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BIRDS OF PREY #66
"Sensei & Student Part Five: Murder & Mystery"
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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DC Comics
Writer: Gail Simone
Pencils: Michael Golden
Inks: Michael Golden, Mike Manley & Scott Hanna
Colors: Hi-Fi
Letters: Rob Leigh
Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Price: $2.50 US/$3.85 CAN |
If you ask me, we're all a little too obsessed with the present when it comes to superhero comics. Oh, sure, there's your occasional flashback tale or more common post-apocalyptic futures, but series actually set in the past are a rarity. I bring this up not because Birds of Prey is the exception (it isn't... it's a flashback), but because it makes me wish it wasn't. Much as I'm loving the "Sensei & Student" story in Birds of Prey, I was a little worried that a flashback would disrupt the momentum of that story and I'd find this issue a little bit wanting. Instead, I loved this tale of the original Black Canary hunting a serial killer in a '50s-'60s era that I want to see Simone do an entire series of the character's adventures in this time period. A big part of this, of course, is how the role of women in society then plays nicely into the female empowerment themes that have always driven Birds of Prey, but there's also something really fun about a superheroine married to a cop, both of them working for justice in a harder-edged time. It could also be that Michael Golden, whose work these days is as spotty as it is relatively rare, is about the strongest work I've seen from him in years.
Black Canary is one of those characters where I kind of feel like the "legacy" aspect has been lost. For the most part, the two characters have seemed identical, from the name on down. However, this issue, more than any other I've read, really gets at the differences and similarities between both characters. They both have a somewhat in-your-face, unconventional attitude that makes them ideal heroines, but while modern day Dinah has struggled with romance, her mother seems to have pretty much found the love of her life, and that makes a significant difference. Larry Lance plays the role of sidekick to his wife in this story (a refreshing role reversal), but they've got a great chemistry and the banter between them is like a snapshot glimpse of the kind of thing you'd get from Nick and Nora Charles, the married detectives who set the standard for that kind of thing.
I also love a good mystery, and this issue has a good one. It ties into the ongoing story of "Sensei & Student" in a way that surprised me, but it also sort of wraps up on its own, as Black Canary tracks a killer and tries to figure out why he's doing what he does. This leads her into a variety of interesting situations, including a high-class ball, a library where she finds an ally (in a nice nod to the modern Canary's partnership) and a Chinese laundry. Each of these settings features obstacles that wouldn't work in any other setting, and while you can certainly do these kinds of things in modern stories, there's a period element to the approach here that makes the settings feel somewhat older and more classic.
Michael Golden can take some of the credit for the work on these scenes, both in terms of establishing background and showing us period characters. He's got two inkers besides himself, so the style of the book changes somewhat throughout, but it never fails to impress. At times, the detail and finished faces looks more like Birds of Prey vets Butch Guice and Greg Land, but in general, the work carries a period piece feel to it reminiscent of Guy Davis's Sandman Mystery Theatre work. At any rate, it's terrific artwork, and while I'd been warming to Benes's work, it's going to be tough to go back now that I've seen Golden take on the title.
Fortunately, I'm anxious to get back to the story, because while this flashback is a pretty self-contained tale, it also contains a major clue to the "Sensei & Student" story, and leaves me anxious to see how Simone is going to wrap up her best story yet on the book next issue.
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