If I were asked the two things I miss the most about the new 52, it would probably not be the obvious suspects. Yes, I miss the benched characters and Donna Troy and WW’s origin and all of that stuff.
But personally, just me talking, the two things I miss the most are the Lois/Clark marriage, and the Birds of Prey being friends.
I miss that Huntress and Oracle and Canary and Zinda loved each other and always had each others’ back, no matter what. That Huntress would throw a drink in Shiva’s face to protect Canary, that Canary would face Brainiac’s electrocution to protect Oracle. I think that their relationship was one of the most subversive messages in mainstream comics, in some ways. And readers responded, the book was one of the most stable non-bat, non-gl books at DC the entire time I was on it. I think it was that friendship that people most treasured, and, I hasten to add, that helped make it the first truly successful all female team book in comics’ history, to my knowledge.
I like the new 52, and I like the new BOP in particular, Duane’s doing a lovely job on it, but it’s not yet (for perfectly understandable reasons, and it may never be) a book about female friendship in the same way that it had been previously. Similarly, there are few female friendships at all at this early stage, and I dearly miss them.
Fortunately, there’s room to grow, even if the cart moves slower than I would like.
That said, Bop really IS one of the best of the new books and is always worth reading!
