Birds of Prey #9 – Review

By Gail Simone (writer), Inaki Miranda (art), Nei Ruffino (colors), Dave Sharp (letters)

The Story: Batman and Oracle race to save the mind of Black Canary (still suffering from Mortis’ touch from last issue), while the rest of the Birds work to escape from the big bad’s headquarters (…in a school bus. That, I did not see coming.)

What’s Good: Man, where to start? First of all, huge kudos to Stanley “Artgerm” Lau for an absolutely awesome cover. I just wish Oracle had been there too, either instead of or in addition to Hawk.

Speaking of art, that makes a nice segue to the art on his issue. Inaki Miranda dropped my jaw on every single page. This is my first exposure to his work, but you can bet he’s now near the top of my list of comic-art careers to follow. While this caliber of art would be excellent on any book, his lightly penciled but beautifully detailed pages fit the book surprisingly well. (Given Simone’s usually harsh prose and imagery, bolder art styles seem to complement her work better overall, but somehow Miranda manages to marry image to words very well indeed.) I have to especially point out Canary’s opening hallucination sequence as an absolute artwork triumph. Everything from the expression on Canary’s face, to the evil pleasure Mortis is obviously taking in her distress, to the body language of the characters that Canary’s memory conjures, it’s all fantastic. (And, while the pencils and inking are beautiful, credit must also go to colorist Ruffino, who makes great use of shadows and color-contrasts in the sequence to make everything stand out just as it should.) Way to go, art team!