I’ve been pretty vocal with my concerns around Birds of Prey‘s final storyline “The Unreality” for the past few months now. Despite highlighting the character work and fun dialogue that has made this one of my favorite ongoing team books on the stands, the plotting for the final storyline has been pretty all over the place. There’s been awkward transitions from issue to issue, a lot of side stories, and a build up to a final issue that was primed to write a check that Birds of Prey #28 couldn’t cash.
I shouldn’t have worried.
While not quite the slam dunk finale the series deserves, Birds of Prey #28 is still a great final issue for a stellar series. Kelly Thompson and Sami Basri juggle all of the varying story arcs of this series and bring them to satisfying conclusions by the end of the issue, while also tease us with a potential future for the team (one that hopefully includes Barda and Cassandra Cain).
With the Unreality in full effect on the streets of Gotham, Black Canary, Big Barda, and Batgirl watch helplessly as Sin falls to her death. Luckily for Sin, Megaera takes over and rescues her at the last moment. Unluckily for the rest of the Birds, though, is the fact that Megaera is essentially an out of control god lashing out at anyone and everyone in their path. As Barda and Canary try to keep Megaera from destroying a bunch of innocent Unreality players, Barbara Gordon faces off with Inque and Daemon Prime in the secret Birds bunker under Gotham. Once Inque learns that Prime is planning on killing Barbara before they escape, she turns on him and ends up double crossing the person who got her to double cross Barbara and the Birds, essentially earning her kinda honorary membership into the team again. This allows Barbara to shut down the game from the tech side, reverting all of the in-game weapons that were brought into the real-world into harmless items.
DC
While that synopsis is a pretty barebones recap, the real star of Birds of Prey #28 (and the series as a whole) is Kelly Thompson’s script, which balances the necessary climactic action that a final issue deserves with the charming character dynamics that have made Birds such a treat month in and month out. While we get some one-line explanations for prior confusing elements of the story (apparently Barbara intended to have the Birds try out the gas back in issue #25 in order to prep them for this final battle, something we don’t learn until this issue), the real star of the issue is the interplay between the Birds as they navigate the fray of the Unreality invading the real world. Megaera’s reveal and subsequent attacks on the crowd are both tense and laugh out loud funny, and Barda’s plan to stop her is equally so (trust me when I say you’ll be hoping for a “Kaiju Barda” spinoff by the end).
Kelly Thompson’s script is a real masterwork in how to bring every element of your story to a satisfying ending, as we get the big action conclusion and the bittersweet revelation between Barbara and Black Canary to bring this iteration of the Birds of Prey to a close. The idea that they have so much information on a global scale that they’d be dealing with threats to themselves instead of helping people who really need them puts their whole mission in a neat perspective, and shows what makes them stand out from other teams in the DC universe.
Sami Basri is the only artist for this final issue, and like Thompson, he doesn’t hold anything back. From the Megaera reveal to Barda’s speech to the crowd as she literally towers over them (and threatens to step on them if they get out of line), Basri takes the ball that Thompson sets up and kicks it into the net like a pro. But as great as Basri’s action is, it’s the quiet moments that really shine. Like Thompson’s script, Basri really locks in when it’s time for the emotional ending with the Birds. There’s a real sense of camaraderie and love that these characters have for one another, and Basri’s art makes that shine through in these final pages.
I’m really going to miss Birds of Prey, but I’m glad it got to go out in a way Thompson and Basri wanted. 28 issues is practically unheard of for modern comic book runs, and while “The Unreality” had its fair share of narrative issues, the series more than stuck the landing. Here’s hoping the Birds aren’t gone for too long (or we get a Big Barda/Batgirl team up book).
Once a bird, always a bird.
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