Slummin' it up at Club Dark Side: Birds of Prey #118

Today we finish up our weekly bonanza in review of. . .

Birds of Prey #118
by Tony Bedard and Nicola Scott

Note the little banner that says "The Dark Side Club," a very blunt allusion to the recently deceased New God, Darkseid. Is that supposed to boost sales or something? Lords knows our Birds needs it, because the title never surpasses the 90th rank.

And frankly, the issue doesn't present any argument for why it should do any better. I have a lot of respect for Tony Bedard, since he's written some wonderful fill-in issues for Supergirl and Birds of Prey, but his debut issue here doesn't bring that respect into mind.

Here, Misfit and Black Alice - the teenage Birds - find themselves in California's "Dark Side Club," a nightclub where metas are forced to fight each other for entertainment. Apparently, all the New Gods have become members of the Club, and this does not bode well for our teenage birds, or the dialogue:

I get that this person is supposed to be "street." The problem is that this person was also Granny Goodness, The New God. There was absolutely no transition from "demigod" to "crime thugs" for the New Gods. This stuff is very jarring to hear from Granny Goodness, and although I'll be inured to it by next month, I'm very peeved for now.

On the art side, though, I'm seeing some nice things about Nicola Scott that I didn't know. There's an absolutely ingenious couple of pages that Scott uses to show Misfit's flashback. In a book that rarely uses flashback, this border-less, muted scene was refreshing to see.

Now back to the writing, which, unfortunately, runs a bit soap-opera-y:

The problem here is that the issue's premise actually could've been done well. The Dark Side Club could have helped to heal the needless teenage angst that McKeever had written between Misfit and Black Alice, but it only made it worse by introducing possible blood connection. Time will only tell if this is really for the worse though, and I truly believe in Bedard's vision for the Birds, despite this issue.

Overall, this was not a strong debut issue for Mr. Bedard. Not at all. Nothing groundbreaking with nothing extraordinary character-wise. Black Canary appears next issue though, so we should get something important there.

And why is it that Dinah has to leave the Birds in order to spend more time in Green Arrow/Black Canary - a book ineptly written by Winick by the way - while Ollie is just about to join yet another team, the Justice League, while he's already a part of Batman and the Outsiders?

That is just preposterous.

P.S. There is a totally nasty scene in which Black Alice finds out what happens when you 'port someplace and carry someone with you. As Misfit would say. . .

Right on Charlie, and it's for this very reason that I can't tell you what actually happens. (sorry)