Dinah is fighting two people at once. It’s not THAT much of a challenge, though: both of her opponents are occupying the same body. Meanwhile, Big Barda and Batgirl are fighting each other not far from Dinah and her opponents. They’re fighting each other in digital format via a video game, but they’ll get their chance for a more physical workout in Birds of Prey #18. Writer Kelly Thompson and artist Juann Cabal and colorist Adriano Lucas provide a remarkably clean visual reality for a strikingly fun action/adventure excursion into Gotham City, an idyllic, little cabin in the woods and somewhere else entirely.

When Dinah, Sin and Magaera are finished with their sparring, they are called-into Babs’ command center along with the rest of the team. There are still some very, very dangerous people on their trail and the best thing for it is to lure them into a trap. In order for the trap to work, Dinah and Magaera are going to have to make it look like a little bit of rest and relaxation to th shadowy warriors who are hunting them down. Meanwhile, John Constantine is requesting help from the team in dealing with a demon. Barda and Batgirl are happy to help out.

Thompson moves the action pretty fluidly between Dinah, Magaera Barda and Batgirl. The pairings are contrasted against a very cool and totally engaging Babs as she leads the team from the terminal. Thompson’s rendering of the sharply-defined relations between Dinaha and Magaera is absolutely delicious. The dizzying complexity of Batgirl and Barda’s mission with Constantine are delivered with style and poise in an intensely interesting delivery of an impressively novel horror fantasy premise. Thompson has reached a really nice place with a whole new team one and a halfe years into the new series.

Cabal has a remarkably clear and concise grasp of Thompson’s script. The fluis motion of from one scene to the next is great fun on the page and it’s pretty rare that a fight sequence is anywhere near as fun as the one Cabal renders at issue’s end. Barda is such a badass that she’s swinging her way around panel gutters ans punching so hard that she hits someone in the next panel. Cabal is as fun in more contemplative moments and dramatically intricate moments as he is in the bigger explosions of physical action. In her own way, Babs coems across as every bit as much of a badass as Barda as she serves as the central nervous system for the entire. group.

There’s a grand sense of clean execution about the whole issue. On its surface, the overall premise of the issue isn’t entirely unlke anything that’s ever been done on the superhero genre before. It’s the way that Thompson and company execute the action that ends up being the genius of the latest incarnation of the Birds of Prey. Action. Drama. Comedy. Everything fits so cleverly between two covers in the latest issue.

Grade: A