Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #14 Review and *SPOILERS*



Little Field Trip of Horrors


Written By: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson
Art By: Marcio Takara, Jordan Boyd, Josh Reed
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 13, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Let's head on over to Gotham to see what our Birds of Prey are up to since Gus has left our team as their new Oracle and Calculator has been pretty much shut down for the time being........ Really, there's not a lot to say going into this issue because of it being a one-shot and the only other thing that I can really think of to catch you up on from the previous issue is the fact that Barbara not only wants to be Batgirl, but Oracle as well.  Let's jump into this issue and see if that comes into play as Batgirl is left alone in Gotham, while Huntress and Black Canary chaperone a field trip into Colonial Gotham Village.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Black Canary taking a selfie with some students, who look like they're old beyond their years, but really, that's the only problem with this art in the long run because everything else looks pretty damn good.  Anyway, back to the selfie taking, it seems that Black Canary and Huntress are acting as chaperones for Huntress' class to old Colonial Gotham Village, where the kids will learn what life was like for early Gotham Native Americans and then the settlers that eventually came and took the land over, before they move into a little camping action.......... the part that I really want to know though.......... When did we establish that Huntress was a teacher in Gotham?  Yeah, it makes sense with her background, I would have just liked to have seen to earlier in the series.  Anyway, Huntress and Black Canary will be out of Gotham for the next two days and that leaves Batgirl in charge of all the crime fighting work......... which, sees her team up with Catwoman and Poison Ivy again, where our main character figures out how much she really misses working with her regular team since she has to keep reiterating that they're not to kill anyone.


Over at Colonial Gotham Village, the kids are learning about a Native American Shaman named Blackfire, who told the Native Americans that the land was cursed and then about a Deacon Blackfire, who was behind hanging witches, fifty years before Salem ever got started.  The weird part is, no one seems to make the connection between Shaman Blackfire and then Deacon Blackfire.  People eventually start getting on the trolley though when the group begins camping and Huntress tells them all about a story Dick Grayson told her about how the Native Americans locked Shaman Blackfire in a cave because he was evil and then years later, the Colonials opened the cave up........ which led to their settlement being slaughtered.  Yeah, it doesn't really jive with what we heard earlier, but it gets worse when the kids sneak off in the night to go find the cave and they find Deacon Blackfire still alive and well within.


In the end, Black Canary and Huntress fight Blackfire, where they steal his magic staff that grants him his power and immortality and then lock him back in the cave.......... essentially, condemning him to starve to death, but really, this whole thing doesn't make much sense because how was their any stories about Deacon Blackfire post Native Americans if he was still locked inside the cave when this story takes place?  As our issue closes, the kids are saved and everyone goes back to camp as our heroes convince them that everything they saw was a part of the tour, but that doesn't matter because the kids seem to disappear and we're met with Barbara Gordon, who's come to camp with her friends and make some S'mores.


That's it for this issue of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and while I'm all about fun one-shot issues, this just didn't bring enough fun and it didn't make much sense throughout with the stories of Deacon Blackfire since they all kind of contradicted each other.  The crime fighting antics of Batgirl seem to be filler to the rest that just took up page space until she finally met up with the rest of the Birds at the end and there was a glaring mistake at the beginning of the issue, where Batman called up Barbara for help because his Detective Squad and him were in danger and Spoiler was a part of the group.  Just doesn't add up.  As for the art, well I liked the art a lot once we got out of the the opening scene, where two of the teenage girls looked like they could be grandma's.  Overall, there's not much to this issue and there's not any real point to read it because it doesn't amount to anything, it doesn't make any sense within the story and it wasn't enough fun to just pick up for a lark.

Bits and Pieces:

While this had the initial promise of being a fun one-shot, by the end, it just became a silly story that didn't really go anywhere and didn't make any sense from what we got within it.  The art was decent though, but ultimately, this is a story that no one really needs to read because it's not important and it's just not as fun as it should have been.

5.5/10

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