Review: Birds of Prey #25
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Art: Cliff Richards and Sami Basri
Colors: Adriano Lucas
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd
Summary
The team must trust Inque in order to stop something terrible going down at the hands of the Shadow Army. They put together a plan and enter…the Unreality!
Positives
Birds of Prey #25 ends with the team entering what appears to be the Unreality. Imagine physically entering a computer game of sorts with fantasy/ D&D inspired costumes. This sort of cyber/ virtual/ tech themed game goes perfectly with the Birds of Prey. Barbara has long surfed the internet under the Oracle identity in order to get information, spy on enemies and even fight opponents. This is an interesting step and, perhaps, Kelly Thompson should’ve broken this out earlier in her run instead of some of the terrible ideas we got in the first few arcs with time travel and Doom Patrol-style weirdness that mix with the Birds of Prey concept like oil and water.
Additionally, Thompson finally gets some compelling interpersonal conflict that makes for an engaging dynamic. Because of obvious reason, Barda has no desire to trust Inque on any level, but she must be convinced by Barbara and Dinah that there’s a greater good at stake that they can’t ignore. It’s the type of things one expects in Birds of Prey and Thompson finally delivers. Has she been reading the old stuff finally? (I know I’ve been re-reading it over the past year!).
The mix of the team putting together and enacting the plan is fun as well. It’s a long standing thing in Birds of Prey for the team to have a plan to execute after getting their intel. Thompson has gotten close in recent issues with this aspect of the concept, but like the above points, she finally gets it right. Part of this is not having too many people involved and making sure each one has a role. In previous issues it’s seemed like Thompson wasn’t really aware of the plan and didn’t know how to write all the characters to make them relevant, but in Birds of Prey #25 she finally puts the pieces together.
Perhaps, the biggest positive is that the negatives, though notable don’t impact this issue as much as they could. I mean they are there, but the positives are much stronger and bigger ideas.
Negatives
While Thompson has certainly done a much better job with this issue, she can’t stay away from some of her crutches. She loves this Megeara thing with Sin and it hasn’t worked since it was first introduced. It’s still not working and it only detracts from what is working. Being possessed is never a good thing. Also, this ties into Maps and the time travel from the first arc. It didn’t work then, it’s not working now. This isn’t Rip Hunter and the Time Masters. This plot belongs in a series with different characters, not a street level espionage concept. It’s like Batman fighting dinosaurs. Thompson also struggles with some of the dialogue. Again, Barda comes off too stilted and awkward. She no longer “Hulk Smash,” but it sounds like speaking is a chore for Barda. Furthermore, sometimes Thompson tries too hard to make the characters sound tough. This happens with Dinah in this issue. For comparison, despite Megeara being a complete and utter mistake, her over the top reaction fits perfectly with who she’s supposed to be, but Dinah’s ultra tough exhortation to the team comes off contrived.
Finally, while this issue moves along at a great pace, it grinds to a halt when the team must pick out costumes before they enter the Unreality. All of a sudden these very serious public safety minded women get sidetracked with fashion decisions. Perhaps, it’s funny. Perhaps, it’s supposed to show their personalities…under the circumstances it plays too long and makes them seem easily distracted from the task at hand. Perhaps, a comment like “when we get back, etc…,” but as it is this scene completely stops the momentum of the plot and cuts the tension and suspense that Thompson had been building.
Verdict
I don’t think there’s a question that Birds of Prey #25 is the best issue of this series so far. Over the past arc Kelly Thompson has been able to finally get a story that actually feels like a Birds of Prey comic. This issue is the best she’s done in the two years since the series launched. She still falls back on the ideas she likes that don’t work at all like Megeara, a near sleep inducing fashion interlude, awkward dialogue and ill fitting time travel shenanigans, but in the overall scheme they take a back seat to the things that do work, the interpersonal relationships, the plan, and the apparently interesting concept of the Unreality which seems to fit perfectly with the cyber/ tech elements of the Birds of Prey concept. Closer to a 7.5/ 10 than an 8/10, but I’ve been pretty rough on this series.
