scans_daily: Birds of Prey v2 #10

sailorlibra (

scans_daily,
@ 2011-03-10 01:49 pm UTC

Entry tags:

char: batgirl/oracle/barbara gordon, char: batman/bruce wayne, char: batman/dick grayson, char: black canary/dinah lance, char: blue beetle/jaime reyes, char: booster gold/michael jon carter, char: catwoman/selina kyle, char: hawk/hank hall, char: huntress/helena bertinelli, char: manhunter/kate spencer, char: misfit/charlotte gage-radcliffe, char: robin/red robin/tim drake, char: spoiler/batgirl/robin/steph brown, creator: gail simone, creator: inaki miranda, publisher: dc comics, title: birds of prey

Birds of Prey v2 #10

Four pages from the latest issue of BoP.

Everyone who read last month's issue remembers the horribly fake death of Oracle helicopter explosion scene. This issue doesn't waste too much time making it clear she was just faking it.

Apparently Babs is responsible for some of the really annoying events that have happened in Generation Lost so far, insofar as she could have stopped them, but choose not to. Thanks a lot, Oracle.

Catwoman stops by to see Hel and Dinah for the sole purpose of making it clear she's not fooled.

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daningram.insanejournal.com
2011-03-10 08:46 pm UTC (link)

Okay, can we stop pretending now that DC doesn't hate Cass?

By Gail's own admission, she would have used her if possible. Yet the very rare times we ever even hear about Cass' character, it's how she's gone. Her last series outsold Hawkman, Catwoman and Firestorm, yet she's still gone. The last issue of her mini series only sold 5 thousand less copies than Steph, despite their efforts at sabotage, and yet she remains gone.

Her big appearance in Red Robin? A few lousy pages where she provides some exposition and then disappears.

Pattern recognition should be obvious at this point.

Also, not fond of rolling back the clock. It doesn't make any sense, especially given now that the villains have their own evil Oracle.

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jarodrussell
2011-03-10 08:50 pm UTC (link)

Okay, can we stop pretending now that DC doesn't hate Cass?

Only if we can stop pretending Gail Simone is a separate entity from DC.

By her own writing, she doesn't include Cass. Two words on a list. One dialog bubble that says she has access. They're Kord Tower for goodness sake, so it's not like it's impossible to positively include people who can't be used in the book.

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daningram.insanejournal.com
2011-03-10 08:55 pm UTC (link)

Gail's stated that she wasn't allowed to use Cass, but wants to do so. Given that Gail's honest but also a professional, I doubt she'd tell us if the editors went farther than just not letting her use Cass.

And given that the current regime is the one who's been sabotaging Cass since OYL, I'm inclined to see this as their hand, not Gail's.

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	no subject jarodrussell 2011-03-10 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	So, no then? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 17 comments) (Show 17 comments)

	no subject daningram.insanejournal.com 2011-03-10 09:05 pm UTC (link)
	Well, I see no reason to hold Gail responsible for decisions that she didn't make. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 16 comments) (Show 16 comments)

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sistermagpie
2011-03-10 09:08 pm UTC (link)

Do you mean that DC must have not only told her she wasn't allowed to use Cass but told her she had to have her say Cass doesn't have access as well? Why would Gail be open about the first part but not the second? I seem to remember her saying on Tumblr that she agrees with Oracle that Cass just shouldn't know.

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	no subject jarodrussell 2011-03-10 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	No, no, no. Stop. You CAN'T suggest Gail Simone would do anything wrong. That will never do. Just never! (I think the above is funnier if you imagine Rarity saying.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject sistermagpie 2011-03-10 09:28 pm UTC (link)
	Just wanted you to know I went to YouTube to make sure I got the inflection right there... (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject daningram.insanejournal.com 2011-03-10 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	Really? Then in that case, yeah it's on Gail. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 7 comments) (Show 7 comments)

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sistermagpie
2011-03-10 09:30 pm UTC (link)

To let her say it in her own words, I found the tumblr post. She said she originally wanted Cass in BoP but she moved to slow and she became unavailable, and on the subject of her not being on the list said:

"The burden isn’t knowing Oracle is alive, the burden is knowing a secret that has cost a lot of Oracle’s friends dearly. The people she chose were mostly chosen for their immediate proximity to her at this point in time. In DC continuity, Cass is in flux, in a transitional state. For me, I can believe that Babs would want to give her room, and not burden her with the responsibilities of being part of the Birds at this time, just as Babs was okay with Dinah leaving the team when she went off to marry the Green Dork for a while."

