Birdwatching
OK, I'll admit it. Last night, after Enterprise I flipped over to the WB to check out the "long-awaited debut" of Birds of Prey. It's not that I was that interested. I don't read the comic book, I don't follow the characters, but I felt some obligation as a dyed-in-the-wool comic geek to show my support. It's not a bad show, really, but the experience of watching it was like watching someone wear their Star Trek uniform to work. It's great if you're into it, but I get the feeling that BOP is just a little too deep into the comic book sensibility to be comfortable viewing for "civilians." Unlike Smallville (produced by the same creative team), which is mostly character-driven and leaves the comic mythology around the edges of the stories, BOP is an honest attempt to bring the entire experience of a mainstream superhero comic to the small screen.
Sure, comics can be colorful, breezy and exciting to look at, but what keeps readers coming back issue after issue is the continuity - the shared history of the characters and the world, the huge body of knowledge that even a casual fan has to keep track of to follow the plot, the little clues and tidbits that the writers (mostly comic geeks themselves) drop in to reward and validate the fanaticism of the hard-core collectors. It's precisely this fixation on esoterica that has driven down comic book readership over the last twenty years, to the point where what was once a common childhood hobby has become a niche market of mainly adult men.
BOP is drenched in continuity. It takes place in Batman's corner of the comic universe - an urban jungle overgrown with decades of backstory and innumerable tidbits of "dark knight" mythology. The three heroines of the story are Oracle, the wheelchair-bound mastermind; Huntress, the kick-ass daughter of Batman and Catwoman; and newly arrived Dinah Lance, who will soon be christened Black Canary. Of these three, the stories of Oracle and Huntress are lifted verbatim from the DC universe, right down to the troubling detail of Oracle (aka Barbara Gordon, once known as Batgirl) having been shot and crippled by the Joker (in 1988's Batman:The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore and Brain Bolland in case you're interested). Only the Dinah Lance story departs significantly from the established tradition.
In the pilot, it's already established that Oracle and Huntress work together, that the Joker shot and killed Catwoman and is now gone (dead?), that Batman vanished several years ago, though super-rich Bruce Wayne seems to still be around off-screen, that the police department criminal psychologist is in fact the psychopathic villainess Harley Quinn, and that the underworld in New Gotham is planning something big, probably involving bringing back the Joker. Like any good comic book, BOP doesn't waste a lot of time on the set up. There are a few token subplots, but they don't take much screen time away from the plot-driven action and the easy-on-the-eyes trio of kick-ass superchicks. Look for the return of the Joker any day now, and the dramatic re-appearance of Batman in the season finale, if BOP lasts through the season.
If BOP catches on with the general public, it could be another huge boon to the troubled comic book publishing business (following on the monster success of the Spider-Man movie), since it’s such a very short leap from the storytelling style of the show to the actual comic book series. However, typical of the business strategy that has successfully marginalized comics to the corners of contemporary pop culture, on the day after big debut, there is no reference to Birds of Prey (either the comic or the program) anywhere on the DC Comics web site. Makes me proud to be a fan, I’ll tell you.
