her and she kicks his ass. The last thing any of us want to be told by some rich person with a drug is that they can cure us. That somehow the person we are is flawed or diseased or simply put together incorrectly.

Batgirl's lucky Ivy didn't go full tilt Poison Ice on her ass last Autumn.

On the way to Arkham, Batgirl has Poison Ivy fix up the community garden by growing lots of shit that shouldn't be grown in Gotham City at all, especially during the winter! I'm fairly certain the Swamp Thing got a new hemorrhoid or two due to this abuse of the Green.

Batgirl Annual #2 Rating: I don't rate Annuals. I usually say something extra stupid here. But this one time, I want to say something about the actual comic book. Seasonal Affective Disorder being at least partially responsible for Poison Ivy's behaviour is one of the greatest character moves I've seen so far in The New 52. It's right up there with Tomasi's reboot of Two-Face. It's much better than Bennett's creation of Twat Lobo but not quite as good as her introduction of Arkham Night Nurse! And a bazillion times greater than Swierczynksi's creation of Condor! Also, if this issue and the Poison Ivy issue of Harley Quinn aren't proof that Pamela is a lesbian then I'm going to need more proof, I guess. Lots and lots more proof!