Friday, January 13, 2017

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #6

Maria Panessa is a stone-cold bitch.
So. In the pre-Flashpoint continuity, Huntress discovered that Santo Cassamento was her biological father and had accidentally had her mother, Maria Panessa killed. Well, in the Rebirth continuity, it's a bit more complicated. Maria is complicit in Frank Bertinelli's murder, but is pissed at Santo because he also murdered her son, Nino. 

Oh, by the way, since I never did a review of issue #5: I was right. (And just as in Cry for Blood, the reveal happens in issue 5... although it's a cheat here because issue 5 is actually part 6... oh whatever.)

There's a fair amount of Big Dumb Action - like, I'm really just getting back into comic books, here, aside from Rebirth material, the most recent thing I've read is Under the Red Hood. And I'm noticing that of the three titles I'm currently reading - B/BoP, Suicide Squad, and Detective Comics - only Detective isn't wall-to-wall ultraviolence. (Hell, I should review Detective's "The Victim Syndicate" storyline, because that was halfway decent.) Anyway, the Birds defeat the Snake-people, again - time for some new villains, guys - and arrest Maria and Santo. There's a thing where for like one page Maria tries to convince Huntress to shoot Santo and it looks like she's going to do it, but then she (Huntress) backs down and has the pair of them arrested instead.

Interesting.

See, in the pre-Flashpoint continuity, Huntress's vendetta against Santo is one of her stops on her downward spiral after the events of No Man's Land, which ultimately culminated in her hitting rock bottom and joining the Birds of Prey. And then the Birds - primarily Dinah* - start to become a positive influence on her and finally she starts becoming a more moral person. Here, she's already good enough friends with the Birds after only 6 issues that she doesn't murder Santo.

*Can I just point out how the books and the shows seem to be at odds with each other? Like, the books start undoing Flashpoint via Rebirth the same year that the shows do Flashpoint, and the books (apparently) reintegrate Dinah Laurel Lance/Black Canary II into the continuity the same year she's killed off on the shows. (I say "apparently" because - unless you count the Canary Cry, and I honestly don't know if Dinah Drake Lance had that post-Flashpoint - there hasn't been definitive proof that this Canary is Dinah Laurel instead of Dinah Drake, but there have been a lot of hints in that direction.)

Well, I assume that, now that Huntress is integrated into the team (and Fenice/Maria is arrested), we're going to be moving into another story arc, presumably with one of the other Birds as the primary focus. Both Barbara and Dinah have had "focus issues" - the Rebirth issue and #3, respectively - so I don't know exactly who's going to - or should - be the focus next. Batgirl has her own title, and Black Canary's a regular on Green Arrow, but as far as I know, Huntress isn't appearing in any title but this one - so having her be front and center in the first arc is a solid idea. 

Anyway, this issue felt a tad anticlimactic and the plot twist/stinger/setup for the next arc at the end didn't really do anything to help. We don't really know or care about Fauxracle, and I find his fanboy personality mostly grating and Mary-Sue-ish. 

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