Review - Birds of Prey Volume 1

A series of horrific attacks on projects fronted by the charismatic industrialist Nick Devine prompts Oracle to hire Black Canary to investigate. With the terrorist group known as the Green Brotherhood claiming responsibility, Black Canary is charged with finding out why they’ve targeted Devine and stopping them before they can cause any further harm.

Birds of Prey Volume 1 collects Black Canary/Oracle: Birds Of Prey #1, Showcase '96 #3, Birds Of Prey: Manhunt #1-4, Birds Of Prey: Revolution #1, Birds Of Prey: Wolves #1 and Birds Of Prey: Batgirl #1, written by Chuck Dixon and Jordan B. Gorfinkel with art by Gary Frank, Matt Haley and Greg Land.

Birds of Prey Volume 1 chronicles the earliest adventures of the eponymous Birds of Prey, the superhero duo consisting of hacker supreme Oracle and then-former Justice Leaguer Black Canary. The issues collected consist of a variety of mini-series and one-shots that eventually led to the now-iconic ongoing series later made famous by Gail Simone. These initial stories are largely written by veteran Batman scribe Chuck Dixon, with assistance from editor Jordan B. Gorfinkel. Though the narratives vary from story to story, the overall common thread linking these comics is the blossoming friendship between the two lead characters. Through these stories, we’re able to track the evolution of their partnership from its uneasy beginnings to a place of mutual understanding and respect. Specifically, the rigidly logical Oracle learns to accept Black Canary’s impulsiveness and vice versa. It’s an unusual through line for an era that was admittedly light on friendships between women characters.

The quality of the stories themselves varies widely. The opening one-shot, Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey #1, sees Black Canary acting as a bodyguard for businessman Nick Devine while he is being targeted by the Green Brotherhood. It’s an excellent introduction to the duo of Black Canary and Oracle, effectively establishing who they are, where they were at that point in their lives, and gives them a global crisis to address. This storyline presents Black Canary as a down-and-out superhero with mounting bills and a personal life that’s in the toilet. Oracle gives Canary the opportunity to pull herself out of this situation and go back to being the hero she was meant to be. This character work is quite smart and speaks to the resilience of Black Canary. With that said, there are some ickier elements to the story as well. Canary ends up going to impoverished countries, which are primarily populated by people of colour, and it taints the narrative with the whiff of the white saviour trope. We also get Lynx thrown into the mix as an antagonist and the Green Brotherhood are clearly coded as East Asian. As such, it feels like it’s pushing some kind of notion of Yellow Peril. This trend will continue with successive stories in Birds of Prey, especially since we get a lot of Dragon Lady-esque villains and international adventures where Canary is placed in a role of helping impoverished (mostly non-white) nations.

For the most part, the one shots collected in this trade are fairly unremarkable. Revolution sees Black Canary investigating a human trafficking ring based out of Santa Prisca. While the storyline itself tackles a very real problem in the world, it does so by framing white people as the victims at the hands of Latinx-coded individuals. Given that it takes place on Santa Prisca, the fictional island nation that is characterized by the worst stereotypes associated with Latin American countries, it should be expected that the narrative is going to be problematic. Wolves, by contrast, doesn’t even attempt to delve into real world issues. Instead, the entire thrust of the story is that men are trash (which is true) and that both Oracle and Black Canary needed to be convinced of this in order to bond as friends. Black Canary’s ex-husband comes back into her life and attempts to con her into helping him after he steals money from some gangsters. Meanwhile, Oracle gets targeted by a scam artist who seduces her with the intention of burgling her apartment. Wolves fails to feel like its story is of any import due to its day-in-the-life approach and uses men as the catalyst to the cementing of the characters’ friendship. Batgirl is the most engaging one-shot (aside from the opener). In it, Oracle is kidnapped by the illusion-casting villain Spellbinder in an attempt to manipulate her into giving away Batman’s hideout. As a villain, Spellbinder is dynamic and her motivation is quite clear. We also get to see Oracle’s determination and resourcefulness when the time comes to physically take down Spellbinder. However, the story hasn’t aged well particularly due to the evolving language around disabilities. There’s this pervasive obsession with Oracle being disabled in this one-shot. She’s consistently referred to in ways that aren’t appropriate by today’s standards and it’s really uncomfortable to read.

Amidst the one-shots in this volume, there’s a four issue mini-series (Manhunt) that sees Black Canary teaming up with Huntress and Catwoman. Canary forms an alliance with the anti-heroines due to their shared desire to take down the criminal Archer Braun. Canary and Huntress want to ensure that he is brought to justice for his misdeeds against women, while Catwoman is adamant about retrieving the money he owes her from a previous caper. At first glance, this is the kind of story that would appeal to me on every level since it’s starring three of my favourite DC Comics heroines. Unfortunately, the execution of the storyline is all wrong. First of all, the initial impetus for Canary and Huntress chasing down Braun is that he ghosted them after briefly dating them. Even the way they learn that he’s a criminal is pretty flimsy (they recognize his butt on security footage – really?). There’s even an inconsistency that doesn’t quite make sense. Namely, Canary and Huntress act as if they’re meeting each other for the first time even though they’d actually worked together before (in the 1993 series Black Canary #9-12). Manhunt otherwise features a ridiculous amount of incredible action and highlights just how mighty the trifecta of Canary, Huntress and Catwoman can be. I love their dynamic as a group, particularly how they act as a kind of gradient scale of morality. Under a better creative team, this would be an amazing trio whose adventures would be stellar.

Art-wise Birds of Prey Volume 1 is all over the place. The opening one-shot is illustrated by Gary Frank, as are the covers for each subsequent one-shot and the Manhunt mini. His work is absolutely breathtaking. His composition is amazing, the costuming he provides Black Canary with is memorable, and the action sequences practically pop off the page. Matt Haley’s pencils for Manhunt are nearly just as gorgeous as Frank’s. There are plenty of fantastic panels worth remembering, chief among them a rather menacing Lady Shiva grinning while surrounded by flames. I’m also very enamoured with his Catwoman. I love how he draws her hair and the attention to detail on her mask. Beyond that, he seems to really inject a lot of dynamism into her presence and expressions. That said, Haley does include some rather unnecessary butt shots. Greg Land is one of the other artists who handle art chores in this collection. This is from an earlier point in his career, prior to his descent into infamy for his apparent tracing. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I really quite enjoy his work here. It’s not noticeably trace from anywhere and the women don’t all look like their waists are little more than toothpicks (they’re still small, but not as bad). Land actually appears to put effort into his art here. The other artists whose work is included are Dick Giordano (Wolves) and Stefano Raffaele (Revolution). Their art is mediocre at best here and doesn’t quite match the quality present in the other issues. Raffaele also has some issues with anatomy and includes unnecessary shots of Canary’s posterior.

Birds of Prey is one of those series that I grew up loving as a kid. I collected back issues like candy and remembered those stories through the lenses of rose-coloured glasses. In reading their earliest adventures via this collection, it’s easy to see the many cracks in the foundation of this series. There are a lot of great ideas present, especially when it comes to the development of Oracle and Black Canary’s friendship. Sadly, there are a lot of questionable elements that drag down the overall quality of the work. It should be a surprise to no one given who wrote these stories. Even from a narrative standpoint, Birds of Prey Volume 1 is inconsistent due to the fact that it is mostly one-shots and has no set artist on board. It’s worth a read for the sake of understanding how the team and series came to be, but there are still far better Birds of Prey trades out there.

RATING: C+