Birds of Prey #8: Where have all the beefcakes gone?

The Birds of Prey continue to dig into who’s behind their newest members’ recent woes! The ladies crash/go undercover at Mari’s newest fashion show, Meridian joins the group just in time to help save the day! Joining Thompson on art duties are two of her fellow Captain Marvel alum Javier Pina and comics superstar David Lopez. So let’s get on with this review.

Kelly Thompson continues putting her stamp on this fan favorite team, and is infusing it with as much comedic wit and personality as she possibly can. Drawing from her experience on her landmark work on Marvel’s Captain Marvel run, where she gave us one of the best depictions of the character that we’ve seen since Carol’s promotion from Ms. Marvel to Captain. Kelly pulled that off by focusing on the things that fans cared about most, and she appears to be trying to do the same thing here. Kelly’s doing that by playing up to her strengths, which includes developing relationships, and making them as much a vital part of the characters as possible.

Case in point is the parallel that one could draw between the way Thompson portrays Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew’s friendship over in her Captain Marvel run, and the way she portrays Babs and Dinah’s friendship here. They’re both very warm and have that feeling of authenticity. When reading, these women feel like they’re genuine friends, and this is one of Thompson’s greatest strengths as a writer. Another major plus is her portrayal of Barda. She’s just so much fun, and her personality shines through. Barda, as well as the rest of Kirby’s Fourth World characters, are criminally underrepresented in the DC cosmology, so when I see one of them attached to a project I’m immediately drawn to it, and Kelly’s killing it here. Her Barda is fun, self-effacing, and a joy to read. Especially when we see Barda, and the rest of the Birds facing off a bunch of evil beefcakes. Just pure, unadulterated joy. We need more writers to take a risk and use these characters in other DC properties.

Unfortunately not everything was a hit. The biggest disappointment was the lack of Vixen. Vixen has been around for over forty years, and we rarely get to see her. Her power set is fairly unique, and her perspective and personality are just begging to be acknowledged and utilized. Seeing her join the Birds was one of the biggest boons for this story, but the lack of Mari this issue just seemed like a missed opportunity. The book will have a revolving cast, minus the core, but hopefully we can see Mari joining that core cast, or at least in another arc before shuffling her off back to limbo until the next time someone uses her.