Birds of Prey #24

Have I ever liked this comic book? Why is it so poorly put together?

As an experiment, I'm going to go sit down somewhere nice and cheery and read this comic book straight through without interrupting myself. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know how it will change the way I discuss the comic book in this commentary. But something has to change somewhere. DC's comic books are killing my soul.

I'm using soul metaphorically! Obviously we don't have some invisible piece of lacy froufrou stuck to the end of a silver cord stuffed somewhere inside of us on which our entire essence is encoded. What we do have is a sickly gray blob full of electricity! And that shit stops working when the lights go out.

Experiment failed! Three pages in and I can't not talk about this stupidity!

Page One, Batgirl in a dramatic Boobs-Butt Showcase ponders how she is going to follow Basilisk as they fly away in a helicopter with her friends. Her Batcave Panel Van isn't going to do the trick! Neither is her Battercycle! So how is the comic book going to continue?!

Cue the man waiting on the ledge of the building!

Whew! Good thing a guy Babs recognizes and was told was a good man was stalking her and can now solve her problem for her!

Batgirl and Strix follow the man who never gives his name (nor his benefactor's!) to the Gotham International Airport because they need to catch a flight to South America. That makes the flight international as opposed to intranational! Unless you like the term Domestic better although I don't because it confuses my house staff. Batgirl gets to take a private jet helicopter thing provided by The Benefactor anyway because how would Batgirl board an airplane without revealing her secret identity? Luckily The Mysterious Convenient Man is willing to house her Battercycle in the hangar while she's gone with a guarantee that nobody will touch it. Right. An unregistered super cycle tricked out with lots of Batgear? The janitors are going to put some silly miles on that shit.

The Convenient Man: "Are you Batgirl? I'm pretty sure you're Batgirl. You must be Batgirl!"
Batgirl: "Who the fu...oh, I recognize you from when I was a little girl and my father used to take me into work with him! I mean, you seem nice!"
The Convenient Man: "I am! I'm your friend! And I know this guy named The Mysterious Benefactor that can get you a private airplane to follow Basilisk and save your friends!"
Batgirl: "I would do anything to save my friends! Except lick your asshole. You don't want me to lick your asshole, do you? I mean, if that were absolutely the only way to save my friends...is it?"
The Convenient Man: "No! I will take you to Gotham International Airport where you will sit in silence and not ask me any questions because the ride won't be shown on any panels which means it doesn't exist in time. That way when we get to the airport, you will want to know more about this weird set-up and I'll be able to say, 'There's no time! Get on the plane now if you want to save your friends!' And you'll get on the plane thinking, "I don't like this. Maybe I should have left the Battercycle and rode with The Convenient Man so I could have asked more questions on the way to the airport!"
Batgirl: "I don't like this. Maybe I should have left the Battercycle and rode with The Convenient Man so I could have asked more questions on the way to the airport!"
The Convenient Man: "Good girl. I'll see you when you're done so you can meet your Benefactor! Who is probably Condor, by the way, but you can't know that yet! Unless it's Amanda Waller!"

Meanwhile Strix continues to say nothing and do nothing and act as uninteresting as possible. I think she's here simply to be a metaphor for this comic book.

Back in Regulus's lair, Black Canary has some questions for Regulus. One of them is the exact same question I had before I turned the page (kind of): "What the fuck is up with that shit all over Regulus's face?"

I do like that there's no build up or mystery behind Regulus's identity. Black Canary just looks over her shoulder and goes, "Oh! Hey, Dean! How've you been? Besides, you know, dead?"

Dean Higgins (the bald guy from Team 7) being Regulus causes Suicide Squad's battles with Basilisk and Regulus to make more sense. I don't know if Regulus was always supposed to be Dean Higgins or if that was decided later to fit him and his Basilisk boys into the backstory of Amanda and Dinah and Kurt. Regulus does say that "the remains of Higgins are in here, too" so I guess he's a bit of a Serpentor wannabe. Makes sense since he's Lord of Snakes!

Regulus tells his origin story because why not? It turns out he was merged with Kaizen when Black Canary's scream destroyed Gamorra. So that explains the suddenly bountiful locks of hair. He took over Basilisk and decided to make it personal. He would stop Black Canary and Amanda Waller and every other outfit or organization that employs super heroes. Except for his own. Using them himself is okay. It's the main reason countries go to war. "Sure, you're doing the same thing we're doing but we don't like that being done if we're not around to control it. So stop or we make you stop."

Regulus offers Black Canary a job working for him or else, you know, like I just said, he'll kill her.

In another part of the lair, Condor is not being killed by anybody. Come on, anybody! Get with it! Start ending that jerk's life already! Instead of dying, he's arguing with his ex, Tsiklon. Condor gets a tour of the new headquarters and trades insults with his old evil gang buddies. They don't even like him! Which means maybe I like them! Even if they do seem like a super team straight out of Image's early years.

Eventually Strix and Batgirl arrive to save Black Canary, Condor, and Uplink (the new recruit whose name will have to be changed to something a little more avian).

The joys of working with an undead killing machine. I guess it's no different than working with Katana, Poison Ivy, or Starling.

