Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #18 Review and *SPOILERS*

Let's Talk About The Weather

Written By: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson

Art By: Marcio Takara, Jordan Boyd, Dezi Sienty

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 10, 2018

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey was one of those books when announced at Rebirth that I thought could be something wonderful because....... Well, because I had hated the Batgirl book before and because we hadn't had a Birds of Prey book in awhile so in my mind it was a win-win because it had to be better than what we were getting...... and it is, but it's still not a great book and this entire run so far has been pretty lackluster to forgettable.  I hate to come off like a negative Nancy, but I just want so much more out of this book and every threat that our heroes take on seems silly or just forced to a conclusion.  I'm sad to say that it seems that we're going to get more out of that here with this one-shot.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Spyral recruiting Huntress for a mission to Paris to find a black market tech dealer and Helena uses her connection to Barbara Gordon to gain admittance to a Tech Expo, where Barbara was invited to speak.  It's here where the Birds of Prey find their nogoodnik and place a tracker on him before he has a chance to swipe a new power source known as Hap-E, which can withstand EMPs, lightning and pretty much anything that could take out a power source.  Once he's swiped the creation and its inventor, the Birds of Prey have themselves a battle throughout Paris as they try to retrieve the device and shut it off because the thief (Bast) has hooked it up to a stolen Weather Wizard staff and he's just going full out with it as he tries to lose our heroes.

In the end, the Birds of Prey scale the Eiffel Tower in all kinds of screwy weather, before getting their man, shutting down the energy device and discovering that no matter what their lives were like before the Birds of Prey, it's no match for what they have now.

That's it for this issue of Birds of Prey and while I was happy to see a new art team on this book initially because I'm just looking for something at this point to give this book some more flavor, the end result just left me wanting the one we had previously because everything in this issue just felt dull and nothing really stood out to me.  As for the story........ Well, it's the Birds of Prey in Paris and besides for the basic plot of stopping a thief from stealing an energy device and talking about Huntress' time in Spyral and Black Canary's time as a rock star, there wasn't much here and I found myself bored with what we got.  

Bits and Pieces:

The Birds of Prey are in Paris for a few days to thrill, but the end result wasn't too thrilling and at this point I think that this title needs a complete overhaul because I find myself bored by the end of each issue more often than not and besides for mentioning two of our characters' lives during the DCYou era and referencing characters and groups within the DCU, there isn't much to this story at all.

4/10