In this review of Birds of Prey #24, The Birds manage to reassemble the team in a daring rescue mission!
Birds of Prey #24 main cover by Annie Wu (DC Comics)
BIRDS OF PREY #24
Written by KELLY THOMPSON
Art by SAMI BASRI
Main Cover: ANNIE WU
Variant Covers: NIMIT MALAVIA, KYUYONG EOM, BRUNO REDONDO, RIAN GONZALES
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 8/6/25
This review contains spoilers
Birds of Prey #24 begins as Big Barda, covered by the villain Inque who controls her actions, fights the combined Birds of Prey (Grace Choi, Harley Quinn, Vixen, Onyx, and more) in the Shadow Army base, Canary makes her move to free Barda from Inque. First Canary Crying most of the Shadow Army into temporary helplessness, she makes an opening for Constantine to cast a spell, then Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) gives Barda her Mega-Rod, which frees her. The Shadow Army flees or stands in fear as the Birds recover from the Barda-beating. Sin/Maegara manifests a huge green magic tentacle spell around Barda, indicating that Golden Lion is controlling her. Barda finds Golden Lion and throws him to the ground, but he grabs the Mega-Rod from Sin’s tentacles, forms a boom tube, and the Shadow Army escapes. Thankfully, Sin grabs the Mega-Rod back before the tube closes.
After searching the base, the Birds have a massive feast in Gotham. Barbara and Cass ruminate on how the Shadow Army planned for everything, even defeat, making their victory feel like a loss. After the feast, Babs starts to lay out a campaign against the Shadow Army, but Barda bursts through a wall and drags out Inque!
Old members return to help rescue Big Barda… maybe. (DC Comics)
Analysis
Birds of Prey #24‘s conclusion to the “On the Run” story is a bit of a reset – the Bird’s only new element is they know the Shadow Army exists. Most of the energy of the plot was around Barda being captured and then freed. No information about the Shadow Army’s motivations or even their leader’s identity were learned – not even by the audience, really. However, since this is obviously the first arc in a long term plan, such shenanigans are to be expected from an action adventure book like Birds of Prey! The focus on teamwork against the foe, the quippiness during the action, and the time focused on team-building in the feast and relationship building interactions also is quite well done.
All these solid writing elements by Thompson are doubly highlighted by Sami Basri’s excellent pencils, ably assisted on most pages by Vincent Cifuentes. Basri, despite getting a big boost in popularity from working on the Harley Quinn title, doesn’t let Harley hog too much of the spotlight, even though his little action bit of Harley bopping a possessed Barda on the head with her bat futile-y was pretty hilarious. Basri remains an inspired choice for the book because of how appealing and clean lined his work is, and how clear the action is, two solid traits for a book relying on action adventure and characters the readers love. Hopefully he stays on as main artist for some time!
Annie Wu’s main cover features Black Canary (perhaps unsurprisingly! Given Wu’s brilliant work on Dinah’s last solo series in 2015) leading the Birds in jumping off a building – very dynamic and cool, though a bit less stylish than some of her recent covers for the series. Nimit Malavia’s variant features a large Barbara Gordon wearing her sweater and vest Oracle combo, surrounded by smaller Birds in action!
KyuYongEom’s variant features Black Canary on a rooftop in an odd bent over post above a cute yellow canary bird, stylishly painted in digital. Bruno Redondo features a cover with Black Canary in a boxing gym, sitting behind a punching bag resting – very lovely lighting – part of the Bruno Redondo artist spotlight series this month! Rian Gonzales’s 1 in 25 incentive variant features the Sin paper doll setup, with plenty of chibi decorations.
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Final Thoughts
Birds of Prey #24 is a solid team up issue with enjoyable writing and art that highlights the direction the Birds of Prey generally should go. 3 out of 5 Batarangs.
