Birds of Prey #20 // Review
Batgirl is looking over a rather nice, little apartment complex in Gotham City. It’s raining. It’s evening. One could not have chosen a more perfectly Gothamy night to be investigating a crime in Gotham City. So naturally it shouldn’t come as any serious surprise to find a another, more experienced crime fighter to be investigating the exact same crime in Birds of Prey #20. Writer Kelly Thompson continues a thoroughly entertaining team book with artist Sami Basri and colorist Adriano Lucas. The opening issue of a five-part story arc opens in intriguing fashion as Thompson, Basri and Lucas do an admirable job of establishing the conflict.
Bruce is there in full costume. He knows that if Batgirl is there, it’s not going to be something that he’s going to have to deal with. It’s Birds of Prey territory. And it’s going to be an interesting one for Babs and company. Clearly there’s a fabricated scene that is meant to look like it’s been staged. There’s an absolutely insane number of lead to follow. Anyone looking to investigate is going to be positively flooded with information. It’s like gazing into a lake entirely made-up of red herrings. If anyone can work it out, though, it’s going to be Babs.
Thompson finds a strikingly natural way to split-up the team so that everyone gets a little bit of time more or less to themselves as the investigation opens. It’s a fun approach to style of scripting for a superhero team that goes all the way back to the original adventure of the Justice Society. So often the splitting-up of a team in the course of an adventure can feel weird and stilted. Thompson makes it feel natural and even witty in the set-up to her story. The 20th issue has some of the best dialogue that she’s written for the series thus far. Very sharp and enjoyable stuff.
Thompson’s script has a lot of differen nuanced moods and locations to cover in the course of the opening chapter of a whole new story arc. Basri and Lucas juggle it all quite well from a rooftop in Gotham City to the group’s secure headquarters to (non-Dubai) UAE and low orbit. Thompson and Lucas keep everything quite clear while maintaining a sharp sense of drama in the deliery of the more emotional end of everything. Clever work throughout.
The opening frame of a whole new story even manages to end on a cliffhanger. Everyone is quite distinct and distinctly interesting in an issue that sows substantial emotional evolution for nearly everyone involved. Once again, Thompson is clearly doing very, very clever work with a smartly-assembled team of superheroes that are firmly grounded in the larger universe that they inhabit. On a surface-level, it’s just the opening of another tangle between good and evil, but Thompson and company continue to make it all feel like so much more than that on so many appealing levels.
