Birds of Prey

DC Black Label Originals

by Brian Azzarello, Nick Filardi (Cover Art), Emanuela Lupacchino (Penciller)

Black Canary’s life has spiraled out of control: her personal life is going through the ringer and her band is in crisis when an old flame resurfaces only to flicker out and set her on an all-new mission against an all-new opponent. The only thing she has to be grateful for is the fact that she’s not alone, as Huntress finds herself on a collision course with Black Canary’s quarry at Detective Montoya’s urging. Meanwhile, Harley Quinn has resurfaced outside of Gotham City and out of the Suicide Squad, with a new lease on life that is sure to make everyone else’s life more complicated.
And that’s only the first five pages of this high-octane, graphic novel-length one-shot that pushes the Birds of Prey far beyond their limits and puts them up against the most brutal crime syndicate to ever sweep into Gotham City! Hardboiled superstar writer Brian Azzarello and the bombshell art team of Emanuela Lupacchino and Ray McCarthy take the Birds into the no-holds-barred world of Black Label, and none of them will ever be the same!

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Action, Thriller, Science Fiction, Comic Book

99 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2020

About the author

Brian Azzarello (born in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American comic book writer. He came to prominence with 100 Bullets, published by DC Comics' mature-audience imprint Vertigo. He and Argentine artist Eduardo Risso, with whom Azzarello first worked on Jonny Double, won the 2001 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story for 100 Bullets #15–18: "Hang Up on the Hang Low".

Azzarello has written for Batman ("Broken City", art by Risso; "Batman/Deathblow: After the Fire", art by Lee Bermejo, Tim Bradstreet, & Mick Gray) and Superman ("For Tomorrow", art by Jim Lee).

In 2005, Azzarello began a new creator-owned series, the western Loveless, with artist Marcelo Frusin.

As of 2007, Azzarello is married to fellow comic-book writer and illustrator Jill Thompson.

information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Az...

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess this was created to push the movie given the characters involved. It felt like it's been worked on for a very long time as it pulled Black Canary's origins from the beginning of the New 52 referencing her time with Team 7 which I think DC has abandoned at this point. It is a Black Label book so there's cursing and it's a little more graphic than normal. There's barely a story though. Azzarello doesn't really know how to write Harley Quinn. She is completely devoid of humor, instead psychoanalyzing herself in a compact mirror. Emmanuela Luppino's art is fantastic, but I think I'd let this one hit the bargain bin before picking it up.

[A.J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brian Azzarello write a decent story Challenge (fucking impossible!!)

One of my roommates lent me this, and I can’t even say the story was worth the time it took me to walk over to his room and grab this. This was the only Black Label superhero book I hadn’t read up until this point, and I should’ve kept it that way.

The only worthwhile aspect is the incredible art by Emanuela Lupacchino, which did in fact make that walk worth it, but not much else. It doesn’t get this book another star either, and you shouldn’t spend any money on this. It’s severely overpriced at $9.99.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Mexican drug cartel (pictured on the cover) is moving into Gotham - Birds of Prey decide to stop them for reasons! Riveting…

A tenner for a single issue? Nah, the price point and self-contained story make this a low-end trade paperback - low-end and low quality! The imaginatively-titled Birds of Prey (no subtitle) is such a badly-written, rushed, nonsensical story.

The Birds of Prey are: Black Canary, Huntress, Detective Renee Montoya, and Harley Quinn - but why they’re a team, why the non-cops care about drug cartels’ business, even why Joker cares that Harley’s broken up with him are all left up in the air by Brian Azzarello.

Birds of Prey don’t have good villains and the cartel assassins are as bland and forgettable as any baddies-of-the-week. Montoya’s apparently implicated in some way with the cartels but who cares - none of this drivel is going to stick. Azzarello’s very hit-or-miss but this is dire even by his standards.

There’s uncensored swears and graphic violence because this is Black Label - edgy! Speaking of graphic, Emanuela Lupacchino’s art was very decent - that’s the only positive thing to say about this rubbish.

Maybe this was meant to tie in to and piggy-back off the expected success of the Birds of Prey movie earlier this year (har har - it failed) so, perhaps appropriately enough, this comic turned out to be as horrendously substandard as the movie!

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this wasn’t actually bad by any stretch of the imagination, it was a rather run-of-the-mill super-vigilante story that had a bunch of gratuitous swearing and gore tacked on for no other reason than to justify the ‘Black Label’ logo on the cover.

The artwork, on the other hand, was really rather good; clear, confident line-work with excellent storytelling skills very much in evidence. Substance over style, in other words; bravo!

Story: 3 stars
Artwork: 4 stars
Overall: 3.5 stars, rounded down because I don’t feel it deserves the full 4 stars.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ziemlich perfekter Auftakt (ich hoffe doch, dass es nicht beim one-shot bleibt)! Sexy, witzig und blutig - nicht umsonst beim Imprint Black Label erschienen. Azzarello weiß, wie Stories im Tarantino=Stil geschrieben werden, die Artwork ist spitze und die Charaktere sich endlich mal wieder treu.
Neben Harley Quinn (die jetzt zu den Birds gehört, wie cool ist das!) sehen Black Canary und Huntress vielleicht etwas blass aus, aber wirklich verwundert hat mich das nicht. Es hat schon seine Gründe, warum Harley zum everybody´s darling avanciert ist und Azzarello lässt keine Gelegenheit verstreichen, um die Lady herrlich durchgeknallt und cool auftreten zu lassen.
Im Netz wurde teilweise heftige Kritik geübt, Azzarello trage nichts zur linearen Entwicklung des Teams bei und überhaupt sei unverständlich, warum DC keine Autorin gewählt habe, um die Story des komplett weiblich besetzten Teams zu erzählen. Mich hat das Buch so gut unterhalten, dass ich mir die Fragen nicht gestellt habe.

