The Birds of Prey are finally part of Dawn of DC, with the first issue of their newest ongoing series launching this week. Written by Kelly Thompson with art by Leonardo Romero and colors by Jordie Bellaire, Birds of Prey #1 follows Black Canary as she assembles her newest team — Cassandra Cain, Big Barda, Zealot, and Harley Quinn — on an incredibly personal secret mission. If this first issue is any indication, the Birds are in for a wild ride with ramifications across the DC Universe, and after an already-beloved career on books like Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain Marvel, Thompson might be uniquely suited to bring that to life.
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In celebration of Birds of Prey‘s debut issue, ComicBook.com spoke to Thompson by email about this new era for the team, and what fans can expect from their first adventure. We also spoke about adding to the tapestry of Black Canary’s DC history, why Batgirl and Huntress are absent from the first arc, and more!
Dream Come True
ComicBook.com: What made Birds of Prey the DC book you wanted to tackle first? And off of that, what about Birds of Prey made it the perfect fit to reunite with Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire?
Kelly Thompson: I think I’ve been trying to write Birds of Prey, in a way, ever since I first discovered it. A lot of my books at Marvel were female led and I’d often build out their supporting casts and that tended to be a lot of women. So even when I wasn’t writing all-female teams like Birds of Prey, I was sort of trying to? [Laughs] So finally getting to do just that and to do it on the premier title? Dream come true. Getting to do it with Leo and Jordie? That’s something you don’t even dream—for fear you’ll jinx it!
Black Canary
I am a Black Canary superfan, and I loved how you wrote her in this issue. What was your approach to her characterization in this series, and did you have any touchstones or sources of inspiration for her?
I honestly find Dinah pretty easy to write—she’s very openly plainly heroic. She’s just good, y’know? And she’s constantly underestimated, which is always fun to play with. You trust her to do the right thing. Which is why putting her at odds with a character like Wonder Woman, who also has a lot of those same qualities is slightly uncomfortable, but in a good way that makes for a fun story with some interesting layers.
Sin
How did the return of Sin come about? And what does it mean to have a hand in finally bringing her back into the canon?
I think, when I can, I always look for something really personal to center a story around. The story will, of course, be about a lot of things, but at the center it’s best and most powerful if there’s something very personal at stake for our primary POV character. Which, in this story, is Dinah. That personal thing doesn’t have to be a person, but in this case, that made a lot of sense. I also always love, when I can, to pick up on things other writers have done and build on them. That can be nerve-wracking, as it feels like a lot to live up to, but my heart is in the right place and I have an amazing team doing it with me. So, I hope it’ll be the kind of story building that everyone can get excited about.
The Birds
I love the justification for why Barbara and Helena aren’t included in this initial team, which was one of the biggest conversation points when you first unveiled the roster. Can you speak to that choice to split up the three main Birds (for now), now that we know the mission at hand?
Well, Helena specifically isn’t mentioned, but yes, Barbara is very specifically excluded from Dinah’s team, and we’ll be building on that mystery as we go. For good or ill, Huntress was not in my initial plans, and I know it’s not sexy, but the big reason was because I have limited space. A big cast can be a nightmare—it’s happened to me before—and you don’t make that mistake a second time if you can avoid it. Knowing some of the guest stars and locations we had planned—I knew I had to keep the “core team” small. And if I start with three mainstays that HAVE to be there…now I only have a few spots to play with and suddenly I’m out of options for a lot of the things I need to do. But letting Dinah build an all-new team for a very specific targeted mission gave me so much freedom to do what we needed to do and to bang some new characters against one another in interesting ways.
Zealot
Zealot has a prolific history, but not a lot of it has been alongside the heroines of the mainline DC Universe. How does it feel, and how do you approach, folding her into relationships with these other heroines?
I just let Zealot be Zealot. And see how the others react to that—she’s sort of oil to their DC water, so it’s a fun mix to slosh around. I write Zealot basically as I have always understood her to be since I was a teenager, but hopefully with a bit more insight, which means she’s an absolute badass, and incredibly difficult to get to know on a personal level. She holds so much of herself apart. But that’s tragic and interesting and worthy of exploring, and I hope that by the end of the first arc, fans will have both learned a lot about her and come to appreciate her. And for Zealot, I hope that I’ll manage to crack through her façade a little, and show them maybe more than even Zealot expected.
DCU
Given how much this series factors into the larger DCU, are you coordinating at all with any other writers (i.e.: Joshua Williamson with Green Arrow, Tom King and Josie Campbell with Amazons Attack)?
I think there will be more coordination now. Now that I’ve got my feet wet and now that some more of the new books—like Wonder Woman, which I love so much—are starting to come out, I think that coordination will only grow. But, for a lot of reasons, including it being my first at bat for DC, we wanted to keep our first story a bit more isolated. That way we could do our thing and establish ourselves—before getting drawn into even more complex stuff.
Balance
Lastly, how did you use a sense of humor, like with Barda’s dialogue and Harley’s reactions, to balance out the more dramatic scenes? What else can you tease that fans can look forward to?
Well, the arc is called “Megadeath” and we’ve said it’s a very personal story, and this is a very dramatic dangerous team, which all seems very “grim and gritty” but I don’t know…it’s just not how I write. I feel like even in the darkest stories, there’s humor. It’s how we survive the worst stuff! So yes, I like dire situations, and to write big action and super coordinated fights. But I also like to let my characters really feel like they know one another—so I’m big on banter, which naturally keeps things a bit lighter.
A character like Barda—who is a sort of fish out of water truth teller character—is so fun to play against a more laconic Cassandra Cain Batgirl. I find when you start smashing these characters together, magical things happen. You just can’t let it overwhelm the actual plot you’re trying to execute. I do think we found the balance here—but I am obviously biased!
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Birds of Prey #1 is now available wherever comics are sold.
