Greetings, birders!
We’re back this month to start an all new series, one headlined by none other than Babs, Steph and Cass— deftly maneuvering through the ominous shadows of Gotham to investigate and fight crime (and some other shenanigans) as only lady-bats can!Let’s roll…
You know the drill: We’ll take the first 2 weeks (11/6-11/20) to read, then discuss during the last 2 weeks (11/21- 12/3). Did you enjoy it? Have you read it before? What did you think of the dialogue, plot or artwork? Anything about the reading you’d like to discuss—drop your thoughts below when you’re ready. See ya soon!
You can join or learn more about Birds of Prey HERE.
Oh, exciting! I just got the trade of these issues (even though I already have at least one of each single issue)! Look forward to rereading and finding out what you all think! Steph, Cass, and Babs just rock!
As I was saying over in the BGs discussion thread the thing I love most about this series is the camaraderie these three amaze women have. There’s a rock solid sense of love and support among these three that is undeniable and just pulls you right in. The mood of the loft is hair up and PJ’s nights with tons of light, fun, and just all around wonderfulness. Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad are penning a super wonderful storyline here that should not be missed.
I’mma also just go ahead and leave this right here-
Lookit’ my gurrrlll gooo y’all! I love you so, sooo very much BG!
Ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing
Put your heart and your soul in it
Ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing
Now put your heart and your soul in it
Totally agree. I love that Steph, Babs, and Cass have each other’s backs. And Jorge Corona makes them look so cute and great, too! I’ve loved his art since We Are Robin, and I think it’s pretty cool he also got to set the tone of Batgirls!
Finished this first arc again and definitely enjoyed it. I think the best parts of this book is the sort of tone and the art style. It just exudes this playful, jubilant style while not masking Gotham’s seedy and dark undertones. I also dig the characterization of Babs, Cass and Steph – I’ve heard people complain about the characters sounding too young, but honestly, I get the feeling that a lot of them are from older people who don’t know how younger people talk.
If I were to give the arc a critique, I think it would be that it does a little too much in the villain department. I mean, in terms of villains, we got:
Seer
The Saints
Tudor
Spellbinder
The Hillside Slasher
That is a LOT of characters and I don’t think they all really get the page time to really shine. I think things might have worked better if maybe the Slasher was more of a background thing, and maybe they held off on Spellbinder for another arc or so.
But still, what’s there works well enough. I’m actually a few issues behind on the book, but doing this inspired me to reread the rest of the series and catch up.
Nice reaction! I tend to agree with all your points, positive and negative. I personally wish that Seer had been completely jettisoned - I find her least interesting, and the execution felt worst to me. I think the Saint are really cool, and wish they’d gotten more of a spotlight, and were a bit harder to beat. Tutor and Spellbinder feel really redundant to me - they serve basically the same function, have the same basic modus operandi, and neither are particularly interesting enough to justify two of them. The Hill Ripper, on the other hand, makes sense to me as a setup for a later arc, and I don’t think he gets too much, really.
So basically remove Seer and the Tutor and I think the arc would feel a lot stronger.
I think Seer is interesting in theory and worked best in Fear State, when she was representing sort of fake news and that kind of stuff, but she doesn’t do a lot other than harass Barbara in this arc. Like I said, I’m a few issues behind so I don’t know if she becomes a bigger/better character later.
I didn’t think Seer was used that effectively in Fear State. I get what they were trying to do with her, but the plot structure and the way they just sort of shuffled her off to Batgirls really didn’t work for me.
The Saints, on the other hand, are exactly the kind of thing I like - taking a concept that I thought was cool (Simon Saint’s attempt to “fix” Gotham) and extrapolate out consequences in a way that’s contained to the story but also is enriched by the bigger narrative.
Speaking of the Saints, reading them again I suddenly connected them to the Empire after Return of the Jedi, where there was a segment who believed that the Emperor was still alive and was trying to keep it alive, which created the First Order. I almost expected a joke/reference where one of the Batgirls or the omniscient narrator says that the Saints think “somehow, Simon Saint returned.”
Greetings, birders!
as only lady-bats can! 
Let’s roll…
This activity will be running all month long!
See ya soon!
You can join or learn more about Birds of Prey HERE.
Ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing, ain’t nothing
Amateur. 
