The series Birds of Prey has had some tough times being collected, seeing issues 1-5 and then 56-75 collected but leaving that huge gap in the middle. This collection - Sensei & Student - looks on the surface like a serious bit of cheesecake but actually hides a decent story underneath all the skin.A bit of the basics - the Birds at the beginning of this collection are Babara Gordon, Diana Lance (Black Canary), and not really much of anybody else. By the end of the collection, the team is a little more fully formed and includes Huntress. Within the framework, the team also vaguely includes Catwoman, Gypsy (?), and Batgirl. Apparently, Lady Shiva joins in a little later in the run.
This rotating, shifting lineup leads Birds into similar territory to many modern comics where the relationships and interactions of the characters are every bit as important as are the bad guys that they have to battle throughout the run, and it leads to a very involved but rewarding backstory. Luckily, the writers do a good job of working around the involvement by allowing the characters to explain the backstory throughout the main story. That's a good thing since I don't know the full backstory and with the huge gap, I won't be able to find most of it out.
To the story involved here, it's a good one that's spurred by Canary and Shiva meeting up as their sensei is passing away. The ladies get bothered by some street punks who they find out were hired by Cheshire, a rather nasty piece of work. The two capture Cheshire and head back to Gotham to find out who was really pitting the three against each other. From there, things start to get a little complicated as double crossing occurs while other teams are worked together. In the midst of all of this, Barbara Gordon has been kidnapped, leading the others to rescue her. Luckily, the kidnapper turns out to be somebody who's in the background of both the Birds and Cheshire.
The story continues to reveal new connections throughout, evne joining in what appears at first to be a sidestep into Diana's mother's story in a full-issue flashback. If I were to have any one complaint about this collection, it would be that some of the early issues are clearly the work of a couple of pencilers whose work is just different enough from each other to be jarring. On some pages, for example, the pencil work switches from very detailed and humanistic to more cartoony. It's not an awful disjunction, but it's a noticible one.
This series is a quality one, and I really wish that the missing parts of the run would be filled in through trades.
Volume two of the four George Perez Wonder Woman trade paperbacks is Challenge of the Gods. It's another quality number from Perez, but this one feels broken up. Everything starts well with an issue-long, novelly-crafted exploration of how various supporting characters view this goddess in human form dropped into their world. The story is told through their letters and illustrated in glimpses.
The next single issue (or maybe it's two - hard to tell in a trade sometimes) introduces the newer, deadlier Cheetah. Decent fighting scenes that end sort of unsatisfyingly. That's when the trade begins to break up a bit. We get a "and then some Legends stuff happens" a couple of times, leaving the storyline broken up.
The storyline is a good one - continuing the Olympian Gods' challenges of Wonder Woman as they send her into Hades to suprass one challenge from each of the Gods. Wonder Woman, of course, manages them all - with help from her mother and another woman from her history. It's a nice way to continue to reveal WW's new history while keeping the action coming and showing WW's character.
All in all, Perez's run is an excellent one and probably the most successful relaunch of any of the major DC characters to follow Crisis on Infinite Earths. It doesn't quite do it for me, but it's very well done.
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