Birds of Prey #17 // Review
Cass looks different. There’s something different about her. She looks like a monster. There’s a reason for that. She’s looking at all of her friends like they’re monsters. There’s a reason for that too. Monsters take on many forms--both perceived and conceived in Birds of Prey #17. Writer Kelly Thompson guides the team of super powered champions through the end of her current plot arc in another issue brought to page and panel by artist Sami Basri, inker Vicente Cifuentes and the colorist Adriano Lucas. It’s a well-ballanced team ensemble action issue that brings the current conflict to a satisfying conclusion.
Cass is about to attack. No one wants to hurt her, but she definitely wants to hurt them. That simple dynamic is going to make the conflict between her and everyone else that much more difficult to try to manage on. Meanwhile, back at the command center, Babs is asked if there isn’t something that the y should be doing about the fact that everyone is in danger. Babs is working on it. She’s already contacted everyone that she knows who might be able to help. She needs someone who can teleport or a magic user that could open portals...or maybe someone with tech that might allow them to do what they need to do.
Thompson does a very sharp job of keeping the action rolling in very quick cuts of scenes that modulate well between action and drama. The team stuck in the field is dealing with tremendous danger that could go in a whole bunch of different directions...not many of them being all that well for anyone involved. Barbara Gordon comes across as being every bit as much of a bad ass as she is just by sitting there in front of a computer making decisions.
Basri frames the action solidly. There are a couple of moments with Black Canary that allow Basri an opportunity to really shoot some very impressive action across the page. The variety of different dynamics on the page in the action sequences make for our really impressive sort of a visual package that.Basri is able to manage. Lucas manages as few really cool effects including the srange warping of reality that fuses itself arond the action when it’s seen through the eyes of a warped Cass. Back Canary’s power looks really, really cool with some of Lucas’ effects. Lucas also finds a really interesting color palette with which to set the town for a very tense action sequence that doesn't feature a whole lot of rendering in the background.
Thompson has done a really good job of creating a progression for the series that makes it truly feel as though the team and the team dynamic has evolved over the course of the past year and a half on the comic book page. This can be very difficult to manage. This can be very difficult to execute. But there are subtleties with respect to interactions between the characters that seem to be developing in around the edges of the panels. This is particularly impressive and one of the more satisfying elements of the series thus far.
