Review: Birds of Prey Vol. 3- A Clash of Daggers

Quick Summary

Pros: There is plenty of action and excitement found in the book’s fight sequences. The characters are all well written and the new team members bring a lot to the table.

Cons: The handling of consequences could still be better.

Overall: This volume is a step up for the series as a whole and an entertaining comic on its own. It emphasizes the series’ major highlights, like action and character drama, while removing the negatives that the previous volumes suffered through. This helps the comic a lot and turns it into something that anyone with an interest in the characters can enjoy. Pick this one up if you are a fan of Black Canary and Batgirl or if you want a fun, character focused superhero story.

Story

Birds of Prey Vol. 3: A Clash of Daggers is an improvement on its predecessor and a decent comic through and through. Duane Swierczynski overcomes the inconsistencies and pacing issues that plagued the past two volumes and replaces them with improved humor and amped-up action. Though the narrative still isn’t the most unique or revolutionary, most readers will be too focused on the characters and the drama they bring to mind. Overall, this is an average to slightly above average comic that does well in providing a character driven story and a lot of action to go with it.

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The collection opens with a fantastic pseudo-crossover with the Batgirl series, written by Gail Simone. This chapter is a touching tale that shows Batgirl and Catwoman befriending a deadly assassin who was brought into a life of crime at a devastatingly young age. I always love stories that show heroes attempting to redeem the villains instead of simply beating them until they submit, so this one was a particular treat for me. It also ends up being one of the best moments in this collection and an entertaining highlight overall.

From here, Duane Swierczynski takes over and continues the Birds of Prey’s story. In previous reviews of this series, we mentioned how the consequences of the Birds of Prey’s adventures are often either ignored or incredibly diminished between story arcs. Though this volume still could use some work in showing these consequences, the aftermath of the last story arc is addressed better here and gives me a lot of hope for how future events will be handled.

Once the main story gets started, the bulk of the book’s action is allowed to come into play. Readers get to see the heroes take on wave after wave of ninjas through a variety of different ways. These fight sequences are entertaining overall and give the story a good deal of excitement. As mentioned earlier, this is primarily a character driven story so the additional action helps compensate for a rather average narrative.

Speaking of characters, it is worth noting that Swierczynski does a much better job with characters in this volume than in previous ones. The new character additions are unique and interesting and their banter (or lack thereof in the case of Mary) gives the team a lot of chemistry. Every one of the heroes is written in a way where their personality is distinct and brings something unique to the table. This allows for additional humor and drama to infect the book on nearly every page, and also gives readers a reason to return to this series. This is a book that becomes far more fun to read if you enjoy the characters.

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Art

The artwork in A Clash of Daggers starts out with a chapter from artist Admira Wijaya that is remarkably different from the rest of the book. Wijaya’s work here is hyper realistic and details every expression made. This helps a lot with the chapter’s focus on characters and emotions and gets readers right where they need to be by the end of the story.

The rest of the book’s artwork is primarily provided by penciler Romano Molenaar and inker Vicente Cifuentes. The work from this duo is less detailed but is done in a way that allows the action sequences to shine better on their own. Since the rest of the book is filled with tons of action, this works great in depicting that story being told here. It isn’t the best looking artwork on the shelves, but it does not have any major problems and does everything it needs to do. Overall, the rest of the collection looks average, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Continuity

Birds of Prey Vol. 3: A Clash of Daggers continues the story from Birds of Prey Vol. 2: Your Kiss Might Kill (Review).

The story here continues in Birds of Prey Vol. 4: The Cruelest Cut (Review).

This volume also references a story from another comic book, detailed below:

• The beginning of this collection sees a return of elements from the “Night of the Owls” storyline, originally from Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (Review) and Batman Vol. 2: The City of Owls (Review).
• The first appearance of this particular Talon and Ricky’s past experience with Knightfall are detailed in Batgirl Vol. 2: Knightfall Descends (Review).