Mommy Dearest
Written By: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson
Art By: Roge Antonio, Allen Passalaqua, Deron Bennett
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: January 11, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
While I was originally really looking forward to a Rebirth of the Birds of Prey, what with me not really being a fan of the previous series, I can't say that this series is exactly what I imagined it would be. Yeah, we got some decent characters that are making strides to be an actual team and some decent art accompanying it, but the overall feel of the book feels off. Everything just seems way too jokey all the time, which is fine in small doses, but here it never seems to stop and that's all while we have multiple murders taking place and someone besmirching the good name of Oracle....... not a laughing matter in my mind. Anyway, in the previous issue we saw our Birds team out the Oracle as just being a Batgirl fanboy, who besides for being an accomplice to murder with all the information he's released to Fenice, pretty much seems on the up and up and on top of that, we found out that Fenice is actually Huntress' thought to be dead mother...... Which is messed up because the only reason Helena is out murdering all the mobsters that she can is because of them killing her family. Uh-Oh Mommy, you got some 'splaining to do! Let's jump into this issue and check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Helena being stunned at learning that her thought to be dead mother is actually the mobster she's been after this whole time........ and me being stunned that this story arc just comes down to Black Canary and Huntress chasing after Fenice and Santo into the Majestic Theater and fighting some Snake-Men, while Helena simply locks her mother and Santo into the projection booth. I mean, we've just had simple fights throughout this arc, but here the Snake-Men just appear and the fight continues, while Batgirl and the new Oracle watch from their monitors.
The weirdest part about Santo and Fenice is, it doesn't seem like Fenice wants to kill Santo at all and we even see the two running together to get away from the Birds of Prey. This doesn't jive with me from what we got the rest of the series or even from what we get at the end, but there's inconsistencies throughout this issue, like dialog balloons being on the wrong character and even completely wrong characters drawn in for what the dialog calls for. This whole damn thing just comes off weird as hell and it doesn't help that once we get in the theater, the whole issue becomes one nonstop joke making movie puns, while fighting off our team's villains. The fight finally concludes when Batgirl comes to the rescue and it looks like the new Oracle has fucked them over by contacting other mafia members to where Fenice is, but it all works out with our team, the police that Barbara called and the mobsters all working together to take out the Snake-Men.
In the end, everyone is arrested including Fenice because even though she tried to explain to Helena that she thought she was dead all these years and became this mob boss as a way to avenge her family, it all came down to her being the one who orchestrated the death of her father in the first place because she was having an affair with Santo and his men went a little overboard the night they killed him by killing her brother as well. With this knowledge, Helena proclaims that her mother really is dead and puts the crossbow down, pondering what she's going to do with herself now that her mission of vengeance seems to be over. Luckily, she has two new gal pals to keep her company. We leave this issue with the new Oracle being welcomed to the team on probationary status, which might be a mistake as we see he's being used by someone to get close to the team.
That's it for this issue of Batgirl and The Birds of Prey and even though I really like the reveal of Fenice being Huntress' mother and her betrayal of her family pretty much solidifying Helena's place in the Birds of Prey team, while also kind of mellowing out the character because she now knows that her mission of vengeance was all for not........ this book has a lot of problems. Not only do the jokes become overbearing throughout this issue, but the dialog balloons are out of place at times and we have Black Canary drawn, where Batgirl is supposed to be. I mean, I like the art for the most part, but it's just riddled with errors. Overall, the story just seemed to fizzle out for a big ass fight scene that came off ridiculous, but the character turn in Huntress is what really came off solid. Hopefully now that this arc is done this title will become what I've wanted it to be since it was announced, but as of right now, I'm not a fan.
Bits and Pieces:
While pretty much everything with Huntress is decent in this issue, that's about as far as I can go with complimentary aspects to this book...... well, that and most of the art is okay, but even that has problems throughout and overall, this story just seemed to be here to get the Birds team to constantly fight some Snake-Men and crack wise about the situations they were in. I really hope this series gets better because I really want to like it, it's just hard to right now.
5.5/10
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