Birds of Prey: Hero Hunters

Birds of Prey (1999) (New Editions)

by Gail Simone, Paulo Siqueira (Artist), James Raiz (Artist)

After being paralyzed by the Joker, former Batgirl Barbara Gordon became Oracle and formed a crime-fighting team with other female heroes including the martial artist with a devastating sonic scream, Black Canary, the vigilante known as the Huntress and the mysterious Lady Blackhawk! In this collection, the team is shaken up as members depart and new teammates are added to the roster. Who will be asked to join Oracle in her all-new Birds of Prey? Who will refuse, and who will fly the coop for good?

Collects Birds of Prey #68-80, Batgirl #57, Batman #633

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy

360 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2005

About the author

Gail Simone is a comic book writer well-known for her work on Birds of Prey (DC), Wonder Woman (DC), and Deadpool (Marvel), among others, and has also written humorous and critical commentary on comics and the comics industry such as the original "Women in Refrigerators" website and a regular column called "You'll All Be Sorry".

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huntress goes undercover with a cult that is brainwashing teenagers, causing them to dress as dead superheroes and then commit suicide. Vixen is along for the ride too. The whole cult thing gets really out there with their beliefs. Then as part of the Batman:War Games event, the clock tower gets blown up without really explaining why in this volume.

Then Lady Blackhawk joins the team at the start of a new arc and new direction for the book. The Birds of Prey are taking their show on the road. Barbara is apparently traumatized from the events of War Games even though we don't really see it in the issues presented here and doesn't want to come back to Gotham. So the Birds of Prey team up with Lady Blackhawk to fly around the world and right wrongs. In this opening arc they go after three vigilantes who are killing people, Black Alice (This is her first appearance BTW.), Harvest, and Thorn.

The stories are full of action but the art in this book is still way oversexualized, mainly due to Ed Benes.

[Khurram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got to say was expecting a lot more from this book. There is a lit of action but I was expecting more from the story. There were also things o dud not like about some of the dialogue (too teenage for me), a a couple of things did not add up. An example Black Canary turning up to a grieving father in her work clothes.

Barbara Gordon is putting a team together. The sassy Black Canary, and the troubled Huntress. Not only stopping crime, but policing the meta-human comunity. All this while escaping Batman's shadow.

This is a good action packed series, with great artwork but the character development snd the relationships between the characters seem to be extremly rushed. With Gail Simone I did expect the character development and dialogue to be the strong points. As I thought these were getting better the book finished.

[Jadyn❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5* Kind of a mixed bag of missions, but I like the friendships and dynamics building amongst the team.
This volume has the first appearance of Black Alice in it, which is kind of wild in retrospect. Her story here isn’t anything spectacular, but it sets the foundation for the character in the future. Clearly she resonated with readers while the other characters introduced haven’t made the same impact.
Helena gets moments to shine here, where her humanity and morality are shining through her facade of unaffected violence.
Barbara is also characterized further, and I love her complexities. It’s so easy to tell when a writer has no understanding of who Barbara Gordon is, but Gail Simone understands her, in all her messy, sometimes manipulative, sometimes extreme ways.
Dinah’s character has already been explored a lot in this series, but her scene with Batman further establishes the lengths she will go for the people she cares about, and that despite her friendly and kind demeanor, she isn’t afraid of anything and won’t be controlled by anyone.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I accidentally picked this up halfway through Gail Simone's run, so my review is definitely biased because of that mistake. I definitely enjoyed myself reading it. The ending of the cult run, and the very end of this TP are both so compelling. They wrap everything up perfectly and leave me wanting more. That being said, some of the stuff in the middle of the "last arc"--particularly as they chase down Rose/Thorn, left me unimpressed and jittery. It felt a bit more filler to me. I also came here for Huntress content, and I felt that it fell flat with her on occasion. Again, a personal bias, but why was 90 percent of the first arc my babygirl getting her ass beat by Vixen in her own comic?

There were also a couple moments that felt... weird. Like, this is a comic about an all-female superhero team, and sometimes the comments that characters made about their own bodies felt weirdly phrased or forced to me. Like, we have to make comments like these because it's what male readers expect to see. I know this run was primarily written by a (talented) woman, and it's about female characters, but something felt... off.

[Nate]

I’m still not really getting much from the stories in this series. I like the characters, both from other books and this one, but the stories are forgettable to me. There’s lots of action here, as well as appearances from Vixen, Black Alice (her debut), Thorn, and Lady Blackhawk. In the first story, the ladies expose a cult using superheroes and kids for nefarious reasons. Then there’s a War Games interlude where Oracle’s headquarters are blown up; we only get part of the story, so read War Games if you want to know what’s happening behind the scenes. Later, the team joins with Lady Blackhawk, going around the country solving crimes. There’s a subplot involving Oracle with her computer that’s kind of interesting, but it’s unresolved here. I think to really love this series, you have to have a huge affection for these characters or to have read it when it was coming out. I merely like the characters and am reading it for the first time, so it’s just okay to me. It’s too similar to so many other comics that it fails to stand out from where I’m standing.

[Edward Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good collection.

[Jipi Perreault · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still dig that run. Characters are well defined and likeable just like a season of Buffy. I still find strange the dicotomy between the feminist message and the visuals. (So many boobs and butts man...)

[Arianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very underwhelming. The title comes from the fact the team ends up hunting down various "violent vigilantes", which is a bit of a stretch since none of the villains really fit this title except Thorn.

