Birds of Prey Artist Reveals Look at Canceled Series

There have been many interpretations of Birds of Prey over the years, and Gail Simone was responsible for one of the most beloved runs in the team’s history at DC Comics. That doesn’t mean we’ve seen everything she had planned though, as there was a run in the works from Simone and artist Jamal Yaseem Igle that never ended up never happening, though work had already started on it in the way of developing ideas and sketches of the characters. A conversation on Twitter between Simone and Igle revealed our first look at what could have been, and also provided some insight into why the team-up ultimately didn’t happen. It started with Simone sharing another post from Igle with the caption “Also the best guy. But look at that art. We were supposed to do Birds of Prey together. Sigh.”

When a fan said how they would have loved to see Igle’s work on Birds of Prey, Simone added “He drew all the characters in beautiful, perfect sketches. Then he gave them to me. This not happening is the one thing I am still mad about with DC.”

Igle then chimed in, writing “We had a plan and a vision for the direction of the book that would have turned some heads.”

“Jamal, I look at those sketches and just want to scream,” Simone wrote, and that’s when Igle started sharing some of the sketches, which look fantastic by the way.

“I want to say, publicly, that when Gail approached me about drawing BOP she laid out a story that would have been DC’s version of “The Heroic Trio”. It all began with Dinah Helena and Barbara,” Igle wrote. He also shared sketches of Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, and Lady Blackhawk.

As for why we didn’t see it, Igle provided some clarity on that as well along with more sketches of Hawk and Dove.

“Stupid, shortsighted politics got in the way,” Igle wrote.

He was asked about those politics and wrote “Basically, it was leaked to Bleeding Cool that I was taking over the book It was partially my fault because I made a teaser trailer and was going to show it to DC. I posted it to my old website but it wasn’t as secure. That was used as the excuse to pull me from the book but i found out later there was more happening behind the scenes.”

Simone wrote “This kills me. There were editors who thought they had it all figured out why BOP was successful. If it’s so easy, why couldn’t they make it happen? Then they’d leave and the book would disappear. Makes me bonkers.”

Igle shared a few more details on their approach to the characters, writing “I had this vision for Dinah, for everyone, based on specific fighting styles. I wanted to have Dinah to be a drunken boxing style brawler, Helena using Wushu. Hawk was going to be pure pro wrestling moves, bodyslams, clotheslines, Dove would be all dance based capoeira.”

It’s an interesting look at what could have been, and it’s a bummer we didn’t get to see it play out.

Let us know what you think in the comments or by hitting me up on Twitter @MattAguilarCB for all things comics!