I’ve spent most of my life reading comics, and I’ve come around to the idea that the success or failure of a comic depends in each instance on the specific confluence of writer, artist, and character (maybe also the editor). That is the very best I can explain writer Kelly Thompson’s riveting, can’t-miss (and also Eisner-winning) work on Absolute Wonder Woman, and then also her Birds of Prey Vol. 4: On the Run.

There’s signs that the conclusion of Thompson’s Birds tenure in On the Run came swiftly, perhaps unexpectedly. That’s usually the case, as here, when the plot jumps and shifts and the characters are talking about something the audience doesn’t know anything about, as if there’s an issue missing; that’s usually the sign of a swift wrap-up.

But suspecting the reasons doesn’t mitigate what amounts to confusing storytelling, a convoluted plot when it’s not just a series of fight sequences, or any number of storylines with no resolution. There’s an event here we’ve seen so often with the Birds that Barbara Gordon even comments on it, which is good awareness on Thompson’s part but not so good as to have avoided the repetition.

Thompson treats the characters well, but On the Run isn’t a book that seems sufficient to hold the audience’s attention, and that leads us to be exactly where we are.

[Review contains spoilers]

On the Run starts well enough. If the Birds under attack from mysterious enemies is something we’ve seen before, Thompson starts with impressive stakes, Big Barda shot out into space and blown up. Later, in the spirit of pick-your-spy-movie, there’s a compelling scene where Black Canary, Batgirl Cassandra Cain, and Sin all have to “go dark,” left alone with their own foibles while the team regroups. As someone without much Batman Beyond reference, the Inque-ified Barda didn’t do much for me, but I appreciate that Thompson’s playing with different universes here.

In all, it’s not resoundingly exciting, but it’s perfectly satisfactory Birds. Still, cracks show from the beginning; Batgirl states right off that Batman’s at the crime scene she’s investigating, but a page later, Oracle is surprised to learn Batman is there. The audience sees Batgirl and Sin sneaking in the sewers, undetected, but a page later Oracle is shouting to Canary that the two are under attack. We do find them battling the Shadow Army in the next issue, but the transitions are awkward — Thompson and artist Sam Basri aren’t conveying the passage of time adequately to make the changes to the characters make sense.

The plot too, even here, is exceptionally loose. Batgirl is investigating the scene of a faux suicide, filled with clues that point to different targets, which is somehow — this is never explained — “tied to the robbery at the military black site,” a theft of an “experimental drug.” Some of those clues lead the Birds into traps, including Barda being taken over by Inque, but Canary’s clue leads to both a trap set by Copperhead and Copperhead stealing a sci-fi camouflage suit for the Shadow Army.

How could the villains know, of all the heroes in Gotham, that it would be the Birds investigating the suicide? (Perhaps incorrectly, I still think of the Birds as a black ops organization really not known to the public.) How could they even know which Birds would be sent to which location? Why does it behoove the Shadow Army to reveal their actual heist at the same time as they’re leading the Birds into traps? And don’t even get me started on Oracle wearing a VR helmet to pilot a drone and, when the drone gets smashed by Inque, that this somehow conducts electric feedback back to Oracle sufficient to knock her out.

But the book takes its biggest turn in the sixth chapter, when “On the Run” gives way to “The Unreality.” We eventually understand that the Shadow Army has stolen the drugs and camouflage tech in order to infiltrate a kind of augmented reality fantasy game, though even still this is just a feint for trying to steal Oracle’s superhero data. But this is far from well explained — rather, in the midst of the Birds suddenly choosing digital avatars for themselves, Oracle says nonchalantly, “You’re headed inside an incredibly dangerous game that villains are trying to use to kill people,” without the slightest explanation how the Birds knew that.

There’s the bit where Oracle exposes her entire team to the unknown drug so they gain a tolerance (instead of, y’know, testing it on just one person or something); the team becomes nigh vampiric, but they’re fine in the next issue with no explanation. There’s a subplot where the maker of Unreality is using the game to find the Seam, a magical realm from Birds of Prey Vol. 3: Bird Undercover, though how she’s doing that with the game is unclear, and the storyline is never actually resolved. At one point, Barda has the Army’s leader, Daemon Prime, by the throat, but for some reason lets them go; even when Oracle has finally dispatched Daemon Prime, architect of this whole thing, she doesn’t unmask them and we never find out who they are.

As is almost de rigeur for a Birds story, their base is destroyed; in this instance, at least it isn’t the Watchtower, but Thompson’s Oracle even outright says, “How many times has our headquarters blown up?” She continues, “We have to find another angle,” which, yes, a new Birds of Prey schema is probably warranted but I’m not sure about Thompson perpetuating Birds tropes, pointing out there’s a problem, and then leaving it for the next creative team to find a solution. As with much of this book, it’s not that it’s not well meaning, it’s just off what should be its mark.

Main series artist Sami Basri draws excellently in a DC house-ish style; there’s an obvious bent toward the characters being curvy and attractive, but with nowhere near the egregiousness of, say, Ed Benes on Birds. But I did notice a lot of Basri repeating the same panel with just slight alterations to a character (or sometimes just a lettering change!), every couple of pages and first and then very often toward the end. I can’t speak to Basri’s process nor how quickly this all had to come together, other than that once you notice, it quickly gets distracting.

Obviously, first of all, Kelly Thompson certainly knows how to write a comic. Second, if Barda cosplaying with horns, wings, and a tail is your thing, Birds of Prey Vol. 4: On the Run might be the book for you — seriously, if you’re a person into cosplay, why wouldn’t you enjoy the Birds of Prey at essentially a cosplay convention? But for me the book is all over the place, rife with coincidences and inconsistencies, and when I consider how well this book started — Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire inexplicably fashioning the book like an artifact from yesteryear — this is an unfortunate end.

Till next time, Birds of Prey!

[Includes original and variant covers]