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birds of monsters
May. 23rd, 2008 07:22 pmA couple months back I started reading Birds of Prey posts on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scans_daily. It seemed like a fairly cool book, and I decided to read from the start. So I read all the way from the first mini to issue 114 - a few months behind the current issue. Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone are the two writers who really shaped this book. Dixon developed the idea of the Birds, and established their mythos. Simone made them a family.
I appreciate a lot about both of their runs, but in terms of exciting storytelling, I think that in many ways, Dixon's is superior. Dixon had a very clear idea of who the Birds were and gave them a mission that distinguished them from all the myriad other DC super-teams. He maintained a tight focus on short, mission-focused arcs that combined James Bond-like espionage, Indiana Jones-like adventure, and the particular wackiness of the DC universe.
Under Simone, the Birds started to lose focus. Instead of only being a proactive super-taskforce, Oracle decided to 'police' the meta community, by tracking down those who 'went too far'. She expanded her pool of operatives, and with the inclusion of powerhouses like Big Barda, the Birds started to look an awful lot like other super-teams. Then came Misfit, and all pretense of the Birds being a relatively low-power, low-profile team of super-spy-adventurers flew out the window. Arcs dragged on. And on. And it became increasingly difficult to pinpoint what made the Birds unique, aside from their vaginas.
There is a lot about Simone's run that I love. Love the friendships between the Birds. Love her dedication to continuing the theme of salvaging characters that were left by the wayside, and developing them into something new and interesting. Love Black Canary's development, and the entire arc of her training to be a better fighter. Love. What I don't love is the way the book took a left turn into Girly Justice League-ville, near the end of her run.
Probably the standout period for me, is just after Lady Blackhawk joins the team, when Oracle is trying to redeem Savant and Creote, and Black Canary is an unstoppable freightrain of pwn. It's also a period marked by cracktastic, kung fu teamups, like this one:
OMG! Soon after this undeniably awesome teamup, the book started to lose the sense of danger that made it interesting. The Birds increasingly started to play in the big leagues, leaving behind their dirty ops background. The McKeever Birds, who fight giant robots in Metropolis (albeit unsuccessfully) are a far cry from the ones who served up righteous helpings of pain to the wicked, (wo)mano a (wo)mano. Though I only recently spreed through the book, when others have been invested for years, I still find myself missing those Birds.
Simone, in opening up the book to the larger DC universe, and establishing Oracle's ability to call in the big guns at will, started the trend that's lead us to teen meta brawls, giant robots and a complete absence of any reason for the Birds to exist. What Simone did wasn't all bad. Under her, the Birds rolled along fairly comfortably, balanced between outright superheroics and being a crime fighting strike team. But under McKeever, everything she built fell apart, because he lacks her ability to strike that balance, and the mostly gentle sense of humour that helped it all hang together.
Simone's Birds were comfortable, easy to read and easy to identify with.
I'm starting to think, by the way, that this is the defining feature of her writing: comfort. Simone isn't a really challenging writer. She's not going to blow your mind, but put her on an ailing book and she'll steer it back on track, and deliver issue after issue of solid writing.
My ideal Birds would be something like Gail Simone redoing the Chuck Dixon plots, for added humanity. Or possibly just a whole lot of Black Canary punching people, and Huntress and Catman flirting...
***
Late as usual, I've discovered Monster. Holy awesome opening credits. Gotta love the wank in the comments:
"Okay newschool faggots, Deathnote does NOT compare to Monster. Deathnote became retard from creation. The creator of Deathnote cannot even read or speak english, that's why the title isn't death notebook. Whereas Monster has actual German in it etc."
Deathnote became retard from creation. You heard it here first.
But in all sincerity? Monster=OMG BEST ANIME EVER!!1!
scans_daily. It seemed like a fairly cool book, and I decided to read from the start. So I read all the way from the first mini to issue 114 - a few months behind the current issue. Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone are the two writers who really shaped this book. Dixon developed the idea of the Birds, and established their mythos. Simone made them a family. I appreciate a lot about both of their runs, but in terms of exciting storytelling, I think that in many ways, Dixon's is superior. Dixon had a very clear idea of who the Birds were and gave them a mission that distinguished them from all the myriad other DC super-teams. He maintained a tight focus on short, mission-focused arcs that combined James Bond-like espionage, Indiana Jones-like adventure, and the particular wackiness of the DC universe.
Under Simone, the Birds started to lose focus. Instead of only being a proactive super-taskforce, Oracle decided to 'police' the meta community, by tracking down those who 'went too far'. She expanded her pool of operatives, and with the inclusion of powerhouses like Big Barda, the Birds started to look an awful lot like other super-teams. Then came Misfit, and all pretense of the Birds being a relatively low-power, low-profile team of super-spy-adventurers flew out the window. Arcs dragged on. And on. And it became increasingly difficult to pinpoint what made the Birds unique, aside from their vaginas.
There is a lot about Simone's run that I love. Love the friendships between the Birds. Love her dedication to continuing the theme of salvaging characters that were left by the wayside, and developing them into something new and interesting. Love Black Canary's development, and the entire arc of her training to be a better fighter. Love. What I don't love is the way the book took a left turn into Girly Justice League-ville, near the end of her run.
Probably the standout period for me, is just after Lady Blackhawk joins the team, when Oracle is trying to redeem Savant and Creote, and Black Canary is an unstoppable freightrain of pwn. It's also a period marked by cracktastic, kung fu teamups, like this one:
OMG! Soon after this undeniably awesome teamup, the book started to lose the sense of danger that made it interesting. The Birds increasingly started to play in the big leagues, leaving behind their dirty ops background. The McKeever Birds, who fight giant robots in Metropolis (albeit unsuccessfully) are a far cry from the ones who served up righteous helpings of pain to the wicked, (wo)mano a (wo)mano. Though I only recently spreed through the book, when others have been invested for years, I still find myself missing those Birds.
Simone, in opening up the book to the larger DC universe, and establishing Oracle's ability to call in the big guns at will, started the trend that's lead us to teen meta brawls, giant robots and a complete absence of any reason for the Birds to exist. What Simone did wasn't all bad. Under her, the Birds rolled along fairly comfortably, balanced between outright superheroics and being a crime fighting strike team. But under McKeever, everything she built fell apart, because he lacks her ability to strike that balance, and the mostly gentle sense of humour that helped it all hang together.
Simone's Birds were comfortable, easy to read and easy to identify with.
I'm starting to think, by the way, that this is the defining feature of her writing: comfort. Simone isn't a really challenging writer. She's not going to blow your mind, but put her on an ailing book and she'll steer it back on track, and deliver issue after issue of solid writing.
My ideal Birds would be something like Gail Simone redoing the Chuck Dixon plots, for added humanity. Or possibly just a whole lot of Black Canary punching people, and Huntress and Catman flirting...
***
Late as usual, I've discovered Monster. Holy awesome opening credits. Gotta love the wank in the comments:
"Okay newschool faggots, Deathnote does NOT compare to Monster. Deathnote became retard from creation. The creator of Deathnote cannot even read or speak english, that's why the title isn't death notebook. Whereas Monster has actual German in it etc."
Deathnote became retard from creation. You heard it here first.
But in all sincerity? Monster=OMG BEST ANIME EVER!!1!