In this review of Birds of Prey #25, The Birds face an unexpected ally…Inque!
Birds of Prey #25 main cover by Annie Wu (DC Comics)
Birds of Prey #25
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artist: Cliff Richards (p.1-20) and Sami Basri (p.21-26)
Main Cover: Annie Wu
Variant Covers: Leonardo Romero, Greg Land, Gabrielle Dell’otto, Gerald Parel
Page Count: 22 pages
Release Date: September 10, 2025
This review contains spoilers
Birds of Prey #25 opens with Barda breaking down rocks in a quarry with her bare fists, with Cass Batgirl and a bunch of quarry workers watching appreciatively. After a selfie with the workers, Cass and Barda boom tube back to the temporary sewer HQ.
Six weeks ago, Barda threatened to leave the team when Inque showed up asking to help fight the Shadow army. Canary persuades her to stay, and promises Barda can pay Inque back if she betrays them. Inque reveals she tortured Mia Mizoguchi (Meridian from the first arc of this run) to steal her time travel tech, which Mia then destroyed so Inque could hide in the past from the people she angered. She helped the Shadow Army for money, but the plan became too dangerous, and so she offered to help the Birds stop it.
Fast forwarding back to the present, Barda and Cass arrive at HQ, and Babs sends them off to attack the three Shadow Army bases simultaneously. Cass faces steroidal Copperhead at the Docks, Dinah and Sin hit the Chinatown base, getting surprised by Golden Lion, and Barda pretends to be controlled by Inque again to attack the main base. They capture Daemon, but Inque takes a boobytrap to save Barda, and Barda reluctantly carries her back to base. Cass, Canary, and Sin are forced to flee their two attacks when something explodes both bases they’re attacking.
The teams have captured VR suits, and spend some time picking avatars for their virtual space. They then test their reaction to the drugs they also captured, which apparently turn them into violent villains.
Barda and Cass work off some tension… (DC Comics)
Analysis
Kelly Thompson teams up with some DC Comics veterans in penciller Cliff Richards and variant cover artist Greg Land to continue delivering a classic Birds of Prey tale. As the fight against the Shadow Army continues, Thompson keeps the focus on the team and their abilities and friendships, in classic Birds of Prey fashion. After an enjoyable character opening featuring Barda and Cass in a nicely balanced appreciation of Barda’s physical appeal and abilities, we dive into the tense situation caused by the quite evil Inque trying to team up with the Birds to stop the Shadow Army.
The action gets a bit confused – maybe the opening could have been condensed a little more – and it’s confusing which team is attacking which base, and what their objectives are, but in general, the writing and art work really well together to continue to produce a fun, appealing, action packed and friendship focused title that continues to feel like a classic Birds of Prey series. Another small problem with this issue appears in Barda’s dialogue. While generally Thompson does a really good job of capturing Barda’s speech patterns – the grandiose, big hearted, awkward power and warmth – sometimes there’s a fall into the easy, Buffyesque quips, such as when Barda shuts Meagara down. But generally the voices are pretty solid, so it sticks out more when they (thankfully only occasionally) break.
Since this is an extra sized 25th issue (DC loves their 25, 50, 75, and 100 issue bumps!), we get an additional 4-6 pages, with art handled in the end by main series artist at this point Sami Basri. Though Richards does excellent work (being a bit unrecognizable, honestly, to longtime Richards fans – perhaps an inker was needed?), it’s nice seeing the whimsy that Basri brings in the outfit choosing scene. And he doesn’t leave the creepiness of the ending page out – it’s very disturbing!
The Annie Wu main cover features our five main cast members in classic torn-paper style collage looking at their new mysterious ally – a nice emotional effect! This run’s first artist, Leonardo Romero, provides a group shot of all the members from this run together in the Clocktower as a 25th issue celebration (sadly, still with the dreadful faded coloring choices that marred the first year of the run). Classic Birds of Prey artist Greg Land provides a surprisingly restrained cover of Oracle and Black Canary, with a tiny Batgirl plushie for longtime fans. Gabrielle Dell’Otto’s beautiful painted Barda variant is full of light. And Gerald Parel’s 1 in 25 incentive variant shows the team in action movie poster fashion.
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Final Thoughts
Birds of Prey #25 is a fun Birds adventure highlighting the tech and banter aspects which are their specialties!
