Batgirl and The Birds of Prey #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

This Time It's Personal

Written By: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson
Art By: Claire Roe, Roge Antonio, Allan Passalaqua, Hi-Fi, Steve Wands
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 14, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

When we last walked through the pages of Batgirl and The Birds of Prey we saw Batgirl and Black Canary joining forces with Huntress so that they could all work together for mutual gain.  Huntress gets the mob boss Fenice while Batgirl and Black Canary get the impostor Oracle.  It seems like a good enough strategy, but with this Oracle knowing pretty much........ everything, it's going to be interesting to see if our heroes can stay a step ahead of this techno terror.  Especially since our gang wants to keep the mob boss Santo alive and well to get the information he has on this new intelligence broker, but with Fenice wanting him dead and working with this Oracle......... Well, I don't know how long this Santo has left.  Hopefully since Barbara called in her daddy as backup in the previous issue we'll have the support of the GCPD going for us in seeing the Birds of Prey coming up Milhouse.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins and even though I was just talking about having the support of the GCPD going on here, it seems like they're supporting a little too much because even though the Birds of Prey are the good guys........ they're still vigilantes and seeing Batgirl riding shotgun in Jim Gordon's police cruiser seems odd.  It's a good thing she's there though because they've taken Santo into custody and plan on putting him into witness protection, but Santo's men don't seem to be too happy about giving up their boss and give our heroes a hard time because of it.  After all the goons and lackeys are taken care of though, we see Santo put up in a shitty little rat hole of a house, where he gives up the bank account and email of this new Oracle........ Then Jim Gordon has a pseudo dad moment, where he wants Batgirl to call Batman in because he believes she's in over her head.  It's weird because it really comes off like he knows who Batgirl is and from Barbara's overreaction to this conversation, he should totally know because it seems like a fight they would have had in the past....... just sans the Batman part.  

Even though Batgirl seemed to end the conversation with her dad with her seeming like she's the one who calls the shots, Jim still called Batman and the Dark Knight pays the Birds of Prey a visit at their Watchtower and lays down the same spiel that Jim tried and like Jim, Batman doesn't get anywhere either, but we do get a decent moment, where Batman tells Barbara that she doesn't need him, but he'll be there if she does.  After the drama and Black Canary and Huntress having themselves a sparring session, Barbara gets a location on Oracle and it's at this point where you realize that she is taking this a little too personally and may be in over her head because Oracle pretty much goaded our heroes into coming for her......... So you know it's a trap.

In the end, our heroes show up at the location, but find it abandoned except for some data terminals that are being erased.  Before all the intel is gone though, Barbara starts downloading what she can and because she's taking this whole thing so personal, she almost dies to get the information because she isn't willing to shut off the download and leave even though there's a bomb ticking down to detonation.  As we close out this issue, Huntress shows that she's a team player by saving our other two heroes, but that's about all the good news we have because Oracle has given the mob boss Fenice Santo's location and sends out a group of snake meta-humans to take him out and any police that may get in their way.

That's it for this issue of Batgirl and The Birds of Prey and even though I was initially thrown off by how well the Birds of Prey and the GCPD were working together, I found myself really getting into this issue.  Even though there isn't a lot that goes on, it's the time that was taken to get Black Canary and Huntress to have respect for one another and the way we were able to get into the mindset of Batgirl that really allowed this issue to shine.  Not to mention, the art in this issue really came off great to me, even though I had a bit of a problem with it in the previous issue.  I don't know if I'm just now getting on the trolley by getting used to it or if it's actually a bit better than the previous issue.  Either way, I liked it and the colors in this issue were bright where they needed to be and worked great in contrast to the darkness of this book.  I'm still a bit on the fence with the whole mob boss angle to our story, but I'm all in with finding out who this new Oracle is and that's enough for me.

Bits and Pieces:

While we do get some action in this issue, the places where this shines is the calm moments, where we get to take a look into the mindset of our heroes and see if they truly are in over their heads.  The art works really great and the colors really shine through the darkness and I find myself really caring about Batgirl taking down the person who stole her old persona. 

7.8/10