Birds of Prey, Vol. 10: Club Kids

Birds of Prey (1999) (First Editions)

by Tony Bedard, Nicola Scott (Illustrator)

After an attack from the Joker left former Batgirl Barbara Gordon paralyzed, she took on the mantle of Oracle, the premiere computer hacker in the DCU. Now, she kicks tail as the leader of a covert ops team populated by the top heroines in the world such as the Huntress and Lady Blackhawk!
Explore the intricacies of the all-female team with this collection of standalone stories from new series writer Tony Bedard (COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS). Oracle chats with Black Canary about her upcoming nuptials with Green Arrow, the nefarious computer genius Calculator attacks, and Black Alice discovers a startling mystery involving Darkseid. Featuring tons of guest appearances including the Justice Society's Power Girl and the Justice League's Vixen!

Collects Birds of Prey #109–112, 118

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Adventure, Young Adult

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Antony J. L. Bedard is an American writer and editor who has worked in the comic book industry from the early 1990s through the present. He is best known for his work at CrossGen Comics, where he was under exclusive contract, and for his run writing Marvel Comics X-Men spin-off Exiles.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This week: Superheroes that don’t usually get their own title because they haven’t met the right writer (Hawkeye - Matt Fraction), they can’t carry their own book (Hawkman), they’re boring (Hawkman), they’re ill-conceived (Hawkman), they suck (Hawkman).



Best Kat Stark banner. Ever.

This is less a book about the team itself and more a collection of individual stories about members of this all-female crime fighting unit with varied results.

The first issue ends in a cliff-hanger, Knockout ends up with a whole in her chest, courtesy of a bomb yet nothing is mentioned about this for the rest of the volume and nothing is resolved.(?) You also have individual stories about Oracle (uber computer wiz, the group’s leader), the Huntress (dresses in purple and is the Queen of attitude), and Lady Blackhawk (she’s a refugee from the past, who likes to party and kick ass. In that order.) which are middling to good.

The book jumps from issue #112 to issue #118 for the Club Kids story: Super powered females are forced to fight each other for the amusement of the idle rich. They’re drugged and under the control of Dark Side and Granny Goodness. Misfit (teleports) and Black Betty (she’s magical) are featured.

Because there’s nothing quite like a superhero gladiator-style beat down story (Avenger’s Arena, World War Hulk, that Wolverine cage match storyline) this one’s the best.

Note: The Goodread description of this volume states that both Vixen and Power Girl make guest appearances. No Vixen and, sadly, no Power Girl. *sob*

Another note: To the person who tore out a few pages of this volume, here’s a big middle finger to you and others who deface library books.

[The Sapphic Nerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short volume that has:

1) Big Barda learning to play Pokemon cards 😍
2) Oracle badgering Huntress to pull off 2 missions at the same time 😂
3) Misfit cleverly uniting nerds to get Babs out of trouble

Did I mention I love the issue covers???

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collects most (if not all) of the solid Tony Bedard's run on the series. Bedard may never be considered an "A" list writer, but he provides good solid story-telling in the Chuck Dixon mode (Dixon wrote this series for a long time before Gail Simone's famous run on the title). Most of the stories here are one and done, with some inherent humor in Babs attending a software convention to retrieve a file from Microsoft's intranet (all right they call the company Marcoware). The best, and nearly a five star story on its own is Zinda's cross-country trek to Pancho's famous bar near Edwards Air Force to pay tribute to the murdered Barda. Yes, Pancho's bar is now gone, but the spirit, humor, just overall fun romp tone to this story reminded of me movies like Midnight Run and Lethal Weapon II (and that's not a bad thing to my mind).

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it. Picks up the story after Gail Simone's run and does so well.

Couple of sequence things to note. Before you read #112 "The Hawks Want You!", key story elements occur in The Death of the New Gods. You can read it anyway as I did, but I want to know what the heck happened in that other graphic novel.

Another quirk is that this book collects #109-112 and #118. When I read #118 "Club Kids," I felt like there was background story I'd missed, and I was right.

Birds of Prey, Vol. 11: Metropolis or Dust contains issues #113-117.

So if you're getting these from the library, get both at the same time if you want to read the story in order.

[Ben Truong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Birds of Prey: Club Kids collect five issues (Birds of Prey #109–112 and 118) of the 2003 on-going series and covers five one-issue storylines.

Birds of Prey: Club Kids is a collection of five one-issue storylines that has the Birds of Prey facing varied of enemies such as the Ventriloquist (Birds of Prey #109), Atomic Skull (Birds of Prey #110), Calculator, Hellhound (Birds of Prey #111), and other minor, one-time, and quite frankly forgettable villains.

