Who exactly are the Birds of Prey?
And what do they have to do with Harley Quinn?
It's not as cut-and-dried as you might think.
Join us as we explore DC's number one squad of superheroines, from their origin story
to their ever-changing lineup.
From the Justice League to the Fantastic Four, superpowered team-ups have been part of the
genre for decades.
Sometimes they headline in pairs, like Batman and Superman in DC's long-running World's
Finest title.
Often, they're sprawling collections of aliens, shapeshifters, super-soldiers, and psychics,
as in the Avengers.
Occasionally, they're a grab bag of misfits, such as the Suicide Squad, the Outsiders,
and the Doom Patrol.
Generally speaking, most of these groups have been around for a while, to the point of being
adapted to other mediums — sometimes more than once.
The Birds of Prey, in contrast, are a fairly new invention.
Born in 1996, in the Chuck Dixon and Gary Frank one-shot Black Canary/Oracle: Birds
of Prey, the team didn't get their own ongoing book until 1999.
That run of comics, largely defined by writers Dixon and Gail Simone, continued until 2009.
Numerous reboots have flourished and floundered, the most recent being Batgirl and the Birds
of Prey, which debuted in 2016 as part of DC's Rebirth event, but it was cancelled in
May 2018.
Despite this current absence of the team, the Birds of Prey are still regarded as a
major player on the DC stage, a designation made ironclad by the Birds of Prey movie,
however removed it might be from its comics origins.
Sure, the Birds are young compared to the Justice League, but that doesn't mean they
haven't made a splash of their own.
As far as superhero names go, "Birds of Prey" is pretty great.
It implies the team's majority-to-all-female lineup without being condescending.
It stands out when compared to other DC team names.
It denotes the approach of the Birds themselves to the criminals they pursue — that of hunters,
confident in their ability to track, trap, and capture their quarry.
In a genre littered with twee, saccharine, or off-puttingly seductive monikers for its
heroines and their organizations, "Birds of Prey" is a stand-out winner.
Readers will not, however, find the name very often within the comic's own pages.
It wasn't until issue #86, published a full six years after the series' inception, that
anyone on the titular team actually spoke the name aloud.
Prior to unveiling the helicopter that she'd bought for the team, Zinda Blake, aka Lady
Blackhawk, maintained:
"We need a name.
This 'agents' thing it's got no zing.
So, what about being the Birds of Prey?
Canary and Blackhawk, that's easy, and the name Huntress fits."
Though the name did show up in its own title and others, it's nowhere near as openly used
as that of, say, the Avengers or the Teen Titans.
But given the Birds' more clandestine approach to crime-fighting, that's likely for the best.
So, who are the Birds of Prey?
Their ranks have grown and shrunk dramatically over the course of the group's existence.
Its two constants have been the women who headlined the 1996 one-shot, Black Canary
and Oracle, at least until Barbara Gordon became Batgirl again.
Their relationship was as electric as it was supportive, a complex clash between the former,
a martial arts master with an idealist streak, and the latter, a steely realist and master
hacker.
Tempered by everything from the travails of superheroic romance to disability, their bond
formed the foundation of what would go on to become one of the DC universe's premiere
teams.
But who joined them in their crusade?
Well, often, there was Huntress, a vigilante with a crossbow and no patience for fools.
And then there was Lady Blackhawk member of a World War II-era group called the Blackhawks
who was ripped from the 1950s after the Zero Hour event and able to pilot just about anything.
Many others floated in and out of the group.
Big Barda, Katana, and Judomaster are but a handful of those who've claimed Birds membership
over the years.
But beyond the main four, there were few who stayed for long.
This didn't just keep the team multitalented and flexible, it made the book enduringly
entertaining.
Readers never knew who would show up next, and what stories might arrive with them.
Upon rummaging through the Birds' comics history, curious movie fans will immediately realize
something odd.
Even though she's the lead of the 2019 movie, Harley Quinn isn't really found within the
Birds of Prey comics as a member of the team.
Her friends and lovers put in an appearance or two Poison Ivy was a member of the New
52 Birds from the first issue, and Catwoman headlined the Birds of Prey: Manhunt miniseries
but Harley Quinn never does, at least not in an official group capacity.
Comics often go through changes on their journey to cinematic adaptation, ranging from the
minor to the massive.
Remember when Halle Berry's Catwoman was brought back from the dead by an Egyptian Mau, bearing
abilities from the goddess Bast?
Yet few anticipated a Birds of Prey movie starring an antiheroine with little, if any,
connection to the titular team.
"Psychologically speaking, vengeance rarely brings the catharsis we were hoping for."
"Yeah."
"Are we ready?"
This isn't the only departure from the source material, however.
Cassandra Cain goes from Bat-family member to street kid.
Hard-bitten Gotham detective Renee Montoya is in the mix, and criminal kingpin Black
Mask, typically a Batman and Catwoman villain, acts as the Birds' antagonist.
But therein lies the beauty of the comic book movie.
It offers bright new visions of beloved favorites.
Though the Birds of Prey are certainly best known for being a heroic team full of do-gooders,
their ranks have been filled out more than once by those less morally inclined.
Lady Shiva, a ruthless assassin and mother of onetime Batgirl Cassandra Cain, was perhaps
the best example of this.
