Birds of Prey #6

            I was so glad when this title returned.  I knew I would like the book because I like Gail Simone as a storyteller.  Still, I admit that the restart has been bogged down some.  I wonder if Simone asked for Hawk & Dove, or if they said that the duo had to be placed in BoP because they needed somewhere to tell there Brightest Day tales that are out of the main title?  So the story of the return of the Birds gets a heavy handed treatment because we have this dual layer.  Simone does a good job of weaving her tale in with these two characters. 

            The payoff comes in this issue.  So much  been done in the life of Dinah Lance when the BoP was dissolved to carry the larger DCU pail of water.  She had to give the adopted daughter, Sin up to protect her, She got married, her husband died by her hand, her husband was alive and she had to rescue him, her husband’s son gets shot and brain drained,  Arsenal loses an arm, Ollie kills Prometheus, and she leaves Ollie.  Oh, Dinah also lead the Justice League as well.  Simone had to bring these characters back to the strength she had given them.  Dinah and the rest were not treated as well as we might think they would have been.

            A story carried from the previous run of Gail Simone on the title is continued here.  The only girl of a group of martial artist that Dinah had defeated and humiliated is manipulating things.  This White Canary has back both the Black canary and Lady Shiva into a match to the death.  Sin’s life is hanging in the balance.  The events lead Helena and Zinda to follow Dinah to Bangkok and they immediately get a surprise as they are facing her with a group of fighters.

            This is where the story begins for this issue.  Helena realizes that she has to do something that only she can do.  You miss this if you do not read carefully.  It leads to a fight between Huntress and Lady Shiva.  There is a great scene where Helena screws up the plan White Canary was forcing by using what she knows of honor and stuff because of her mafia background.  Her actions also bring us a new name for Lady Shiva, Drippypants.

            Drippypants was just a small bit of humor in this deadly serious fight between Huntress and the DCU’s deadliest women.  Never would you give Huntress a chance to get in one good moment, but she does.  It is great reading the fight, but the emotional stuff Helena is going through during this part of the story really hits her roots excellently.

            I recently purchased the entire Dennis O’Neal run of Huntress back in the late 1980’s.  Simone captures that essence of the character.  This was a Huntress that was just beginning and finding her feet.  All that was wiped out as reality was adjusted and readjusted.  We forget that Huntress was and is a strong woman that is not a shadow of Batman.  That is the best thing Gail Simone has done, bring Huntress to a level she should be at as a character.

BDS