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March 27, 2006
One Year Later: Birds of Prey
Birds of Prey has always been a witty, adventurous book since Gail Simone took over the writing. OYL gives her a chance to do something interesting by swapping Black Canary for Lady Shiva, who now calls herself the Jade Canary. I told you that Shiva wasn't really dead at the end of Batgirl, remember? Shiva's pretty funny in her OYL debut, taking on Killer Croc with one arm, because Croc's got a busted wing. She takes the Ventriloquist's dummy and throws him over the side of a building-something I always thought Batman should do. The Birds are still fighting the Secret Society, so that organization is still around. Meanwhile, Black Canary is in a secret training camp in Asia, presumably to become a supreme martial arts badass like Lady Shiva. She's handcuffed, blindfolded, and gets her ass kicked by a dozen Bruce Lee types. Shades of Kill Bill! Wouldn't it have been better to have all that training during the missing year? I think Simone missed a beat. What if Shiva was the hero in BoP and Canary was the assassin they had to take down?
Then there's the third BOP member, who appears in a ghostly form, and her identity will be revealed next issue-NOT! Fan boarders have already guessed that this character is Gypsy, from the Justice League Detroit days. Never in a million years did I dream that this character would make a cameo on TV (Justice League Unlimited) and later be revived in an ongoing series. That old saying about "there are no bad characters" is probably true. Nuff said.
