Gushing About a Birds of Prey Trade.

Today, I'm writing about the book that first got me reading Gail Simone's comics.  "Of Like Minds".  It's where she brought Huntress into the fold with Oracle and Black Canary (this canary I think of as Dinah II).   The combination of Oracle, Huntress, and Black Canary had been seen the prior year in DC's attempt at a Birds of Prey live action series.  The TV show's huntress was based on a different version, but I do wonder if that cast affected the lineup for Simone's book.  Honestly, I love them both.

SPOILERS - This is a light synopsis.

What brings this trio together is a blackmailer who is well trained in computers and martial arts.  This man (Savant) honed his skills to become a superhero like Batman, but would fight criminals for the wrong reasons.  In ways, he was a darker counterpart to Oracle.  He and his companion (Creote) worked in the trade of information dealing and blackmail.  Oracle had become an obsession of Savant's through the cyber realm.  He was familiar with her online presence and technical abilities, but trying to discover

who she is in physical reality (he name, family, etc.) was an obsession of his.

Helena is helping the Birds of Prey on some missions when Dinah gets caught by Savant and Creote.  They tried covering all the bases in preventing Dinah's escape.  She had devastating fractures in each leg, her esophagus and trachea were swollen after taking a calculated hit.  On top of all this, she was handcuffed to the frame of a bed.  Someone assisting Savant under duress was able to help Dinah in small ways.  The ways that she helps herself are just grueling, hardcore, and creative, but it makes you wonder what Dinah wouldn't do when desperate enough to get out of a bad situation.  With Barbara at their base of operations leading the team, Helena comes to Dinah's rescue after solving her case.   As he and Creote are being apprehended, Savant reveals how high profile some of his victims are.  One is a U.S. senator who wants that information concealed no matter what.  When one of the birds pays the senator a quick visit, she sees just how intimidating he can be, and that he has it out for the whole Birds of Prey unit.  He uses his political might as leverage to try getting the Birds to hand over the information.

The trade closes with the senator trying to put the squeeze on more of the people involved with the incident at Savant's estate.  Savant escapes from prison in the process, and we see a temporarily handicapped Dinah II come to Helena's rescue.


Dabbled through these stories are showings of the Birds' lifestyles.  Little traits that make them all the more real and relatable.  Eating fast food while sitting on a scanner for one thing (It annoys Barbara, but Dinah sees some logic in it.).   Through the course of these books, we get to learn about the character's day jobs, Helena's family history in organized crime, possible romantic relationships, and the relationship that Dinah and Barbara have with Jim Gordon.  You even get to see other superheroes in the Birds' social circle appear for different reasons.  Cassandra Cain (one of the Batgirls pre-Flashpoint) and some other DCU martial artists pitch in to help Dinah stay trained while in a wheelchair.
 
Through this series, one of my favorite characters has been Dinah II.  I often refer to her as "Dinah II" because her mother was a different Black Canary named Dinah.  As she fall out of the picture, her old teammates (silver age guys like Ted "Wildcat" Grant) help Dinah II to follow in her footsteps.  Something that seemed very significant in Dinah II's character is that she tried not to rely on her metahuman "canary cry".  For her, it was much more about ingenuity, tricks picked up from her teammates, and mastery in martial arts.

I'd definitely recommend this book to other comic fans.  There's something about these early stories of Simone's Birds where the core cast was smaller and other superheroes and antiheroes would just be passing through.  Something else I enjoy about these books is that they're print on paper that's like a newsprint heavier than your your average newspaper stock.  It can't convey all the types of hi-def. art created today, but it's sturdy.  Living in a city with lots of humidity, rain, and snow, glossy comic pages tend to buckle even when protected.