The Death of Oracle concludes, and it looks like Calculator has already won. Certainly that can’t be true, find out after the jump
BIRDS OF PREY #10
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Inaki Miranda
Colorist: Nei Ruffino
Letterer: Swands
Cover Artist: Stanley “Artgerm” Lau
Editor: Janelle Siegel
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.99
Previously in Birds of Prey: Noah Kuttler, the Calculator, has set his sights on Oracle once again, and this time he knows just who to target. Having used his new henchwoman, Mortis, to take down Canary and holding three fourths of the rest of the team hostage he was able to take out Oracle’s helicopter, presumably with her on board.
HUNTRESS IN CHARGE
We follow Helena’s thoughts for the entire issue. Opening with her angry face as she sees the remains of the helicopter behind Calculator. Showing just how clever Helena is, and the fact that she grew up around the mob, Helena attacks Kuttler directly making freak out and lose the troops. This intern forces him to overreact and shoot Dove to try and get the troops back. Too bad for him that Canary is awake and ready to go all JLA on him.
Hawk also shows up, guess who was in the helicopter, and we get some more fighty-fighty while Kuttler tries to get away. Canary tells Helena to be Huntress and chase him down, which she does and scares the crap out of him with the “ghosts” of Oracle, oh did we mention she’s not actually dead but only hiding herself from all but five people, she wants the criminals to never see her coming.
PRETTY BIRDS
And they are very pretty birds. Miranda’s knows how to make them attractive without being ridiculous. Everything in here is just well done and looks good. I especially liked when Oracle was telling the Bat-Family Bruce went from stoic to smiling with a simple change of lips.
BOTTOM LINE: ABSOLUTELY
There’s a reason Simone is such a fan favorite writer, she’s good. From showing how characters aren’t exactly what we always expect the to be, to giving us fantastic, well put together stories, to just great creative dialogue, the lady knows what she’s doing. She even gets a good Booster Gold moment in to show how the world reacts to life without Oracle. Birds of Prey easily earns a fantastic 4.5 out of 5 stars.
[rating:4.5/5]
6 Comments
As much as I liked the issue the death of Oracle doesn’t ring true, or rather I don’t see how the bad guys would buy it. Huntress, Zinda or Dinah would have likely killed Calculator had he actually murdered Babs (they certainly would have never let him go), at the very least the entire super hero community should be hunting Cal 24/7.
Kind of like how everyone was on the lookout for the Flash’s rogues gallery, specifically Pied Piper and The Trickster, during Countdown.
Some of the art was bad — in that shot of the five Batfolks, Dick’s body looked like the artist didn’t even try to get the proportions right…. weak…
Lady Blackhawk’s Left arm must be long as heck for her gun toting hand to make it all the way to the other side of babs head. She’s getting her Plasticman/Elongated Man on!!!!
I am indeed enjoying this series of “Birds of Prey” but I must say that the art by Inaki Miranda is not my favourite.
My favourite character ‘Hawk’ (the whole reason I started on this series) looks a little silly most of the time and his eyes and build are all wrong!
I am a huge fan of the late 80’s/early 90’s “Hawk & Dove” series and wish Rob Liefeld would do an issue or two of “Birds” to show everyone how much of a total bad-ass ‘Hawk’ really is!
Still, an above average issue indeed.
I look forward to seeing where things go from here and hopefully a little more action from H & D too.
Did you honestly just ask the universe and tempt fate with Rob Liefeld getting another book to write? And a character that you actually like? And you didn’t like the eyes or build that Inaki Miranda did.
Umm…..are you Bizzaro?