It’s always good to check back in with a series whenever a new creative team hits. Oftentimes, these are opportunities for books to change direction in interesting ways. And with that said, here comes Jim Zu…errr…Christy Marx and Romano Molenaar to “Birds of Prey.”
Written by Christy Marx
Illustrated by Romano Molenaar & Vicente Cifuentes• Mr. Freeze is out of Arkham Asylum and looking for revenge on the Court of Owls! His first target? The newest member of the Birds team, Strix!
• And if that wasn’t enough trouble for the girls, this issue introduces The Daughters of the Dawn who are abducting people with super powers…starting with a certain prisoner at Belle Reve!
Duane Swierczynski left the Birds of Prey with a couple of new members, both of whom are causing even more friction for a “team” that continually seems to be in a state of flux. That, in a nutshell, is where this book is ultimately been failing. Black Canary doesn’t trust herself, because of sins of the past we’ve been dealing with for more than a year now. Starling doesn’t trust Black Canary because she won’t talk about it. Batgirl can’t stick around for a full issue. And our new teammates are a completely rogue element and the only male on the team, who seems completely useless as a hero. It’s been 18 issues, but the “Birds of Prey” still haven’t even established why they exist as a team, much less have been able to hold it together. Their internal turmoil has taken up far more time than any of their tossed off conflicts and subpar tie-in issues have. That problem only looks to be exacerbated with Christy Marx on issue #18.
The “New 52” seems to have some sort of utterly magnetic fascination with having its heroes quarrel with each other. “You know that thing that Marvel does with its heroes every time an event rolls around? Where they argue with each other and stuff? Let’s do that all the time in every team book.” Internal conflict can add layers to a story, certainly. Just not when it’s being handled this clumsily. The team spends half of the issue struggling through all of this and then has to pull themselves together for a lip service action scene against Mr. Freeze. They’ve lathered, rinsed, and repeated this formula for 18 issues now. It’s two clunky halves of one story that don’t come together very well. And speaking of the story, the second bullet point in that solicitation up above? Yeah, nothing like that is ever approached in this issue, and that’s the most up-to-date solicit.
It wouldn’t matter as much if the execution of what we did get was better. Christy Marx has done some pretty darn good work on “Sword of Sorcery.” It’s had moments of levity, heart, enjoyable characterization, and some really nice compressed world-building. Even its corny moments have their charm, because of the way the characters of “Gemworld” have been established. Here, though, in a book that insists on making its central characters tormented by internal anguish and distrust, the lighter moments come off as sillier than they should. There are quite a few missteps with how dour this issue was at times. Mr. Freeze suffers the most as a character, because he’s played as “generic ruthless supervillain #74” rather than the layered, tragic character that we’ve seen written to much fanfare. Black Canary isn’t much better off, as it takes a visit with a random folksy old woman of wisdom at a coffee shop to lead her back on the path of self-assurance. It’s more than a little corny.
Romano Molenaar turns in some solid, if not very memorable work. He does nice character work and executes the script and the action panels in a clear and economic manner. “Workmanlike” is probably the best word for it. There’s just not much that’s interesting or memorable going on, so the art doesn’t get much of a chance to shine. An early scene with Mr. Freeze and a member of the Talon assassin group is pretty well done, with art building tension in a way that the script doesn’t.
You want to think that Jim Zubkavich’s replacement on this series wouldn’t hang over judgement of the issue itself, and it really doesn’t come down to that. This is a subpar and uninteresting start to a run, no matter the circumstances. But if there’s a real story-driven reason that they preferred Christy Marx on this book over Jim Zub, then it has yet to be seen as of issue #18. Because there isn’t anything novel in this issue. No hints of a new direction for the team. No growth or proof that this team has a reason for existing in the first place. One wonders if Zub’s plans for “Birds of Prey” would have been better. Maybe not, but they certainly wouldn’t have been less interesting than this beginning issue.
Final Verdict: 4.0 – Pass.
