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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"I was never a whiz with computers anyway."

jarodrussell
2011-03-10 08:18 pm UTC (link)

People gather data not software. Uh-oh, someone better tell Google they're doing it wrong. Ha ha ha.

Am I the only one who thinks her reasoning is fucked up? How in the age of Anonymous, WikiLeaks, and Daniel Suarez's Daemon can anyone say that the best way to deal with the mess Oracle's lack of secret identity is to rewind back to the 90's when she was a secret? Blow up big time, Babs. Put of face on digital crime fighting.

But what can you expect from someone who thinks the first step into going underground is to build a giant spire in the middle of Gotham City? Answer: expect Birds of Prey.

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	Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway." mrstatham 2011-03-10 08:23 pm UTC (link)
	What gets me is that Oracle states what you've cropped out there and then says that there's only 'one Oracle'. But if you're not helping people and you're hiding from the villains again, then what fucking good are you, and why the Hell do you have such an over-inflated sense of self-worth, Barbara? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 3 comments) (Show 3 comments)

Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway."

jarodrussell
2011-03-10 08:30 pm UTC (link)

then what fucking good are you

She's not any good, and that's what bugs me. Oracle used to be cool, because she was the super-node of the super-hero community. Now, I'm not sure what she is. From what I've gathered from the bits I've seen from the last two arcs, her primary function is setting gay men up in relationships, which could be an interesting comic, but I don't think that's the direction the books is taking.

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Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway."

mrstatham
2011-03-10 08:35 pm UTC (link)

That's kinda my point, yeah. Birds of Prey used to be cool because you used to have something of a rotating cast of operatives with Canary, Oracle and Huntress at the centre. We got cool stuff like Gypsy getting a decent look and revamp. Here, we've got ineffective Oracle basically denying everything she's been the past few years - IE, being a unseen force for the heroes that makes villains shit themselves, in favour of being the exact same thing, basically. Oh, and the cool rotating cast has become two boring people and some of Simone's pet characters. Way to go.

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Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway."

jarodrussell
2011-03-10 08:42 pm UTC (link)

See, I preferred the book before Simone took over, when it was just Oracle and Black Canary being a couple of kick ass buddies fighting crimes that slipped through the cracks, so I can't comment on the rotating cast thing...I like buddy flicks.

But even then, they at least had personalities and there was a sense of friendship to their chatter. These scenes all feel like people who can barely stand each other trying to work at a volunteer gig. There's no sense of chemistry here, just a checked off roll call.

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	Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway." ebailey140 2011-03-14 05:59 pm UTC (link)
	But what can you expect from someone who thinks the first step into going underground is to build a giant spire in the middle of Gotham City? Answer: expect Birds of Prey. New skyscrapers get built in large cities all the time. Why would people assume a random new skyscraper would be a BoP HQ? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

Re: "I was never a whiz with computers anyway."

jarodrussell
2011-03-14 06:54 pm UTC (link)

How many new buildings have Black Canary, Huntress, Red Robin, Batgirl, etc. going in and out of them?

More to the point, how many different contractors did she have working on it? How much paperwork was there? How much money? How many bloggers noticed it, photographed it, etc. Those kinds of buildings are gigantic projects that require a lot of people. Even if no one person knew what it was for, I'm absolutely certain someone like Anarky or Calculator (a version of him that wasn't a 1-dimensional caricature of a misogynist) could piece together enough of those paper and money trails to connect it back to Oracle...or if we pretend Oracle is a hacker, an Oracle shaped hole.

Batman, Inc. works because Bruce can camouflage it all through WE's books and so far only upgrades existing buildings. Oracle couldn't keep Black Mask out of the Clock Tower; couldn't keep Superman, Black Alice, and Spysmasher out of her Metropolis building; couldn't keep Joker and Calculator out of Clockwork Systems. Why am I suddenly supposed to think she's able to mask herself from being connected to an entirely new building?

Firewall, or something like it, something small, relatively low-tech that took advantage of not needing your supercomputers on site to actually use them, that's what Oracle should have done if she was going underground. Make as small of a information footprint as possible. Kord Tower is just...it's Birds of Prey's idea of what hackers do.

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