Cover to Cover: "A naked, grinning maw." deal-y.

Aaaaand we're back to our semi-regular programming. Mind you, the blog is in provisional mode right now, so I won't be doing as many weekly reviews, but there's one comic that I always make sure to get:

Birds of Prey #124
by Tony Bedard and Claude St. Aubin

Well, willyalookit that! It's a new artist for Birds. Again. For the third time now.

Granted, Msr. St. Aubin is a slightly better version of Michael O'Hare -- but it's very unfortunate nonetheless that Birds is in such a state of flux at a crucial time in Barbara Gordon's life.

By which I mean: her first real meeting with the Joker after he crippled her in Killing Joke. With all the odds stacked against him though, Bedard does a stellar job. Barbara does to the Joker exactly what he did to her: Barbara cripples him back.

Specifically, she takes his smile away! What a perfectly appropriate form of retribution! I love, love, love it.

So I just wanna take this time to pimp out the cover. It is so rad. If you take the effort to click and look at it, it's the textbook definition of a great cover. The two, er, items, on Barbara's eskrima sticks signify what exactly goes in inside the comic, and the Joker's silhouette plays an antagonism for Barbara to rebound and get her due.

Basically: it's pretty awesome. Stephane Roux's been on Birds covers now for maybe 25 issues, and I really respect that kind of consistency and commitment in comic book covers.
Kinda turns me on, to be honest.

ANYWAYS: the rest of this issue is pretty much mindless fighting. It's a tedious enaction of the Silicon Syndicate being a bunch of evil losers, and the Birds being unable to stop 'em. We don't even get Lady Blackhawk saying anything cool either!

Well, at least Babs and Dinah team up together for the first time since Gail broke them up so Dinah could "head the JLA" or "spend time with her husband."