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?!

Birds of Prey #23

Oh my God! Regulus is actually Gene Simmons!

Regulus is dead to me ever since Deadshot killed himself to make sure Regulus died. Who's the fucking genius at DC that decided that multiple ways of resurrecting characters was a good thing? How about not killing characters for some kind of fake tension? If you have the means to resurrect everybody then killing people means absolutely nothing. How the fuck has Damian Wayne been dead for so long when everybody has a formula for bringing back the dead? Here's what you need to do, DC: bring back Damian and then knock it the fuck off. Stop killing people willy-nilly. It serves no purpose unless you're going to let them remain dead.

Not that any of this death and resurrection bullshit is Christy Marx's fault. She's just using a character that was ruined for me over in Suicide Squad. Hopefully he'll end up buried under a mountain of stone at the end of this issue along with Condor. And then Uplink will join the Birds of Prey where Black Canary will come up with some sort of reason for The Birds to exist, and the entire comic can begin with a fresh start. Sound good?

This is where we left off last issue:

Hammerdown just looks like a parody of a 90s super hero. Maybe he's from an Eastern Bloc nation that only had access to counterfeit issues of 90s American comics when he was growing up. So he actually modeled himself after a parody of a parody of a superhero.

While everybody is being controlled by Uplink, they're dreaming very unrealistic dreams that had better never come true ever or I'm going to chop off one of my feet and post it to Christy Marx, care of DC Comics.

Hopefully Dinah's dream is the exact opposite of this bullshit!

Ugh. It isn't!

Stop seeing stuff in him! Condor is awful! He has all the charm of Scrappy Doo and Cousin Oliver combined!

Condor might be the worst character ever created. He has to be using his tele-powers to convince Dinah that he's not the lamest character from Lamestonshire. I now know what super power I would choose if I could have any super power! It would be the ability to enter into a comic book and punch a character in the face.

Batgirl dreams that her family was a happy Seventh Heaven piece of crap family that had never fallen under the influence of that jerk, Batman. I'm not sure why, in her fantasy, her father wears his trench coat to the dinner table. What a weirdo.

Strix's dream is pretty much just a remembrance of the day her family was bombed by the Japanese. The pain of the dream causes her to fight back which causes Uplink to pass out, freeing Strix and Batgirl. Condor and Black Canary were already sealed away for delivery to Regulus before this happens.

This is the same thing I say every time I wake up.

Fifteen pages in and Condor is still alive! I'm so angry!

While Strix and Batgirl battle Whipdown and Hammercrack, Condor and Black Canary are loaded up on a helicopter and taken away. Tsiklon retrieves her beat up teammates with her ass tornado power and they all flee to South America where they'll be sure to kill Condor nice and quickly.

Meanwhile in South America, I forgot that Regulus kidnapped Kurt Lance for some nefarious plan. I suppose this is part of his nefarious plan!

Reuniting Dinah and Kurt so that Condor's heart will break! Ha ha ha! Great plan!

Birds of Prey #23 Rating: No change. I bet Amanda Waller is going to be totally pissed off about this! I wonder when somebody will introduce Amanda Waller and Kurt Lance's love child, Havana Waller Lance? Hopefully soon!

Birds of Prey #22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile on his way back from the bank...

Mmm! Tastes like Canary!

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

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

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

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

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

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