Birds of Prey #125

Wow. Joker really messed up Barbara Gordon a few issues ago. She is still reeling after their encounter and it seems she may be losing her way. Black Canary has returned to the comic to bring it to a close, which is a nice parallel. Tony Bedard even has BC say she has always wanted to pay Oracle back for "saving" her back when the series started. What bothers me is that with this breaking down of Oracle/Barbara, I'm afraid her character is being set up to become Batgirl again. The handicapped hero has been such a neat, groundbreaking thing, I don't see why we need to take a step back to make her Batgirl again. Bedard's villain in this issue is pretty interesting, the Collector owns eBuy and collects rare things and PEOPLE! While BC and Oracle face off against an army of hitmen in Vegas, the rest of the Birds free his prisoners back at his HQ. It's a neat and scary idea, although Bedard goes a little far (and unnecessarily so) when he has a baby get electrocuted while in captivity.

The art is by Scott McDaniel, and I got a bit of a flashback to his Nightwing days while reading the book. No one can draw swarms of assassins like McDaniel! I'll be sad to see this book go, but it really has gone downhill after Bedard's initial fill-in run.

Fair