Between Dark and Dawn is the third volume of Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey, continuing the character develop of the main three characters, Oracle, (Barbara Gordan), the Black Canary (Dinah), and Huntress (Helena).
Teenagers, dressed as super heroes, have been committing suicide. The information trail leads Oracle to send Huntress into rural Oregon to investigate a cult that worships superheros as gods. The plot becomes a little muddled: the leader of the cult has mind control powers, has captured out-of-play metas for a reason I'm not sure I follow, and is assisted by non-other than Brainiac. As Huntress and the additional agent Vixen battle it out in the cult, Barbara and Dinah cope with a Brainiac infestation in Gotham. Meanwhile Creote and Savant try to redeem themselves by cleaning up a derelict Gotham neighborhood.
Simone continues to introduce major female players from the greater DC Universe. Unfortunately, Vixen doesn't fare as well as Lady Shiva from the last volume. Vixen's power set is a little strange (she has the ability to summon animal attributes) and her job description is 'model'. I feel the inimitable Simone should have been able to do something more interesting with her character, and it's unfortunate she doesn't, as Vixen is the preeminent black female super hero of the DC Universe.
Brainiac is an excellent choice of villain for Oracle, and I deeply appreciate the close relationship between Dinah and Barbara being the crux of their plot line this volume. Barbara gets to be very present in these issues, and glimpses of her past life as Batgirl are to be savored.
The final two issues in this collection are separate from the main story line and are wonderful. I love the developing friendship between Dinah and Huntress, and who doesn't want to crash a unionizing effort of Gotham City's henchman? Dinah is finally cemented as a badass martial artist. The volumes ends with an intrusion of a comic event which leaves the Clock Tower destroyed (not collected in this volum,e merely summarized and inferred). This leaves Barbara to recruit non-other than Zinda Blake, Lady Blackhawk, and the Birds of Prey end up in a jet, ready to deploy operations throughout the country.
Ed Benes artwork continues to be as cheesecake as possible, and although his pages and character expressions are dynamic, I can't really get over the tits and ass shots. The skin tight costumes on Canary, Huntress, and Vixen are particularly hard to stomach in this volume. Vixen fares the worst, despite the fact she's showing the least amount of skin. So perhaps the costumes are less the issue, but the art choices that make it worse.