Batgirl and Strix infiltrate Regulus's hideout and soon locate Condor's annoying voice. They decide to shadow him and his evil buddies to find out how tight he still is with them. Damn. I thought maybe Strix would go into a Talon killing frenzy and end his obnoxious presence in this comic book.

Back in the lab, Black Canary decides to kick Regulus in the face and interrogate him at the same time. Lucky for her, fighting while answering questions is a staple of comic book action scenes. Regulus explains how he's going to use Kurt Lance's power to remove super powers from everyone on Earth! Because how dare they get to use them when he, Dean Higgins, had none!

What a stupid plan. You'll still have to deal with The Goddamned Batman!

Black Canary and Strix are discovered and Condor pretends to be on Basilisk's side when the comic book ends. We all know he's just going to betray them when the fight gets under way in Issue #26. The part that really confuses me is that Whipcrack mentions how he had ninety stitches thanks to the fight with Talon. Wasn't that just a few hours ago? How long is the flight from Gotham to Vague South American Mountaintop? I'd expect his stitches to pop just getting into a threatening pose before the fight actually starts. Oh well. Next month, Zero Year! You can probably skip it.

Birds of Prey #24 Rating: -1 Ranking. Condor is still alive which means I hate this comic book. Without Condor, I would merely not care about this comic book. It's been rather dull and often confusing and I don't know if they're heroes on the run or anti-heroes or murderers just hanging out with Black Canary. The team has no real direction or motivation for continuing as a team. They have no goal. They simply react to shit over and over and over. Why did Black Canary need a team in the first place? What the fuck is going on?!

Team 7 #5

Here we go again! Got a problem? Shoot it in the face! Problem solved!

Spartan has a couple of pouches on his belt, so I'm guessing he's from the Wildstorm Universe. I'm also guessing that the guy with the pouches on his belt is Spartan! I don't know who the red head is. Maybe it's Barbara Gordon's mother? Whoever it is, my guess is she's part of Team 7's second mission!

The issue begins by informing the reader that the location of the story is The Pacific and the time it takes place is Now. But what does it mean by now? Does that mean concurrent with the other New 52 stories that came out this week? Or does that mean five or more years ago when Team 7 began? These out of time stories are confusing. Since the next page shows Deathstroke infiltrating the ship flying over the Pacific, my guess is that this story actually takes place now. Problem solved and I didn't have to shoot it in the face!

Deathstroke shoots a bunch of problems and then encounters John Lynch who decides they should talk about the past! But the flashback sequence doesn't have either of them in it, so I don't know why they're reminiscing about it. Perhaps it's because Caitlin Fairchild as a teenager is in it and she's working on cybernetics for Team 7. Perhaps they both had illegal crushes on her. Unless she was eighteen. I bet she was eighteen since five years later she'd be twenty three and that seems about the right age for the young Ravagers to think of her as an old person.

Also in their flashback is Dr. Henshaw working on some guy they call Spartan. He seems to be a robot but I don't know where he came from. They don't seem to completely understand how he works, so I don't think they created him. And everybody keeps dropping Dr. Stone's name as well. Maybe Spartan is a Cyborg prototype.

Slade and Alex Fairchild have a bit of an intimate chat over beer. Nobody gets shot. Then Black Canary confronts John Lynch about what the fuck he means to do with Team 7 besides get them killed.

This is his answer. Stop jerks from using kids that can mutilate other kids as weapons.

So John Lynch began Team 7 because he was afraid of people with super powers. No wait! That's not true! He began Team 1 because he was afraid of people with super powers! But I guess everyone in Team 1 died just like Black Canary is afraid is going to happen to her and her teammates. She has a right to be worried though, right?! They are Team 7! Lynch has managed to kill six other whole teams! But what Black Canary is really worried about is that Lynch has begun experimenting on the members of Team 7 in Project Majestic. He's changing them and giving them super powers so that they can effectively combat super powered threats. That's probably a good idea seeing as how they only had bullets on their first mission and those weren't very effective.

The last part of their memory was about Caitlin Fairchild walking in on the cybernetic lab to find that it was changing everyone into cyborgs. Or Spartan was changing everyone into cyborgs. Something was changing everything into cyborgs, anyway! Since the cover declares Spartan was attacking, my guess is he's the one changing everybody.

And then it's back to the present where Deathstroke tries to solve his John Lynch problem the only way members of Team 7 know how! Remember? We've been over this a few times already!

Did Caitlin die? Is the current Caitlin Fairchild a clone? Is that what the Gen 13 project was all about? Clones? Seriously. I don't know! I never read Gen 13!

Whatever happened long ago, whatever possibly killed Caitlin, also killed an entire country, according to Lynch. I don't know what country. Probably Markovia or some other made up DC country. But whatever did it (Spartan, probably!), it's coming back and Lynch needs Deathstroke to help stop it. So I guess next issue will tackle Slade killing it in the present and Team 7 getting their asses kicked by it in the past.

Team 7 #5 Rating: -1 Ranking. I just found this entire issue rather boring. I think I lost interest in Team 7 three issues ago!