I don't know how, but somehow the two books I'm reading both had releases this week. So here's my review of 'em.
(It occurs to me that I keep ranting about this thing called Flashpoint, so a brief explanation of what that is: in 2011, the Flash f*cked up the timeline by going back in time and saving his mother. How bad is it? As an example, in this timeline, Batman is Dr. Thomas Wayne, who turned to vigilantism after his 8-year-old son Bruce was murdered by a mugger. Eventually, the protagonists undo some of the damage to the timeline - so Bruce Wayne is Batman again - but not all of it - in this new history, there was only one Batgirl instead of four, for example. Huge scads of history was wiped out across all the DC titles, with the general premise being that in this new timeline, superheroes have only been active for the last five years or so. Now, in 2016, DC's got it in their heads that this whole thing was a Bad Idea, but rather than do another reboot, they've got this thing called the Rebirth initiative, where they're trying to basically undo the damage Flashpoint caused not via retcon or reboot, but in-universe.)
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #3: Who is Oracle? Part 4
(The Rebirth issue of B/BoP was Part 1, hence the disjointed numbering.)
The story so far: Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is out fighting crime doing her thing when she discovers that one of the hoodlums she's beating up just got a message from Oracle. Small problem: Babs is Oracle. Or, she was. After the umpteenth Killing Joke flashback explaining all that backstory, she recruits her old partner, Black Canary (Dinah Lance) - I have so much to say about the continuity being screwed up, but I'll get into that later - and they go after another of Fauxracle's contacts, Louis Terroni. Next small problem: Terroni is on Helena Bertinelli's hitlist. (In the post-Flashpoint continuity, Helena was an agent of a spy organization called Spyral. We were introduced to her when Dick Grayson (Nightwing) infiltrated the organization - and I believe they, ah, got pelvic, because some things never change. Anyway, she has since left that organization and taken up the mantle of the Huntress.) (End of Part 1.) Terroni is killed by snake-men before Huntress can kill him or Batgirl can interrogate him. Batgirl and Black Canary catch up to Huntress at the estate of one Santo Cassamento (a name that should sound hella familiar to anyone who's read Cry for Blood - of course, Cry for Blood isn't canon anymore, than you Flashpoint) and fight off the snake-men again. The snake-men leader happens to mention that he works for someone named Fenice. Huntress agrees to let Batgirl take Cassamento into protective custody. (End of Part 2.) Commissioner Gordon (Batgirl's father) and Batman himself both show up to voice their concerns about Huntress, who won't reveal her true identity to the others. (Again, this is post-Flashpoint, so Huntress's entire history with the Bat-family, including her stint as Batgirl, has been erased, and none of the other characters know who she is - sad! At this point she's just a purple-clad masked murderess hunting down the people responsible for the murders of the Bertinelli family.) Eventually the Birds go hack a server farm to get some dirt on Fauxracle. (End of Part 3.)
This issue: is interspersed with flashbacks, which I'll get into later. Babs sends the file they hacked to one of her contacts for decryption. Huntress mentions that "Fenice" is Italian for "phoenix." The file is decrypted; Fauxracle sold Fenice information about where the Dallessandro Family would be dining tonight, so the Birds assume that they're the next target. They're wrong. ("We warned them. Now can we kill them?" - Huntress.) Fauxracle, who's been trolling Batgirl with text messages once an issue, clues her in that the snake-men are going to attack the safe house where Santo is being kept... to be more specific, where Santo is being kept under guard by Commissioner Gordon. The Birds return to the safe house and fight the snake-men. Huntress kills one of them. Batgirl is upset about this until she realizes that Huntress saved her father's life, but Huntress blows off her apology and leaves after a conversation about families. On the last page, Santo, who was captured by the surviving snake-men, is brought to Fenice, whom he recognizes. Fenice says she's wanted to see the look on Santo's face for decades. He says he thought Fenice was dead, but Fenice says "A phoenix never dies. They just rise from the ashes, il mio amore."
Oh, and the flashbacks? Deal with Dinah growing up as an orphan because her mother disappeared.
This series took a while to get going. The Rebirth issue was fine, and Part 2 had a decent motorcycle chase and some witty banter. (The writers are trying a bit too hard with the establishing-shot text blocks, but "Gotham City Clocktower (right twice a day)" is legitimately funny.) Part 3 was in my opinion an epic misfire, with Batgirl and Black Canary spending more time discussing whether to freeze Huntress's bra than was strictly necessary, and a sparring match between Huntress and Canary thrown in to fulfill the action quota. But this issue was a massive step in the right direction. The flashbacks and the bit about Huntress saving Gordon tie into the whole "family" theme that's one of the main points of the Rebirth initiative, yay, even if they do set up a rather large continuity snarl.
Ooookay, here goes: the flashbacks pretty much confirm that this Black Canary is Dinah Laurel Lance, who was the Black Canary from the early 80s until...
Let me start again. In the old continuity, Dinah Drake Lance, the first Black Canary, eventually retired and passed the identity down to her daughter, Dinah Laurel Lance. (Trivia: Watchmen character Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre and daughter of the first, is named after Laurel.) But Laurel was erased from canon thanks to Flashpoint, and Dinah Drake Lance was the Black Canary from 2011-2015. Now, Rebirth is supposed to be an organic reboot, with the characters naturally sliding back into their pre-Flashpoint roles (hence, for example, Helena leaving Spyral and becoming the Huntress). But how you account for Black Canary suddenly having a daughter old enough to tease Batgirl about not knowing how to drive stick is beyond me. I don't care that much - I grew up on the post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint continuity, so having "my" Black Canary back is worth the confusion. Still, it does kind of belie the whole "organic reboot" thing they're supposedly going for.
Okay back to the stuff people other than nerds might care about. Who is Fenice? I haz idea, dear reader. I think she's Maria Panessa. Hey, that would tie into the whole "family" thing, yeah? And it would really f*ck up Huntress's day.
Really, this is a shot in the dark, cuz I have so very little to go on. But Fenice hasn't seen Santo in decades (long enough for their daughter to grow up), she calls him mio amore, and her skin tone matches Helena's post-Flashpoint olive. And Santo thought she was dead. We all did.
For those of you who haven't kept up: remember up above I said that the name "Santo Cassamento" is really familiar to anyone who's read Cry for Blood? In the pre-Flashpoint continuity, Santo is Helena's father. He orchestrated the hit on her family, intending that her mother, his lover, Maria Bertinelli nee Panessa, be spared, both because he loved her and because he didn't want to go to war with the Panessas. But the hitman misinterpreted his order and left Helena alive instead. (In the hitman's defense, "spare the sister" is a damn stupid order, even if Tomaso Panessa is a major player.) So... yeah, I think Huntress's mother is still alive, and is a major villain of this story arc.
As I said, this got a whole lot more interesting.
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