Birds of Prey #127

So this was the last issue. The Birds try to take on the Network of villains they've been fighting for like 20 issues now, but they don't even really win. They end up taking out the flunkies, but the Calculator gets away. Of course, last issue Calculator took over the Kilg%re, the Flash villain, so now he can control computers and create powerful robotic avatars for himself. He even takes over a rocket and gives it a shark face this issue, so I guess he has complete control over metal as a whole, not just circuitry? In any case, I'm not a big fan of the idea of upping Calculator's power levels like this. Hopefully it is temporary. What bothers me more is that we had the whole Birds team together and they were pretty ineffective. They spent the last few issues kind of just running around, totally outmatched by their foes. Then when the story ended, Oracle just left a note with the newest Bird, Infinity, saying she was disbanding the team while she finds herself. I'm kind of surprised at that too, because it is a little selfish. Surely the rest of the team could continue while Oracle was away? The story just smacked of editorial fiat, I don't think this was a natural conclusion for the Birds' story, and I don't think Oracle would act this way. But to be honest, Bedard's second run on this book wasn't as good as his first, so I'm not too sad to see the title go. The sad part is how much I loved this book back when Chuck Dixon wrote it, then how it was even better with Gail Simone. Oh well. Another long run to be forgotten about in my longboxes!

Claude St. Aubin's artwork is pretty inconsistent. Some of his panels looked fine, especially his combat stuff when the Birds took on the Network. But his Lady Blackhawk vs. Calculator pages were awful, so I'm not sure what was going on. The backup art by Fernando Pasarin was so much better it kind of made the lead art look worse too.

Average