Four Birds One Stone — Reviewing ‘Birds Of Prey’ #20

When you’re a team of heroes doing what you do best, you’re bound to rack up plenty of potential enemies. Sometimes those enemies will declare themselves in some over-the-top supervillain type of way.

Other times, well, they’ll be a lot more coy and secretive about it. They’ll try to lure you into an obvious trap, which hides traps you didn’t even consider. This leaves the team members struggling to survive, and sometimes failing. This is the case for Birds Of Prey #20 from Kelly Thompson, Sami Barsi, Vincente Cifuentes, Adriano Lucas, and Clayton Cowles.

It’s been a bit since I’ve regularly covered this series. Life got really wild. Unfortunately for the Birds Of Prey, their lives are the ones getting wild and complicated now.

I love Barsi’s art style. There is just something so perfectly superhero, but not entirely too house stylized about what he does. Everything on the page has such weight and life. Emotional energy is rife on the page as their body language and facial expressions sell their feelings. Panel choices make sure that we’re more of a participant than an observer most of the time, scaling down and out depending on the visual need of a given sequence or moment.

There is a boldness found within the slick and smooth artwork as action sequences move delicately and dynamically across the page. We have a rightful sense of scale at all times, which is useful when having bigger characters like a Barda on hand. Much of the denseness comes from the additional inking work that Cifuentes delivers, merging so smoothly with Barsi’s work.

Just as marvelous is the work that Lucas puts in on the daily with the colors. I’ve witnessed his colors in a number of books that tackle different moods, styles, and themes. No matter the focus, the colors morph to match what is on the page artistically. It adapts to the artistic style while retaining the elements of its own which make the colors so dynamic.

Here we get plenty of the lighter and more vibrant tones, befitting the colorful aesthetic that comes with costumed clad figures doing heroic things. Much of the scenery though finds that perfect middle ground where it creates a solid realistic baseline. The rest of it dabbles in the heavier and darker tones to accompany or contrast the rest of it.

I loved the sequence with Batgirl and Batman at the beginning. Through the colors, Lucas really made the dark night aspects of the sequence feel authentic. It’s oppressive, heavy, but accessible at the same time thanks to our heroic figures who cut through them.

Great lettering matches the rest of the visual energy while adding its own distinct energy at the same time. Cowles is always one of those letterers whose work I always enjoy. It’s not work that adds in a ton of different colors or styles, but it does what it needs to do and does it so well. It allows the words to flow through the page in the most smooth and logical way, shifting things slightly here or there in the moment.

Bigger or smaller fonts, bubbles with changes to them, or other modifications. All are meant to allow the voices to resonate and have some slight distinct energy. Even those that are identical, still feel accurate to the character just from the chosen words and the presentation.

Those chosen words come from the script that Thompson has crafted, showcasing her care and knowledge of these characters. How she is able to slide between the more serious sides of things with just the right beats of humor is really admirable. Especially since the Birds of Prey as a team have a sort of trademark distinctness to them, no matter the roster construction.

Connecting arcs together, building towards something like a web, isn’t always easy on a monthly comics schedule. There is also the chance that things can be done too over the top or be hammered home too hard. Subtle natural builds through arcs that seem to be separate isn’t easy at all. Thompson is really doing it pretty well here.

Some of the previous stories were their own things, but we see here that some threads were formed between them. Some villain(s) is/are aiming at the Birds, knowing them well enough and how to take them down. What feels like it could be a simple arc at first proves to be something more by the end. Thompson handles it deftly with the mentions of a trap and how the Birds go about handling this all too clear trap.

Something is just comforting about this book. Whether I have the room to review it or not, when I read an issue things just feel fun. Even the arcs that I wasn’t as keen on as the others. This group of characters and their interplay works.

Curious where it’s all headed.

Birds Of Prey #20 is now available from DC Comics.