Birds Of Prey #10 Comic Review

• Written by: Kelly Thompson

• Art by: Robbi Rodriguez, Gavin Guidry

• Colors by: Jordie Bellaire

• Letters by: Clayton Cowles

• Cover art by: Leonardo Romero, Jordie Bellaire

• Cover price: $3.99

• Release date: June 4, 2024

Birds Of Prey #10 enters the next pocket dimension containing all the answers to their recent troubles, including the mystery behind the time traveler gunning for Barbara Gordon.

Is Birds Of Prey #10 Good?

Oy! File this issue under "the one that explains it all." On the plus side, an exposition-heavy issue is badly needed to make sense of Kelly Thompson's nonsensical plot. On the negative side, the explanation is both overly detailed in its complication and unsatisfying.

When last we left the Birds of Prey in issue #9, the team narrowly escaped a pocket dimension that housed a darker and more demonic version of Gotham City. Meanwhile, Meridian (Maps from the Future) reached out to Zealot for help to find out why the portal that took her friends rejected her.

In Birds Of Prey #10, the gang finds themselves in a new pocket dimension (or is it?) after leaping through the portal at the end of the last issue. This time, Barbara is nowhere to be found. As the team surveys their strangely suburban, mid-century town, Barda is suddenly struck by a bolt of black goo from the portal they just left.

After a quick recovery, the team is confronted by a pink-haired girl boss holding a huge gun and accompanied by a wolf. The girl boss tells everyone to duck as she sprays automatic fire at the monster trying to follow the team through the portal, causing it to close.

Girl Boss's name is Cela, and she explains that the BoP is not traversing different pocket dimensions but that the same dimension reskins itself into a representation of the thoughts of whoever enters the next portal first. This time, Barda is the lucky contestant, so the 1950s aesthetic suits Barda's mind and personality. Why? It doesn't matter.

Cela goes on to explain that she's one of seven twins who all have strange powers, but she and her sister Maia are the only two left. When their mother, Lani Lockhart aka Velvet Tiger (not to be confused with the actual DC Comics villain named Velvet Tiger aka Lani Gilbert), was killed in the future by Barbara Gordon, the death drove Maia mad. In turn, Maia somehow absorbed the powers of all her twin siblings, killing them in the process. Only Cela survived and acquired the strength and invulnerability of her sister Electra before Maia could drive her mad and kill her.

Let's recap. Septuplets, who all have unique powers and are named after the constellations, are mostly dead. Maia is the evil one who has her powers and the powers of four of her now-deceased sisters. Clea is the good one who has her power and the power of one of her sisters.

Also, it was Maia who stole Meridian's tech and adapted it to work via a connection to the Red. Now, Maia wants to use that massive arsenal of superpowers to kill Barbara Gordon with the most complicated setup to complete a simple task in DC Comics history.

Clea is reluctant to help the BoP because she believes Maia is unbeatable. Barda becomes enraged when the black goo infects her mind, but she eventually pukes it up because her mind is "strong like bull." But it's not enough, and Maia eventually arrives to do her worst. Clea urges the BoP to hop through the next portal to reskin the world, giving them a chance to hide and come up with the plan.

The next Bird to go through first is Sinn.

What's great about Birds Of Prey #10? Again, the saving grace of this issue is the lengthy, albeit ridiculously complicated, explanation about why Barbara was in danger of dying through multiple variations of the timeline. To Thompson's credit, this issue (almost) explains it all.

What's not so great about Birds Of Prey #10? It's one thing to come up with a complex plot. It's another to come up with a plot that's needlessly confusing, ridiculously overcomplicated, and as nonsensical as this one.

Walk with me, children. Maia went insane because the O.G. Batgirl killed her mommy. In turn, Maia killed all her sisters so she could steal their powers and become powerful enough to kill Barbara Gordon, a mere mortal, out of revenge. But... Once Maia acquired Meridian's time travel tech, she could have gone to any point in time and either shot Barbara Gordon dead or, I know this sounds crazy, stopped her mother from dying. All of which could have been completed in two pages or less.

This series is about what happens when a writer can't tell the difference between complicated and clever, making a mess in the trying. This is why we don't let children design rocket ships.

How's the art? Guidry and Rodriguez do fine work here. However, the out-of-phase focus and Ben-Day Dots coloring make certain details hard to see. For example, when Barda gets hit with the black goo in the opening pages, I'm only calling it black goo because the details are illegible due to the hyper-stylized art.

Yes, the art team is going for a unique style, but style should never take the place of visual clarity. This is a visual medium after all.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts

Birds Of Prey #10 is the can't-miss issue that explains everything about the mysterious time traveler trying to kill Barbara Gordon. Unfortunately, the answers don't come remotely close to anything you might have guessed. The answers are so overthought, overcomplicated, and unnecessarily overblown that you'll wonder how Thompson had enough hours in the day to go out of her way at every opportunity to make a simple concept unbearably not simple. Plus, the art team's style is unique... until it's too muddled to understand what you're seeing.

3/10

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