Thursday, July 9, 2020

Birds of Prey: The Huntress

Birds of Prey: HuntressBirds of Prey: Huntress by Greg Rucka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When a mobster winds up dead with a crossbow bolt in his chest, all signs point to The Huntress! Can The Huntress clear her name and answer some Questions about her past before Batman and GCPD bring her to justice?

My wife got me this for my birthday. I've long found the peripheral members of the Batman family to be more interesting than Batman and the Earth-2 Huntress is one of my favorites.

This is the first post-Crisis Huntress story I've read and I liked it quite a bit. Helena Bertinelli is the daughter of a mobster, the last Bertinelli after seeing her whole family slaughtered when she was a child. Now, she fights crime in Batman's image but in a more lethal fashion. In this outing, she's framed for murder.

Guest starring the Batman family plus The Question(!) and Richard Dragon, Rucka explores the Huntress' origin as she tries to figure out who's framing her. It reads more like a crime comic than standard super hero stuff, not surprising since Rucka was one of the masterminds behind Gotham Central. Rick Burchett's art is pretty slick. On an odd side note, back in the day I dated a woman whose mother dated Rick Burchett when they were in high school.

I like how The Question was an integral part of the tale, more so than the Batman family, and that he and Helena didn't immediately become entangled. I also like that Helena didn't go all goody-goody at the end despite the guidance of The Question and Dragon. Maybe I missed out by not reading more post-Knightfall Batman stuff because I want to read stories featuring The Huntress.

She's no Helena Wayne but I like this Huntress quite a bit just the same. Four out of five crossbow bolts.

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