Birds of Prey 12 review

Last issue, Poison Ivy informs the other Birds of Prey that they have been poisoned by her. If they don’t help Poison Ivy to take down an environmentally unfriendly corporation, that poison will spread and potentially kill all of mankind. At the least, it will certainly kill the other birds. It’s quite the situation, and certainly not one the other birds are comfortable with. Does this issue live up to the potential of the last issue’s ending?

Yes and no. This comic is great and disappointing at the same time. There is plenty of action in this issue, and all of it is entertaining. It explores how the other birds think about the situation fairly well. After Poison Ivy takes her anti-corporate mission too far for the others, there’s some infighting. This issue’s ending seems to come a bit too quickly, although it is a great cliffhanger. The art is fairly good in this comic, not sure how to comment further on the art.

The disappointment is that the corporation isn’t explored as much as I had hoped. There’s very little story or character development here, there’s just a few action scenes, fighting within the Birds of Prey team and Poison Ivy taking things way too far for the others’ tastes. It almost feels this issue should have been expanded into two, and then both the action and the story development could have been expanded on.

I still recommend this if you’ve been reading the Birds of Prey so far. It also does a fairly good job at explaining what’s going on to new readers, and the simple story doesn’t hurt. It’s too short for its own good (this one issue should have been two), but it’s still fun. It’s an all-female superhero team of mostly Batman related characters (even though Poison Ivy is usually a villain) and if that interests you, check it out.