The Untold Truth Of Birds Of Prey

Who exactly are the Birds of Prey? And what do they have to do with Harley Quinn? It's not as cut-and-dried as you might think. Join us as we explore DC's number one squad of superheroines, from their origin story to their ever-changing lineup.

From the Justice League to the Fantastic Four, superpowered team-ups have been part of the genre for decades. Sometimes they headline in pairs, like Batman and Superman in DC's long-running World's Finest title. Often, they're sprawling collections of aliens, shapeshifters, super-soldiers, and psychics, as in the Avengers. Occasionally, they're a grab bag of misfits, such as the Suicide Squad, the Outsiders, and the Doom Patrol. Generally speaking, most of these groups have been around for a while, to the point of being adapted to other mediums — sometimes more than once.

The Birds of Prey, in contrast, are a fairly new invention. Born in 1996, in the Chuck Dixon and Gary Frank one-shot Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey, the team didn't get their own ongoing book until 1999. That run of comics, largely defined by writers Dixon and Gail Simone, continued until 2009. Numerous reboots have flourished and floundered, the most recent being Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, which debuted in 2016 as part of DC's Rebirth event, but it was cancelled in May 2018.

Despite this current absence of the team, the Birds of Prey are still regarded as a major player on the DC stage, a designation made ironclad by the Birds of Prey movie, however removed it might be from its comics origins. Sure, the Birds are young compared to the Justice League, but that doesn't mean they haven't made a splash of their own.

As far as superhero names go, "Birds of Prey" is pretty great. It implies the team's majority-to-all-female lineup without being condescending. It stands out when compared to other DC team names. It denotes the approach of the Birds themselves to the criminals they pursue — that of hunters, confident in their ability to track, trap, and capture their quarry. In a genre littered with twee, saccharine, or off-puttingly seductive monikers for its heroines and their organizations, "Birds of Prey" is a stand-out winner.

Readers will not, however, find the name very often within the comic's own pages. It wasn't until issue #86, published a full six years after the series' inception, that anyone on the titular team actually spoke the name aloud.
Keep watching the videoo to see the untold truth of Birds of Prey!

#BirdsOfPrey

Young for a superteam | 0:13
Unspoken team name | 1:31
Members subject to change | 2:38
Harley's group introduction | 3:49
History with bad girls | 4:59
On the small screen | 6:04
The episode that wasn't | 6:53
A song and censorship | 8:12
Crimes of the real world | 9:14
LGBTQ representation | 10:02


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