Review by Frank Plowright

It may surprise many readers to learn Dinah Lance, Black Canary, has a sister, Sin. She’s an adopted sister, not a biological one, introduced in a previous Birds of Prey series (see Perfect Pitch) and absent from the DC universe for some while before being picked up again in Megadeath. Sin is in trouble, and Black Canary needs allies to rescue her, and as seen on the cover, it makes for a very different Birds of Prey team. There’s a reason Dinah’s insistent that Barbara Gordon (Oracle) can know nothing about the mission, which we don’t know for a while, and there’s a reason Dinah needs a team of women, which we learn once they’ve been gathered.

If the team is very distinct from previous iterations of Birds of Prey, so is the art. That’s not so much down to excellent artist Leonardo Romero, but colourist Jordie Bellaire whose shades are vivid, yet flat, and almost have the look of an old newsprint comic from days gone by. Romero’s approach is clean and clear, with an emphasis on character, and it’s a great shame he can’t draw all six chapters. The penultimate is the work of Arist Deyn, and nowhere near as accomplished, too bright and with little thought as to what the focus of any page should be.

Kelly Thompson knows what she’s doing in an excellently plotted tale from start to finish. The line-up has some surprise choices, there’s a reason for everyone to be present and there’s foresight applied to what plays out. Just taking one thread, Zealot being part of the team is unpredictable, she makes it clear early that she won’t be killing anyone at the destination, and then undertakes a ritual to ensure that’s the case. Yet that’s not the end of that thread. Other familiar heroes feature, and there’s an extra team member not shown on the cover, and seemingly key to a lot that happens both here and in the following Worlds Without End. They intrigue as intended.

This hits everything one should want from a superhero story. The surprises are great, a bunch of seemingly incompatible characters work well together, all reasoning is solid, and a new character with possibilities results. It’s only at the end that we learn why Barbara Gordon wasn’t to be involved, and that takes us into the next volume where it’s seemingly going to be an almost all new team.