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!