160 Birds Of Prey Vol 3

Last weekend I flew to Dallas for a wedding.  I brought four books on the plane hoping to read two of them.  This is one I brought.  I wasn't sure how much of it I was going to get through considering it's about a dozen issues and I'm not the quickest reader.  Needless to say, I got through ten of the twelve issues reprinted in here before the plane landed.  The other two I read the night after.

I've forgotten how much I loved this era of BoP.  It's still pretty early in the series, but this is the part where the BoP universe really starts expanding.  The previous volumes set up the series and got us used to the characters.  This book we really spread our wings.  Catwoman shows up.  Nightwing shows up (and his book crosses over with this one.)  We learn about Power Girl being a former BoP.  Babs and Ted Kord start up their thing.  Jason Bard reappears on the scene.  Dinah and Babs finally meet face to face.  There is a lot going on besides the main story plots and that's what really makes this a fun book to read.

I just love everything about this book.  It's been sitting on my shelf for longer than it should and for that I apologize to myself.  LOL.

Birds Of Prey Vol 3

Writer: Chuck Dixon

Artist: Greg Land, Dick Giordano, Patrick Zircher, Butch Guice, Drew Geraci, Jordi Ensign, Jose Marzan Jr

DC Comics

044 Supergirl Book 2

And here's where the problem for me begins.  I've been a lifelong fan of Supergirl.  I've been with her through thick and thin, so even a Peter David written Supergirl wasn't going to keep me away.  I'm just not a big fan of David's "look at how fucking clever I am" writing style.  It's grating.  It's annoying.  He's not a terrible plotter, but his scripting, to me, is awful.

The first volume of this series was actually kind of refreshing to me considering the writer.  Peter David was given Supergirl and like every writer who has come along since Crisis on Infinite Earths, he set up the series to try to bring Supergirl back to her pre-Crisis status quo, or at least as close to it as allowable.  He took the then current Supergirl (aka Matrix) and melded her with earth girl Linda Danvers.  Suddenly, for the first time since Crisis, we have Linda Danvers aka Supergirl.  The first volume wasn't bad.

Now we come to volume two, where Peter David really starts to drive home the religious through lines.  Linda's mother is all God-Squad.  There's a boy running around who looks like the 7th Doctor but who is God.  Linda becomes an Earth Angel.  This is where he really starts to lose me.  I don't think this angle works.  I find myself rolling my eyes more and more with each page I read.

But it's Supergirl and I love Supergirl.

Supergirl Book 2

Writer: Peter David, Darren Vincenzo, Tom Peyer, Chuck Dixon

Artist: Leonard Kirk, Greg Land, Anthony Castrillo, Cam Smith, Prentis Rollins, Chuck Drost, Doug Hazlewood, Jordi Ensign

DC Comics

026 Uncanny X-Men Superior Vol 3: Waking From The Dream

I've been an X-Fan since way back when.  I was a big fan back in the day.  These days my interest comes and goes.  Probably because Marvel just doesn't know what the fuck to do with the X-Men.  Once they pick a direction, it comes to a screeching halt, all the books are started over and all the creative teams are new, all the X-Men teams are new and we start from scratch again.  (And to be fair, it seems like that's the way with all their books, but X-Men and Avengers especially.)

The X-book is written by Cullen Bunn, whom I genuinely like despite how uneven he can be.  I love him on this book, I HATED him on Aquaman.  It's weird how someone can write something so readable and turn around and write something you can't make heads nor tales of.  Anyway, Cullen Bunn's team of X-Men consists of Magneto, Psylocke, Sabretooth, M, Angel, Mystique and sometimes Phantomex.  Basically all bad asses with attitudes and chips on their shoulders.  And the dynamic of this team works well, even though it seems like it shouldn't.

My one big gripe about this series is Marvel has gone out of it's way over the last two decades of destroying the character of Angel.  Even in this book they really seem to have no idea what to do with him, nor how to fix him.  I wish they would make that a priority because even putting him in any X-book seems like a waste to me.

Hopefully this version of Uncanny X-Men will survive a little longer before it's rebooted into a completely different book with a different line-up and a different motivation.

Uncanny X-Men Superior Vol 3: Waking From The Dream

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Greg Land, Ibraim Roberson, Jay Leisten, Wade von Grawbadger

Marvel Comics 

022 Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years

DC has published a whole line of these Celebration books.  From what I understand, this is the last one, at least for a while.  And what a note for them to finish this up on.  Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years should be the gold standard on how to assemble one of these books.  In it's limited space (less than 400 pages), it manages to cover the true spirit of Batgirl.  While it's the Barbara Gordon Batgirl who graces the cover and is the best known Batgirl, there have been others and they are all represented here.  The book starts off with a Betty Kane Bat-Girl story before devoting the most space to Barbara Gordon.  It also covers Helena Bertinelli's very short run as Batgirl as well as Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown before returning to Barbara Gordon.

The one thing I found odd about this collection is the placement of a story from Batgirl: Year One.  It's the second story in the Barbara Gordon section.  While the stories presented are in chronological order of when they happened, I would have preferred this story to show up at the end of Barbara's section, not the beginning of it.  But that's a minor nitpick.

I love that they've included the story of Barbara running for Congress (and winning!) as well as a story from Batman Family.  I'm still holding out hope that DC will reprint Batman Family in some shape someday.

At work during my lunch breaks, I'm reading a volume of Batgirl featuring Cassandra Cain, so expect a post about that shortly.  I enjoyed the Cassandra stories in this volume.  Until I started reading the trades collecting her run, I really had no experience with the character.  Stephanie Brown never truly felt like Batgirl to me.  While I enjoyed the stories, I think I would have liked her in her Spoiler identity better.  She just felt hollow to me as Batgirl.

The one story I didn't really care much for in this volume was The Last Batgirl Story.  It was a special published back in the day.  DC was retiring Batgirl (see The Killing Joke) and issued this special as a grand send off.  Only it was awful and felt like a bad inventory story rather than a last hurrah.

This book is everything!

Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years

Writer: Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, Frank Robbins, Bob Rozakis, Barbara Randall, John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Greg Rucka, Kelley Puckett, Dylan Horrocks, Bryan Q. Miller, Gail Simone, Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher

Artist: Sheldon Moldoff, Charles Paris, Carmine Infantino, Sid Greene, Marcos Martin, Alvaro Lopez, Gil Kane, Don Heck, Irv Novick, Vince Colletta, Trevor von Eeden, Rodin Rodriguez, Barry Kitson, Bruce Patterson, Brian Stelfreeze, Karl Story, Greg Land, Drew Geraci, Mike Deodato, Sean Parsons, Damion Scott, Robert Campanella, Rick Leonardi, Jesse Delperdang, Tim Levins, Lee Garbett, Don Davis, Aaron Sowd, Trevor Scott, Pere Perez, Ed Benes, Babs Tarr

DC Comics