With the news that Birds of Prey will be wrapping up at the end of this arc, the response online has been mixed, from people being extremely bummed out to asking “that was still coming out?”, which kind of encapsulates this series as whole. As I’ve mentioned in past reviews, Birds of Prey was never the biggest seller or well-known of the DC titles out lately, but it’s often featured some of the most consistent plotting and character work that the publisher puts out. Which is why it’s so strange for Birds of Prey #26 to feel like a jarring second part of “the Unreality” story that straight up skips the cliffhanger of the prior issue.
After Black Canary and Cassandra Cain install a backend key to the Shadow Army’s Unreality servers, the team heads into the Unreality virtual reality program to solve the mysteries behind the game and the effects it has on the real world. Thanks to a handy exposition dump from Barbara Gordon, we finally have some insight into what makes the Unreality so dangerous: thanks to a new update, if a player solves a series of riddles in the game, they can enter the real world with the avatar they are wearing. This avatar is actually a new camouflage tech that the Shadow Army wants to use to cause havoc in the streets. If the Birds can solve those riddles and defeat the Shadow Army first, then they can prevent their plan before it even starts.
As grateful as I am to have some clarification over just what the Unreality is now, it comes at the cost of a flowing narrative arc. Kelly Thompson’s script skips right past last issue’s big cliffhanger, where the gas used to prep players for The Unreality caused Barda, Cassandra, Black Canary, and the rest of the Birds to seemingly embrace their darkest tendencies. And yet there’s no mention of that in this issue aside from Barbara mentioning that the Birds have had experience with the game “first hand”. I read this issue twice AND went back to the end of issue #25 to make sure that was how the issue ended, and sure enough, it was.
So what happened here? Did an issue get published out of order? Will we get clarification next issue? Having this issue start with Canary and Cassandra mid mission is fine, but the sequence of events from the previous issue is super jarring. This major narrative issue not only caused a huge dent in the flow of the story, it’s also a pretty big bruise on an issue that is largely in line with what makes Birds of Prey such a fun book to read. Thompson’s script is full of the same great characterizations and team dynamics that have been a trademark of this series for 25 issues, so having this happen so close to the finish line is pretty worrying.
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At least Sam Basri and Vincent Cifuentes’ art is still consistent. At 26 issues in, Birds of Prey has a very clear “house style” that has served the book really well since the very beginning, and that doesn’t change here. Once again the art is split amongst the real world and the “unreality”, and both Basri and Cifuentes’ art styles fit enough to show a noticeable difference in the two worlds without feeling completely jarring. Of the two, I slightly prefer Cifuentes’ more fluid style as the Birds navigate the digital world and its effects on the real one, but both artists are extremely strong here.
Birds of Prey #26 is a frustrating read, especially if you’re a longtime fan of the book. It has all the elements of what makes this series so much fun, and yet that big narrative disconnect between last issue’s cliffhanger and this issue really took me out of the story. With the news that the series is ending soon, I really hope this isn’t a sign of how the final two issues will be. But if it is, we’ll always have those first 24 issues.
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