It thought parts of the plot seemed to feature a lot of supernatural elements? In the very first story this is done right, as it turns out a well-known supervillain entity was behind the mystic phenomenon. But when they're battling Harvest (not that one) in Kansas, you really end up asking yourself what the hell the Birds of Prey have to do with this setup. A more generous review would call it genre-bending, maybe, but I just thought it was ridiculous.

The first story involves this cult who seems to be brainwashing kids into killing themselves. It's a very ambitious story and, like in the previous volume, this ambition to include as many elements as possible is its downfall. Some lesser-known beloved characters are teased and then shown for a microsecond.

I skimmed through the War Games tie-ins as I read those a short while ago. They're for sure the most exciting, action-packed of the whole volume, but I don't think they'd make a lot of sense without the context.

This might seem a little petty but around page 216 there is a Ted Kord appearance, except he's drawn like some kind of boy band heartthrob? I was really confused trying to understand who he was and I laughed so hard when I figured it out. Really bizarre way of drawing him.

The Thorn story was the strongest action-wise, or perhaps I just like crazy women. I'm really confused if this specific storyline is expanded further in some Superman comics, or perhaps if the Birds will deal with it at a later point, because it didn't seem finished.

Black Alice has her first appearance, with a very forgettable story.

The strongest aspect of the book are surely the interpersonal relationships of the team, who seem to be getting closer. Well, except for Lady Blackhawk, hired to pilot their plane, who only appears sporadically. I really like Barbara's manipulativeness being exposed in the last few pages. At the same time, I don't think the author really gets Huntress as a character. She spends so much time revealing her deepest feelings to these people she's just warming up to.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explaining why Gail Simone's Birds is good is hard: it's just good, and if you're a fan of any of the individual characters (Oracle, Huntress, or Black Canary), or the Bat Family, its a no-brainer to read her run on Birds. The Characters are interesting and fun, and get a lot of development, the plots are interesting and captivating, and she doesn't rely on action sequence to fill space. It's just really great comics.

This particular volume takes place around the War Games arc of Batman, and one of the results of this is seeing the Birds leave Gotham. It's really good to see actual advancement of plot, not just a magic reset button after every arc. I really quite liked this.

[Amna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. I do really love the developing friendship between Black Canary and Huntress. And while I do love the way Gail Simone writes Dinah, I don’t think I’m convinced she really gets Helena. There’s something about the characterization that’s just off, like a more sanitized version of her than her previous appearances in Cry for Blood and No Man’s Land.

We do get Zinda Blake’s introduction and she’s still just as fun as I remember.

I still have to actively ignore how much the art annoys me.

[Raul Reyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m glad they didn’t drag out the cult storyline too much , but after that the one and done stories were just fine. None stick out to me as particularly memorable. Although I liked Huntress’ journey, although I don’t understand why they decided to just throw that away last minute. Hopefully we get to learn more about Lady Blackhawk in the next volume.

[Snafulina · Rating 3 out of 5]

And again, a lot of asses and tits, but this time around Benes unfortunately did not do the majority of the pencilling... and you can tell.
Except for that, the plotting got better and the story got more intriguing. Would recommend.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge fan of this whole series!

[Highland G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun volume. I really enjoyed the somewhat PI element to this one.

[Joel Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection suffers a bit from inconsistent art teams and even has a fill-in issue with a different author. Still, there is some cool stuff in here.

[Ian Welke · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for the writing. 1 star for the art. There's a good story here with interesting characters, unfortunately they're all drawn like I picked up the porn version of this by mistake.

[Tshepiso · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Hero Hunters was an interesting development on the Birds of Prey series. This volume sees the solidification of the Birds of Prey as a team as Helena Bertinelli's Huntress comes closer together with both Black Canary and Oracle and the three ultimately work together to take down metahuman cults and murderous vigilantes. The volume also sees the introduction of Lady Blackhawk as the Birds of Prey's pilot. Both of these developments were excellently done. Helena was a welcome addition to the team and Lady Blackhawk's single issue may be one of my favourites in the whole series.

The overarching plot of the volume was interesting. The titular Hero Hunters arc sees the team hunting vigilantes who have gone too far. Oracle's morals are challenged as she is forced to make hard choices and cross lines for the greater good. These choices ultimately complicate the nascent trust she was building with her team. Seeing Babs challenged in this way and the emotional fallout from her choices was so satisfying to see play out. The contrast between Oracle's work with the "by-the-books" Birds of Prey and their narrative foils Savant and Creote, villains turned anti-heroes recruited by Oracle under threat of imprisonment was excellently done and led to a satisfying, dramatic conclusion to the volume.

I will say some storylines in this issue didn't work for me. This volume sees Babs get possessed by Brainiac for... reasons? This plotline indulged in nonsensical comic technobabble and I was pretty uninvested in the storyline overall. The cult storyline at the beginning of the volume also overstayed its welcome in my opinion.

But overall this volume was excellently done. Gail Simone's character writing and team dynamics are second to none and the way she builds on characterization is so satisfying to follow. I can only hope the Birds of Prey series stays this good for her entire run.

[a ☕︎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

the boy drama is sooooo grating. not even just between the main team, there’s so much boy drama in the mini-arcs too. can’t i just have girls being friends? is that so much to ask for? dick… your power… it’s too much!! i actually started this bc i wanted to get more into oracle. but this ended up making me dislike her and instead like helena, who’s just… sooo boring as a character. what even. and dinah isn’t growing on me.