[Rylan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might be one of the worst comics I’ve ever read. Like why?? Dinah is awful and written to be so unlikable, Harley just randomly says shit, Huntress is just there because they need this to be a birds of prey book. Honestly read literally any other birds of prey book it’ll surly be better than this dumpster fire. The art was great sucks it’s wasted on such an awful book.

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Fuck the Joker! Cuz I ain't gonna no more!"
Ok, I think this was published mainly to push the film...

[Krista Omstead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a one shot, so I guess Harley killing the Joker at the end was how it’s supposed to be and not really play into the universe. I love Black Canary and how they portray her character in this story. The Birds of Prey don’t really need Harley to drive the story, but maybe she’s needed to drive sales, and that’s where they are going with these specials. It’s a fun romp, regardless and I’ll never complain if they make new stories about Canary.

[bri 🧸 · Rating 4 out of 5]

omg when dinah screamed im shaking guys

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent, if unremarkable tale. Much better than some other contemporary tales, but that isn't a high bar to clear.

[mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

i dont remember the exact date last month when I reread it because i did not remember at all what it was about and i really enjoyed it it was a fun oneshot!!

[Benjamin Poor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tons of fun. Makes a good companion piece to the movie

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoje é Dia Internacional da Mulher, enão que tal comemorar esse dia lendo uma história em quadrinhos não de uma, mas de uma equipe totalmente feminina? Foi o que pensei. Já adianto que há tempos digos que as histórias de Aves de Rapina são uma espécie de guilty pleasure meu. Eu sei que muitos falam que as histórias são ruins, mas as personagens são boas. Bom, lendo a este encadernado em capa dura desnecessária, essa hipótese se confirmou. Brian Azzarello pode ser um bom escritor muitas vezes, mas em outras, acaba produzindo cada bomba! A história aqui é bem desenvolvida, é ok, mas não algo que mereceria tanto destaque, um título DC Black Label e o cúmulo de ser capa dura. O melhor mesmo desta edição são os incríveis desenhos da italiana Emanuela Lupacchino, que acompanho desde seus trabalhos em X-Factor. Fora isso, é um quadrinho bastante desnecessário mesmo para quem tem um guilty pleasure nas Aves de Rapina como eu.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a team up of Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya, and Harley Quinn. It has some fun interactions between the characters. However, it feels incomplete. As the beginning of a series it would be fine but ending where it does was just frustrating.

Overall, Black Canary, Huntress, and Montoya seem to draw more from their comic depictions. Despite Harley having her New 52 costume with Rebirth hair on the cover, in the comic she's wearing a modified version of her cinematic Suicide Squad costume.

The one thing I didn't like was how it killed off Byron with a drug overdose. That was a very strong negative in my book.

[Greg Trosclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an edited down version of a series that Brian Azzarello was to write coming out of the Heroes in Crisis series from 2019. That series was cancelled and this book was pared down to tell a story in conjunction witht he release of the movie. That being said it is a fun read with giant gaping plot holes and a couple of storylines that end up just bing left hanging as this ended up being a one-shot release. The art is lovely and the story is fun and had potential but now we have just this one book. For the lack of effort on Dc's part I give this a three.

[Micaela Calvo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al principio me costó un poco entender lo que estaba pasando y algunas cosas me parecieron agarradas de los pelos, pero dentro de todo me pareció una lectura entretenida. Más que nada le doy 4 estrellas porque amo a Harley como personaje, me parece muy cómica e interesante y me gustan todas sus apariciones, y también porque las ilustraciones son muy buenas.

[Lolaetsaplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai adoré et ce, malgré l’absence de la « créatrice » des BoP, Batgirl/Oracle...

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have one of the alternative covers. This was very cool I enjoyed it greatly.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, the rare comic in the whole comic world, I enjoyed!

[Anyeliz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more like a 3.5; I think. Overall, it was enjoyable. However, I would have liked to see more of Las Esposas, and Harley didn't quite sound like Harley.

[Claudia C-M · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art is really cool but the story left me disappointed and underwhelmed. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Meh.

[Chad Bunch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting so much more from this. The writing was pretty juvenile and there were several errors in the dialogue.

[Rayane Bahiense · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah bem besta mas eu gostei. Arlequina é muito carismática né, não tem erro, mesmo com uma história simples.

[Jason Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible. I don't usually add single-issue comics to my Goodreads list, but this one was so incredible, I felt like I had to just so I could write a review for it. First off, my only disappointment is that this was just a one-shot. I would LOVE to have a whole series of this. Don't get me wrong, the other running series by Palmiotti and Conner is great. I've always loved their work. But this book just broke up into a new level for me. I love the characters and how they play off of each other, and the villains were really cool, too. If you are a BoP or Harley Quinn fan at all, I highly recommend this.

[Mik Cope · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty fun and, being Azzarello, pretty brutal. A story of an unlikely alliance between Gotham's strong women to take on a Mexican cartel (also primarily women). The artwork wasn't up to much, though.