DCU Comic Book Reviews

BIRDS OF PREY #98

Headhunt Part Three:  False Idol

November 2006

Written by Gail Simone

Pencils by James Raiz

Inks by Robin Riggs

Cover by Jerry Ordway

Synopsis

At the Eddleton Federal Women’s Penitentiary, Miss Yasemin is released from prison.  Despite warnings from her partners to stay away from Helena Bartellini, Yasemin insists on going to Gotham City.  Meanwhile, the Birds of Prey are enjoying a picnic in the park, along with Sin.  Dinah is considering keeping Sin as her adopted child.  Later, the Birds of Prey set up a robbery in order to catch the new Batgirl in action.  They find her, a young teenager with the ability to teleport and fairly strong.  In the midst of fighting Batgirl, Miss Yasemin finds Huntress and shoots her.  Batgirl sees the attempt and teleports down and takes the bullet for her.  The she completely disappears...and then reappears right next to Oracle!

Review

“Who do you think I am?  I’m the damn Batgirl.”

This issue hit me with dark vengeance.  Just so you know.  This was not a bad issue by any means, but I get the feeling that Simone is kinda running in place.  While there was some movement in the Batgirl plot and the re-introduction of Yasemin, other scenes, such as Dinah’s thoughts on what to do with Sin, that are similar to scenes in previous books.  The entire section with the damn Batgirl felt long with parts that just seemed to drag slightly.  Yet, I am along the ride and some of the revelations of what Batgirl knows about the Birds, the next issue promises to be intriguing. 

I am willing to bet that the Batgirl is not real.  There is a reason why this is part three of the Headhunt story that began with Black Alice.  Since Black Alice is not in this issue (or the Society for that matter), I really think there is a connection that will be revealed later.  My first thought is that Black Alice’s magic is creating a fairly convincing image of Batgirl, but whatever is happening does not necessarily have to be connected to Black Alice.

Of course, the connection between this issue and the first two of the story is that Simone seems to be going back and returning characters that appeared in the pre-One Year Later stories.  In this case, Miss Yasemin and the story when Huntress was undercover in the Mafia.  Is this a sign that the Batgirl has appeared in the Birds of Prey before?

Does this make sense?  Simone spent several issues detailing how Dinah followed in Shiva’s footsteps, received her training, and essentially got better in her ability to fight, and then she is taken down by the snot-nosed kid in a Batgirl outfit.  Worse, Huntress was with her, so it was two-on-one and they still lost the fight.  It is the one part of the entire story that just did not seem make sense to me. 

On Page 17, who hit who?  I think Dinah hit the damn Batgirl, but the gloves are yellow in that bottom panel, which are the colors of the Batgirl’s gloves while Dinah’s are black.  So, did the damn Batgirl hit Dinah?  Or is that just bad coloring?

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