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	no subject daningram.insanejournal.com 2011-03-10 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	Eh, that's still pretty thin logic in my book, but whatever. I dislike the whole 'putting the genie back in the box' thing regardless of who it affects. And 10 bucks says that DC doesn't do jack with Cass except maybe kill her. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	no subject jarodrussell 2011-03-10 09:41 pm UTC (link)
	I'll take that bet. I bet within two years Fabian Nicieza will have Cass as a semi-regular star in Red Robin. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject daningram.insanejournal.com 2011-03-10 09:46 pm UTC (link)
	Fabian stated that he wasn't monopolizing Cass, yet Gail couldn't use her. Makes me think plans have changed (again). (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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jarodrussell
2011-03-10 09:39 pm UTC (link)

"...for their immediate proximity to her at this point in time."

If only there was some kind of interconnected network of computers that allowed people to securely communicate with each other, and maybe...and this is just a thought...since Barbara can't fight crime on rooftops, she could use this "computercation" system to direct people in the field to fight crime, so she wouldn't need them in her immediate proximity. Hmm. I bet Gail would be perfect for that book!

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sistermagpie
2011-03-10 09:48 pm UTC (link)

LOL! It seems like...I think she's saying that the only people she's telling she's still operating as Oracle (Cass does know that Babs is alive--or at least she doesn't think she's dead) are people close to her physically. So Babs herself is alive to everyone, but the only people who know she's Oracle now are people in Gotham that she works with in person because it's a burden.

So it does still kind of come down to a rather 19th century view of things. Misfit and Stephanie have to know she's Oracle because they work with her physically while Cass can be spared because she's in Hong Kong. Even though the whole point of computer identities is that they're different from your RL ID. For many if not most people the people they deal with in real life are less likely to know about their online life. She could hide her continuing to be Oracle just as easily from Steph and Misfit as she could from Cass.

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Fixed some grammar bugs

jarodrussell
2011-03-10 10:13 pm UTC (link)

It's your first sentence that relieves me that DC has the good sense not to hand Cass over to Gail, because how are you NOT going to let Cass know Babs is Oracle? Cass has been doing the Cal Lightman thing since she was a kid, the second she looks at someone on that list she's going to know they're hiding something, and as soon as she finds out, how's she going to feel that Barbara not only lied to her but also forgot...FORGOT, thank you very much, Ms. Photographic Memory...lying to Cass was impossible. That's the kind of thing that's part of Cass's core character, and...vroot...Gail just ignored it. So, as ticked off as I am there's another notch in the "Barbara is kind of thick" column, I'm equally relieved Cass isn't going to be dredged through that book of nightmares.

Well, sure. If she wanted fake retirement, how hard would it be for some other wannabe to use the Oracle handle? Setup Proxy as the "Internet cafe" people can talk to, take a month off, and then have some person halfway around the globe, who calls herself Delphi or something, start working with Canary and Huntress. It could even be played as one of those twists Gail's so fond of. Have Canary, semi-underground because she's still wanted, mention she'd been doing jobs for someone, suspected it was Oracle, and then her phone beeps with a message from Delphi, who can't be Oracle because Barbara's sitting right there and there's no way a simple AI could be setup to throw Dinah off the trail.

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turtlefu
2011-03-10 10:25 pm UTC (link)

If they made Cass off-limits, then having Oracle at least mention Cass is a lot better than just simply IGNORING her existence, which is what every character has been doing for the past couple of years.

So, Gail likes Cass, wanted to use her, yet jarodrussel is saying that Gail hates Cass because she didn't disobey her bosses and include her anyways?

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	no subject jarodrussell 2011-03-10 10:28 pm UTC (link)
	yet jarodrussel is saying that Gail hates Cass because she didn't disobey her bosses and include her anyways? [CITATION NEEDED] (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 3 comments) (Show 3 comments)

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turtlefu
2011-03-10 11:25 pm UTC (link)

Someone said that DC hates Cass. You said that Gail should be included within that, thereby implying that she, too, hates Cass, because she didn't use her.
Even though, she DID try to use her, and was shot down by her bosses. Meaning Gail didn't use Cass because she didn't want to disobey her bosses.
By your logic, for Gail to like Cass enough to include her, then she would need to have disobeyed her bosses.

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jarodrussell
2011-03-10 11:54 pm UTC (link)

My exact words were, "Only if we can stop pretending Gail Simone is a separate entity from DC," and I stand by them. By my logic, she's someone who's been writing for DC almost ten years (eight?), should know how things go in the industry, and shouldn't be treated as an entity wholly divorced from the business of making comics or the responsibility of writing her own.

Or have the rules changed and are no longer allowed to blame anyone but editors for bad stories?

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	no subject janegray 2011-03-11 06:46 pm UTC (link)
	If your issue with the story is that character X wasn't used, and the editors prevented the writer from using character X, then yes, the editors are the only ones who can be blamed. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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