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Everything’s Going My Way!

January 13th, 2010 by | Tags: , ,

What had me singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” today?  Sure, my week brightens around Wednesdays.  And sure, I was still riding high on the leftover Batmanderthal vapors.  But this is what really kick-started my morning:

The Birds of Prey are back!  And they’re being written by Gail Simone!

Of course scans_daily is all over this, including the mysterious blacked-out figures in the background.  Creote is the front-runner, as far as speculation goes, for the big figure.

There are more contenders for the flying figure.  They include

1.  Misfit – Charlie Gage-Radcliffe  (Yeah, yeah.  “Dark Vengeance.”  Not my favorite.)

2.  Batwoman – Kate Kane (I’d think she’d be up front in the picture, though.)

3.  Batgirl – Bette Kane (That could be interesting.  And I’m pretty sure she’d be pissed to see how many people have stolen her moniker.)

4.  Manhunter – Kate Spencer (Very unlikely.)

5.  Spoiler/Robin/Batgirl – Stephanie Brown  (I don’t think Gail Simone has ever written her before.  That could be cool.)

Simone states that the two new characters are a pair, which cuts down on a lot of possibilities.  I suppose they could be Creote and a very interestingly posed/surgically altered Savant.  The ruling theory, though, is that they are Hawk and Dove  in some new iteration of the pair.  We’ll know in spring.  Until then, I’m humming the rest of Oklahoma!, and keeping hope alive.

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Posted in art, previews by Esther Inglis-Arkell |

15 comments to “Everything’s Going My Way!”

  1. Yeah. Kinda diggin’ the sound of this.

         by West January 13th, 2010 at 21:15 --replyReply to this comment

  2. I don’t care if he was the original artist. I can’t see myself EVER spending money on a book drawn by Ed Benes…

         by lurkerwithout January 14th, 2010 at 01:15 --replyReply to this comment

  3. Well, I doubt it’s Misfit. In Simone’s interview with ComicsAlliance, she says “I have loved these two characters for ages and this is my chance to finally write them how I have always wanted to see them.” So it sounds like these are people Simone didn’t create. That also eliminates Creote as the male figure on the ground.

         by Manic January 14th, 2010 at 01:42 --replyReply to this comment

  4. It’s Hawk and Dove, the interview pretty much confirms it.

    Anyway, I actually like Misfit for some bizarre reason, so I’m disappointed she won’t be showing up apparently. Oh well, I probably wasn’t going to read this due to Benes anyway.

         by Debaser January 14th, 2010 at 02:21 --replyReply to this comment

  5. I was really hoping the upper shadowy figure would be Cassandra Cain in a new identity since this would be a great book for her and address the fact that Babs, her former mentor and almost mother figure, doesn’t seem to care at all about her anymore. But I think it’s almost definitely Dove.

         by Nat January 14th, 2010 at 05:26 --replyReply to this comment

  6. I have been flailing about this all day. I cannot wait. 😀 (Someone suggested that the pair was Jason Todd and Cass Cain. It’s a possibility.)

         by Margot January 14th, 2010 at 05:40 --replyReply to this comment

  7. I’m sad that I won’t be buying this, since I loved Gail Simone’s previous run on the title, but one of my New Year’s resolutions was not to spend any more money on books with rubbish art. And unless Ed Benes does something extremely surprising – which is doubtful, judging by that cover – this will have rubbish art.

    Was anyone else a little put off by Simone’s almost sycophantic praise of Benes’ art in that Comics Alliance interview? Professional courtesy is to be expected, of course, but I was baffled by her claims that his art contains “subtle acting” and “tremendous facial expressions”. Unless those qualities are just so subtle nobody’s ever noticed them before…

    I don’t know, perhaps I’m being a sourpuss, but good writers being paired with bad artists always gets me down, much more so than if both the writer and artist are bad. At least then I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out on something.

         by Cris January 14th, 2010 at 05:59 --replyReply to this comment

  8. Oh, and this, from the same interview:

    “I think he brings a very fiery European influence that is a wonderful remedy to some of the tired vaguely manga and video game-esque influences we’ve seen lately.”

    Ed Benes? European influence? I suppose one could argue there’s some Serpieri in there, but if anything his main inspiration comes from the Jim Lee/Image school of art. And what is “video game-esque” art, exactly? And isn’t this a little insulting to those manga-inspired artists?

         by Cris January 14th, 2010 at 06:52 --replyReply to this comment

  9. I actually love Misfit and hope she shows up in BoP. I hated the way they had Babs haphazardly abandon the poor kid a the end of the series. Between that and the fact that we never saw Babs looking for Cass/being concerned at all when she was drugged up/evil, it reflects really on Babs as a mentor or big sister/mother-figure. Especially in light of the fact that she’s now teamed up with Steph.

    I mean, I’m glad she has teamed up with Steph, but dumping Misfit like that is some major batdickery. It would be like a year or so after Bruce Wayne takes in Dick Grayson, he turns around and says “you know what? I don’t have time for taking care of a kid: Dick, get out of here. Go live with Clark Kent.”

         by Maddy January 14th, 2010 at 10:36 --replyReply to this comment

  10. I’ll admit that Ed Benes is a cheesecake artist whose strengths seem to lie more with drawing asses than drawing appropriate facial expressions, but it’s not like I couldn’t stand his artwork back when he and Simone first teamed up on this title.

         by Manic January 14th, 2010 at 13:43 --replyReply to this comment

  11. I’m too big a fan of Gail’s Birds to pass this up over Benes. I’m hoping that Benes is just the big-ish name they chose to launch the series with, and that he’ll soon be replaced with Nicola Scott, or someone.

    And I’ll cosign Manic … I recognized the cheesiness back then, but it didn’t seem as hackish as his subsequent work has. So, if not for that time David posted about what a sleazy bunch of fan pinups the dude does, I’d be buying with a clear conscience.

    And yes: Cassandra Cain, in the hands of a good and respectful writer. Even if that means Benes will transmogrify her into the one female body type he likes to draw.

         by Guy Smiley January 14th, 2010 at 14:27 --replyReply to this comment

  12. what’s wrong with Dark Vengeance? >_>

    also David giving you any friendly ribbing for getting excited for an Ed Benes book?

         by Nathan January 14th, 2010 at 14:39 --replyReply to this comment

  13. @Nathan: David is too much of a gentleman for that.

    Dark Vengeance is okay, but I never liked the character. She beats the hell out of Babs when they first meet, and why? No reason whatsoever. Then she teleports over to a fight, and does no fighting. There’s a certain level of dumb I don’t like, and she’s done too many dumb things too often with too little reason.

         by Esther Inglis-Arkell January 15th, 2010 at 12:57 --replyReply to this comment

  14. @Esther Inglis-Arkell: “David is too much of a gentleman for that.”

    more like

    “David is too afraid of getting poisoned baked goods at the next podcast recording session for that.

         by david brothers January 16th, 2010 at 22:33 --replyReply to this comment

  15. […] Everything’s Going My Way! (14) […]

         by 4thletter! » Blog Archive » Do the Math: Sometimes You Get What You Ask For January 19th, 2010 at 11:48 --replyReply to this comment