Brought to the Birds by the death of a sensei that Shiva shared with Black Canary, she became
an out-and-out protagonist.
As a woman with a past involving violence and an unceasing desire to push herself beyond
any and all limits, Shiva fit well alongside the series other characters.
She never became squeaky clean, nor even all that consistently heroic, but her heart could
be glimpsed beneath the grime and blood more often in the pages of Birds of Prey than ever
before.
Most affecting of all was her relationship with Black Canary.
To call them "friends" implies an ease and closeness that doesn't quite fit, but their
shared training and history brought them together as drinking buddies, sparring partners, and
sometimes-comrades.
This willingness to embrace characters with murky intentions as capable of greatness was
the series' biggest strength, and truly what made it a modern classic of DC Comics.
What mattered in Birds of Prey wasn't where Lady Shiva had been it was where she was going.
For all its innovation, 2019's Birds of Prey is not, in fact, the first live-action screen
adaptation of the titular team.
That honor belongs to the short-lived 2002 Birds of Prey TV series, which only aired
13 episodes on the WB before its cancellation.
And to say this adaptation was loose is an understatement.
"Dinah.
A meta-human herself with powers to open hidden doors to the mind, powers that she is only
beginning to explore."
Fascinatingly, this dramatic departure from the comics canon had something in common with
the Birds of the 2019 film: Harley Quinn.
In the TV series, however, she wasn't the gleeful misfit in the golden jumpsuit.
She was being set up as the show's main antagonist
Audiences never discovered how that story would've turned out, but at least they ended
up with a whole other Birds-linked Harley to enjoy.
Justice League Unlimited was beloved by fans for its smart writing, bold storytelling,
and crisp animation.
But in a DC Animated Universe where those sterling qualities are the norm, it takes
a little something extra to put a show over the top.
For Justice League Unlimited, that came in the form of its deep dive into the murkiest
depths of DC lore.
No character was too obscure to slip in, no arc too weird to adapt.
This was, of course, tremendously satisfying for long-time fans, but also a delight to
newbies.
Many young viewers first encountered the likes of Fire and Ice, Booster Gold, and Aztek in
watching the celebrated series.
Sadly, the Birds of Prey never managed to make the cut but not, as it turns out, for
lack of trying.
Producer Dwayne McDuffie, having enjoyed the comic series, pitched an episode centered
around the team.
Birds writer Gail Simone wrote a script in which Barbara Gordon creates the persona of
Oracle and works remotely with Huntress and Black Canary, but the character rights involving
Batgirl were so prohibitive that she had to be taken out of the story.
Not interested in making, quote, "a half-way Birds of Prey," the crew decided to retool,
and the episode "Double Date" became a beloved caper involving Black Canary, Green Arrow,
Huntress, and the Question.
Too bad for the Birds, but very good for the viewers.
"And here I heard you some kind of brilliant fighter."
"You heard right."
Batman: The Brave and the Bold was well-loved for its whole-hearted devotion to the spirit
of the Silver Age.
After all, it was made by a cast and crew eager to bring all their favorite DC characters
into the mix.
Naturally, the Birds of Prey showed up, but not as one might expect.
In an episode entitled "The Mask of Matches Malone!," Black Canary, Huntress, and Catwoman
found themselves cornered on stage at the Iceberg Lunge, a waterhole for supervillains
and their assorted henchman.
Briefly frozen before the glitteringly evil assemblage, the women rallied and burst into
a close-harmony song titled "Birds of Prey."
"Any ideas?"
"Just one.
Hit it."
This song has more to do with the variously superpowered men in their lives than anything
they were doing themselves, and it was mostly meant as a way to get through to a then-amnesiac
Batman.
But the song rocketed to online infamy immediately after airing in Australia, due to the innuendo-laden
lyrics.
The buzz was so loud that the song had to be edited before airing in the United States.
But the internet's memory is long indeed, and "Birds of Prey" and its sly commentary
lives on in the hearts of fans worldwide.
The DC universe's bad guys can be plenty scary, what with the likes of the Joker, Lex Luthor,
and Deadshot running around.
Things can get pretty grim in a superheroic universe, like the time the Joker cut off
his own face and pinned it to his cell, just to make a statement.
The grotesque can gain a gargoyle's wings in the realm of comic books, able to fly to
new heights of horror.
But the villainy of Birds of Prey was considerably more downbeat.
Oh sure, guys with names like the Calculator squared off against the Birds more than once.
But the evils the Birds faced were much more in line with that of the real world.
Human trafficking, terrorism, and human rights abuses were the order of the day within those
pages.
The first story of the series, in fact, involved the destabilization of a small country and
its subsequent use as a lawless haven for the disreputable elite.
The Birds might have worn capes, but they faced malice of a very familiar sort.
Birds of Prey was massively ahead of the curve.
Writer Gail Simone has gone on record as conceiving of Black Canary as bisexual, though her attempts
to make that textually overt were stymied.
Nevertheless, she managed to make it clear that her version of the Birds of Prey was
one with LGBTQ characters, which was evidenced most explicitly by the characters Savant and
Creote.
An entitled heir and a former KGB operative, respectively, the villainous pair transformed
into good guys over the course of the series.
And when Creote's feelings for Savant were revealed, they became a couple.
Take note, Hollywood.
Birds of Prey was way ahead of the curve.
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