Let It Bee
Written By: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson
Art By: Roge Antonio, Breno Tamura, Allen Passalaqua, Chris Sotomayor, Josh Reed
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 9, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
It's time to get to the finale of this arc and find out if the Birds of Prey can stop Poison Ivy before she tears apart all of Terracare and possibly Calculator's family in the process. You'll recall from the previous issue that Poison Ivy had Catwoman steal a vial from Terracare that the company desperately wants back, but since Catwoman had already given the vial to Poison Ivy, it seemed like it was up to Black Canary and Huntress to get Calculator's family back by using a little undercover finesse. Yeah, that didn't quite work out though because Poison Ivy was already doing a little undercover work herself within Terracare and after discovering something, she went berserk. Let's jump into this issue and see how the Birds of Prey handle this situation.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with Batgirl, Gus, Catwoman and Calculator breaking into Terracare through the ventilation system, but they arrive to find Huntress and the owner of the Terracare being swarmed by bees, which we find out is what this is all about. Yeah, it seems that the special vial that Poison Ivy had Catwoman steal was the secret ingredient to Terracare's fertilizer, which not only made plants grow really well, but it also killed off the bees in the area and as we all know, no bees, no plants so Poison Ivy's decided that the owner of Terracare needs to pay for this with his life.
In this issue we also have every damn character try to stop Poison Ivy by pleading with her that she doesn't need to do this because she's not a monster and after the fiftieth time, it seems to sink in and our issue becomes about Poison Ivy trying to quickly develop a pheromone to control the bees so that they stop attacking........... even though we saw her a few pages before seemingly controlling the bees so that they'd attack in the first place.......... Yeah, I don't know.
In the end, Poison Ivy succeeds in controlling the bees and sends them away, where all's well that ends well, where Barbara buys Terracare so that Poison Ivy can be their lead scientist........ even though she just went psycho and almost killed a shit ton of people. Not only that, but Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Huntress and Black Canary all go to Bat Burger to chow down, while Barbara resumes her Oracle persona to save Gus from Calculator because she figured out that it was Gus who created this whole ordeal for Calculator and his family in the first place to try and get out from under his thumb.
That's it for this issue of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and this issue felt really uneven. I mean, besides for the art change towards the end that was really jarring, the story went from Poison Ivy being the villain to almost feeling like she was a part of the Birds of Prey by the end and even though that's not the case, she sure as hell got off scot-free for almost killing an entire business. Now, I can't say that Poison Ivy doesn't know who Batgirl is because of her past with the Birds of Prey, but it really felt odd in this issue with Pamela calling Batgirl by her real name at the end of the issue and I would have liked a little clarification. So yeah, there's a lot that feels wrong with this issue and most importantly, Poison Ivy controlling bees until she can't and then finding a way to control them for what seems like the first time to her. Now that Gus seems to be out of the book and Barbara seems like she's going to explore being Oracle more in the following issues, hopefully this will become the book that I want it to be because right now, it's something I almost dread reading because it just seems to be less than most of the books that DC is putting out and with Batgirl's own title being almost a young readers like series, I would at least like one Batgirl title that feels as though it were a part of the same world as all the other DC heroes.
Bits and Pieces:
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey continues to underwhelm as its story and art feel uneven as hell. Yeah, we had an art change in this book, which is understandable, but for where our heroes end up at the end of this issue, you'd never know that shit was just getting real at the beginning of it and everything just ends up feeling like it doesn't belong with the rest of the books coming out of DC right now.
5.5/10
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