Birds of Prey #21

The first of my Barbara Gordon issues.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm not trying to be anti-Barbara Gordon after she became Batgirl again. Ever since the change I don't really care about the character and only get annoyed when something gets my attention. But isn't she supposed to be smart? Or is she blind where costumes are concerned? I'll get more in depth with that in my next review but think about this for a moment. You have a Talon that you refer to as "owl" by calling her Strix. She wears the exact same uniform she wore as a Talon and they recently broke into Court of Owls lab. Keeping a low profile would have been ideal because hoping not to attract unwanted attention at this point is moot. Calvin Rose from the Talon book comes to take Mary in/kill her, etc. He goes easy on Barbara by tossing her out of the fight. Honestly I don't think Barbara is nearly as challenging as she once was. Based on what I've seen and heard any of the Robin and former Batgirls could take her out. So I'm not too off put that new comer Calvin can do it while holding back.

Dinah is bummed out that Ev betrayed them (as we all are) and Condor alludes to his past by saying he knows what that's like. Calvin wasn't too keen on killing Mary and when she has the chance to kill him first she decides against it. I'm not sure how Barbara knows Mary was in the same building since logically it would have made more sense to assume she was fighting somewhere else. Calvins' thoughts on his loved ones, on how numb Talons are to pain works well. The bit with Babs musing to herself about her brother doesn't, it feels out of place. Condor and Dinah making out likewise feels random. This isn't as good as Sword of Sorcery because a lot is being overly explained in ways that make the characters sound weird. SOS was far more natural.

This is definitely a drop for me. I'll be picking Batwoman in it's place for an arc and see if I'll stick with it.


Questions Raised?: Is Bruce ever going to do his building projects? He first mentioned it in Batman #1 and we haven't seen much.