Tony Bedard penned the entire trade paperback. For the most part, it is written moderately well. Bedard skims around the cast, with each chapter in effect spotlighting a single character. The best of them is when he picks up on the Calculator's obsession to discover who Oracle is, when a confrontation at an odd, yet suitable locale plays out in satisfying fashion.

Nicola Scott (Birds of Prey #109–110, 118), Jason Orfalas (Birds of Prey #111), and David Cole (Birds of Prey #112) penciled the trade paperback. For the most part it was moderately done. Scott sets a tone with attractive superhero, with Orfalas not quite matching it, but is rather close. Finally, Cole has talent, but is an awkward mix of cartooning and naturalism that ends up with some wonky anatomy.

All in all, Birds of Prey: Club Kids is a moderate continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

First volume of non Gail Simone written tales and it shows. After any other writer these short and one off stories would probably be considered excellent. They are very good but Simone had such a handle on the characters that anything is going to be a lesser product.
It is a nice change of pace actually getting a bit more of a concentration on some of the lesser members of the 'team' and it looks like the Birds will be in pretty good hands with Bedard. I'm looking forward to seeing how he handles the team going forwards

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent book, better than I expected. Was a fun and exciting set of stories with the Birds of Prey, consisting of various characters; some of which I knew (Huntress, Black Canary, Oracle) and some I didn’t (Misfit, Lady Blackhawk, Black Alice).
The drawings were quite good and the dialogue kept me reading. Was a nice change seeing a primarily all female cast of characters in a comic.

[Kamal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty mediocre.

[Zachary King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fun one-offs set during Final Crisis, one of my favorite eras of the DC Universe.

[stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

so i didn't like this one as much as Birds of Prey: Dead of Winter, possibly because it wasn't all just one story. and there was one chapter that related to something i hadn't read - so i was SPOILED for a MAJOR DEATH and that made me really sad. also, black canary/dinah is at the beginning of this one, but she's not in the cast of characters at the beginning, so i got seriously confused.

plus, this one didn't have an introduction thing, like vol. 7 did.

this is when i regret not liking comics as a kid!

it's crazy how intertwined these worlds are and how much canon there is and all this crazy stuff. i have to find a way to get my hands on more, because it's just fun.

(also, i will read a grown-up novel this year, at some point, really!)

[Sketching Girl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an entertaining light read, but I wouldn't have said excellent. It is a selection of short stories collected from the comic series, but not completely following on from each other. Some characters have costume changes (i.e. Lady Blackhawk) which shows they are not in sync with one another, and so there isn't a main story running through the book. Instead you get tiny snapshots of mini episodes at random. I would have preferred a more engaging longer story through the book. However, it is still good for light reading, enjoyable characters that I would like to read more about - especially Misfit and Black Alice.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay... just so you know... just because it was called "Club Kids" doesn't mean it was for kids. (Glad I read it before tossing it to my own kids!)

Honestly, most of it was okay, but there was a segment early on with two of the characters in bed.

Anyway - I liked all the stories. It seems like they didn't all "hang together" the way the trades I'm used to do. It wasn't like one big story arc. But I did like meeting Misfit and Black Alice (I have heard of them but not seen them in a comic before this). And I always adore Oracle and Huntress. The interplay between those two was wonderful in several of the stories.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume of Birds of Prey felt like a lot of loosely connected one shots. There was no overarching story line although a couple of previous story lines were in fact finally wrapped up to my satisfaction. It also felt like there were quite a few loose threads. I wanted to know more about Misfit and Black Alice's relationship and I definitely wanted to follow up on Big Barda's storyline (clearly that's in another book, sometimes I wish these companies would let you know where you could finish up a particular story arc). The Ollie Batgirl short story was pretty funny though.

[Bree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh... An okay book, overall. Love Scott's art, not a huge fan of Bedard's interpretation of the Birds. Gail had them spot on, so I'm probably spoiled by her writing. Lots of Misfit, and it's no secret I really dislike her, so that also turned me off from the book. Overall, nothing special.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little depressing since there are two character deaths in this issue. Both of which are really part of another plot, Death of the New Gods, so there's pretty much no resolution here about that. Other than that, not bad.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite my interest in other Bird of Prey books, I really didn't like this one. I didn't like the story about Orable and Black Canary chatting about Green Arrow and I didn't really like the character of Misfit. Just, overall, the stories didn't grab my attention like previous ones did

[Warren]

Death of New Gods / Final Crisis

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how, but this book series is attempting to limp on without Gail Simone. At this edition was a decent read.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cool! Show's a good helping of girl power! A lot of fun to read!

[Geri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too

[Nate Deprey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt a little disjointed and hard to follow. The first issue seems continued elsewhere and the lack of resolution was frustrating. Still a solid book but far from great.

[Sass · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disjointed mess of a trade, but I love Charlie and Zinda both too much in this to rank it 1 star