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| Comic trade paperback, n.pag. Published 2016 (contents: 2016) Acquired November 2016 Read December 2016 |
Written by Brenden Fletcher, Matthew Rosenberg, Julie Benson & Shawna Benson
Color by Lee Loughridge, Serge LaPointe, Allen Passalaqua
Letters by Steve Wands, Marilyn Patrizio
New Killer Star just isn't as good as Kicking and Screaming. Part of this is that it's kind of a hodgepodge: one four-issue story arc, one side story of the band visiting Gotham Academy, one flashback story (set before Kicking and Screaming), and one part of a story about Dinah being (re)united with Batgirl and Huntress to (re)form the Birds of Prey.
And part of that is that none of these components are particularly satisfying. The main four-part story is about Dinah being kidnapped by a ninja clan or something who want to know the martial art secret previously known only to Dinah's mother. There's a lot of backstory invoked here, some of it new (I don't think the New 52 Birds of Prey ever said a thing about Dinah's parents) and some of it old, but all of it isn't very illuminating to the Dinah of the present. I want to read about the band having wacky martial arts adventures on the road! But mostly the band is separated from Dinah during this adventure, and the story feels like it's ignoring the premise of the book more than it's using it.
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| It's kind of weird how this reinserts Dinah's post-Crisis backstory into the New 52, kind of, after Birds of Prey spent so much time developing her orphan backstory. from Black Canary vol. 4 #10 (script by Brenden Fletcher, art by Sandy Jarrell) |
The art, too, is disappointing. Sandy Jarrell isn't a bad artist, and neither is Moritat, but neither of their work compares to that of Annie Wu, the primary artist on volume 1 of Black Canary, who only draws two issues here-- they just lack the dynamism, fun, and sexiness that Wu brings. I know Wu did some well-received Kate Bishop Hawkeye comics for Marvel, but I don't know what else. She's clearly an up-and-coming dynamo (or ought to be), so I'll have to keep on top of her work.
