Birds of Prey: Between Dark and Dawn

I remembered having read part of Birds of Prey before, and as I did on that occasion, I thought I’d give the stories a try, given they were written by Gail Simone.  I should have re-read my review of Brightest Day:  End Run first, because that would have prepared me to be less disappointed.  Between Dark & Dawn was okay, but nothing special.  The main plot concerns Huntress (who goes undercover and thus I see her out of costume for the first time) and Vixen, a Black African minister’s daughter who somehow channels animal powers (really?!) attempting to foil a cult.  Granted, the whole cult thing is handled better than I thought it would be, but I’ve certainly seen this done better (in Can’t Get You Out of My Mind, incidentally).  Barbara Gordon/Oracle gets some interesting moments out of the wheelchair in cyberspace.  “Unravelled” starts off very enjoyably with Huntress and Black Canary crashing a supervillains’ henchmen’s union event, but veers off into territory of which I have little understanding/sympathy (Black Canary’s “revenge” on Savant doesn’t have enough emotional underpinning that I can understand).  “There Would Be No Spring” is potentially enjoyable and interesting as it channels a sort of B:tAS aesthetic, as its heroine hails from the 1940s (quite how she is still young in present-day is a mystery to me, also). There are no complaints about the art—by Ed Benes, Ron Adrian, Jim Fern, Eduardo Barreto, Eric Battle, Rob Lea, Steve Bird, Andrew Pepoy, and Rooney Ramos—from me, aside from the usual disbelief at the size of the women’s bosoms.  Between Dark & Dawn just feels kind of “eh.”   I wonder if the first issues of Birds of Prey are better?